L' Ilôt : avril 2014

30.4.14

Q: In your opinion, do you see women shaving their legs and underarms as bowing down to sexism? I'm interested, not accusing you either way as I completely respect you.

noo. i use make up. i use skirts. i color my hair. i fall for women that sometimes, and sometimes not, resemble loads of normative ideals that spring from some kind of female oppression. but very much everything in history is shifting. the balance of what is sexist and what’s not is extremely hard.
therefor what i’m trying to aim for is people not judging or extremely overtly and openly talk about peoples choices of their own bodies. i think it’s perfectly beautiful to try your way in to feeling comfortable in your own body. maybe sometimes shave, sometimes not. maybe in periods always wear high heels and periods not. maybe always color your hair. maybe always wear make up.
but please, just because people chose to do something with their bodies (or sometimes just simply having a body with ass or boobs, or almost no asses and no boobs. tall or short or w/e) you find ugly/horrendous/unsexy you don’t have to let them know. because you know what? you shouldn’t flatter yourself with thinking _your_ opinion about _their_ bodies matter. because most likely they did it because they enjoy their bodies like that. or because their bodies just look like that.

A. Byström

29.4.14

Q: What do you think of Ben Hopper's 'Natural Beauty' project?

he asked me to be in it and i declined. i think it’s really problematic to make a project on body hair on women, being a male as well, and do any connection to natural beauty without really visibly or obviously also discuss the idea of what “natural” actually means.

i have told all this to him and in the way he approached me he have shown very little respect of the fact that he is a male and just the history of the hierarchy of a male taking the agency to shoot and define females and how uncomfortable that makes me feel (i don’t think i should have to say this, but when i tried to work with males i have a numerous times been disrespectfully treated even to an extent where i got sexually harassed).
he even ridiculed me for pointing out his power position and that it makes me uncomfortable. so i hold very little respect towards him. and yeah edit as gongxueyun said: also the fact that most of these “natural beauties” are thin/white/cis…

A. Byström

Heavenly creatures, 1994

C'était l'oasis, la salle noire de l'après-midi, la nuit des solitaires, la nuit des artificielle et démocratique, la grande nuit égalitaire du cinéma, plus vraie que la vraie nuit, plus ravissante, plus consolante que toutes les vraies nuits, la nuit choisie, ouverte à tous, plus généreuse, plus dispensatrice de bienfaits que toutes les institutions de charité et que toutes les églises, la nuit où se consolent toutes les hontes, où vont se perdre tous les désespoirs, et où se lave toute la jeunesse de l'affreuse crasse d'adolescence.

Un barrage contre le Pacifique, Marguerite Duras

source

28.4.14

Je rêve que je me rase entièrement, qu'on m'agresse dans la rue, qu'on me suit à la porte de mon appartement, que je poursuis de vieux souvenirs amoureux comme si ma vie en dépendait.

Je me réveille en sursaut et en sueur, incapable de distinguer le cauchemar de la réalité. Le cauchemar est-il réalité ?

Quand pourrais-je enfin arrêter d'essayer de devenir une femme libre, et tout simplement être une femme ?

© CJP Little Wing

27.4.14

Precious, 2009

source

Mais elle n'était plus pour le moment du côté du monde où l'amour se fait.

Un barrage contre le Pacifique, Marguerite Duras

26.4.14

24.4.14

Toute ses défaites se tenaient en un réseau inextricable et elles dépendaient si étroitement les unes des autres qu'on ne pouvait toucher à aucune d'elles sans entraîner toutes les autres et la désespérer.

Un barrage contre le Pacifique, Marguerite Duras