Category: Current Reads
FIFA World Cup 2011: Semi-Finals for Women’s Soccer
The US soccer team beat Brazil 5 to 3 on Sunday with last-minute penalty-kicks. The game in Dresden Germany was tense, as the US team played with one woman down (red card), but the American women’s team kept going and won!
And not just women were excited about this victory on Sunday. On Monday night Rachel Maddow commented on this wonderful video showing the excitement of devoted male fans, noting that she was happy to see a women’s team being taken so seriously by all types of sports fans. Next, the US team will go up against France ~ today.
Go USA women!!
Do You Like Blogging & Feel Passionately about Feminism?
You’re in luck… because Loose Garments is looking for contributing writers!
About Us
Loose Garments is a blog community dedicated to all things feminist. The title “loose garments” is generated from a utopian ideology of “bursting free of restrictive/limiting convictions by a patriarchy that has unfairly burdened and oppressed women for too long.” Throughout history women have been constrained by everything, and most insignificantly, their physical image and the clothing they were expected/told to wear. In the 1800′s you had bodices, corsets, petticoats and girdles. In the 50′s/60′s you had tiny waisted, tight dresses and heels to dress in while preparing dinner and waiting for your husband to arrive home from work! Who can do all that work in heels and a stiff, uncomfortable dress!? UGH! So you get the picture that “loose garments” reflects the freedom and relatively new wisdom of women and by women, to do what they want and to not be oppressed and bound any longer. There is still very much work to do. The hardest part is changing a large collective unconscious that has been ingrained for so long. We hope to make a difference by creating a blog that will help move things towards a more equitable reality by providing perspective and informational material.
Our Audience
Loose Garments is 5 months old and growing rapidly in daily visitors. Friends and authors Kiki (Washington D.C.) and Claire (New York City) are active and determined bloggers. In the first month (January 2011) Loose Garments had an average of 11 views per day, and then in March it was up to 75. In April we hit 100, and are now at 250+ daily views. Our fan base is about 20% male and 80% female and the bulk of our followers are between the ages of 25-34. As our fan base is growing we want to provide them with more, more, more and need your help!
Position Specifics
The position requires 1 blog per week (and at least 6 month commitment) and is unpaid. If you are interested in joining Loose Garments, please email your resume and a blog-sample to LooseGarments@gmail.com. Let us know why you are interested in the position, and why you feel that you would be a good fit. The application deadline is May 31st 2011.
Below some of our fave Loose Garments blogs:
Lens On: Important Issues Told in Photos
Startling Statistics on Women & Girls
5 Questions with Awesome Women
We look forward to your responses!
Kiki & Claire
New Interview w/ Awesome Female Soldier Posted Tomorrow & New Updates to Pages: Lens On Important Issues Told Through Photos, Startling Statistics and Good Feminist Reads!
There will be more frequent posts and updates to Loose Garments, hopefully on a daily basis. Follow us, or sign up for an email subscription to stay informed about important issues going on in the world with women!
Mother Night…Learning to See in the Dark
Description:
Where is memory of who we really are, who sent us here, and what is our work here… and why are we often so unusual, so different, so eccentric, so belonging often to a tribe of one? Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, published in 34 languages and one of the most far-reaching artist-psychoanalysts of our time, teaches that in archetypal imagination, “Mother Night is the quintessential medial woman, the woman who can walk in two worlds… ‘the one who knows’ and who can reveal solid ways of living and unleashing creative life in both worlds.” The program Mother Night presents a new series of audio teachings from the Jungian psychoanalyst and author of Women Who Run With the Wolves. This six-session learning event invites us to tap the generative power of the goodness of the core self–that is, all creativity and understanding that lies out of sight in darkness–often called the unconscious. Throughout 11 hours of teaching stories, you’ll hear 12 stories and myths told here for the first time along with Dr. Estés’ commentary, Q & A sessions with her, and special prayers of blessing onto your hearts, bodies, minds, and souls.
According to Dr. Estés, “The most endangered species on earth is the human soul. Many try to stand in one world only, the world of the collective culture, thereby experiencing a sense of standing outside the true self, allowing too much waste into one’s life–due in part to over-immersion in the daytime world only. A sense of being ‘not in oneself entirely’ comes from not returning to the soul’s true home, often enough… a home that is not provisioned nor protected by the overculture. Thus, a critical susto (loss of soul nourishment) comes upon us. We are weakly linked or severed completely from the one-of-a-kind wild and wise self that emerges from the realm of mystery, dreams, and shadow.
About the Author
~Current Awesome Reads~
Will attempt to read with 4 days left until school starts!
Women Artists by Taschen~ Radical Read, Radical Artists!
This book is chock full of some awesome and provocative female artists. Their work is relevant, significant and different than much of what’s been shown in the male-dominated art world for so long. Keep in mind this book was published in 2005. One of the more familiar artists in this book (who happens to be very current and prevalent in the art world presently) is Marina Abramovic’. She has been a controversial and established talent for a lengthy time now. Marina most recently had a show at the MoMA, “The Artist is Present.”
Rineke Dijkstra is a very interesting and prolific photographer that takes mainly portraits of young children/teenagers and miraculously captures the awkwardness, the evanescence and slightly sad coming of age in these kids. Her aesthetic is marvelously uncomfortable yet simplistic and minimal. In that particular series she shot on the beach with flash during daylight so nothing of these people’s insecurities can be hidden, it’s all very open and evident but still easy to take in. In this book the first photograph that we are shown in Rineke’s profile is of a young woman who obviously just gave birth and is still in the hospital and she is shot in only her throw away underwear with one of those huge pads to soak up blood (I know I’ve been there it’s not a “pretty” sight) and holding her new child with a very proud semblance. It’s great!
*Just a few other women that caught my eye while scanning this book again after a while are (and mark my words, every single woman represented in this book are amazingly talented artists);
Tracy Emin:
Sylvie Fleury:
Hannah Hoch:
It seems there is a surge in displaying and exhibiting female artists, especially in NYC. Finally. The art world has been and still is male dominated since the begging of time. There are more and more exhibits, museums and publications however, trying to change that. People like to limit and label female artists as “feminists” which is not true at all. There are those of course but women artists touch on subject matter in a much different light than men do or on subject matter period, that men haven’t touched upon. It’s abstract but very tangible at the same time. Nan Goldin is a great example of this and she sometimes photographs some rather dark worlds, but with beauty and empathy where many a men have photographed the same thing however it seems perverse and horrifying because that is the perspective they see it from. This is not say anything against male artists, it’s rather an example of how women contributing to the art world can broaden our perspectives and emotions and tolerance.
The Feminine Mystique
I’ve just started this but it’s a definite “all women must-read.” I will report on it as soon as I finish! So in essence if you don’t have time to read it, I’ll give you most of the significant passages, quotes and topics. And let’s be real for a moment, it make take me a little while to read so in the meantime…
