it should come as no surprise that i quite like a bit of a rant. there is it seems, at least so i am told, no end to the number of soap box issuesabout which i can go off on one given the right stimulus. and the guardian supplied ample fuel to that fire the other day with another one of naomi wolf's lifestyle disguised as polemic missives. in this one not only does she get to talk even more about herself but specifically her vagina and its many doings (or not doings). off she spouts with some pseudo-neuroscience (or as we would have it in the vernacular here - pish) and then ices the shouty cake with the revelation that despite her many insights into (her) vagina she was 'traumatized' for six months by some vagina themed pasta. in which case should you be reading ms wolf you would be well advised never, ever to visit the east coast of scotland.
all of which may bring to mind henry more's words on the workings of the brain prior to the discoveries of thomas willis - this lax pith or marrow in man's head shows no more capacity for thought than a cake of suet or a bowl of curds
fortunately for every naomi wolf there's a whole bunch of actually interesting women who perhaps don't get quite get the attention they deserve. object is just such a squad of these types (they even have some chaps for balance) and is the organisation i refer my younger female colleagues to when they have the need to react against the phallocracy. imagine then the non shouty joy with which i came across objectify this which not only delves into the murky world of female anatomical representation (inc the legendary becker, wilson and gehweiler!) but just goes on about anatomical representation generally, which is just a joy. if you click on the link on the right hand side of the exhibition page on the image of thanos and eros it'll even take you to the flickr group for anatomical street art. surely just the type of thing the internet was designed for.
i do worry about naomi wolf tho. calling her book vagina. all those young minds being corrupted by the v word. in a world where todd akin breathes actual oxygen (even if, as seems likely, he doesn't believe in it) perhaps she'll be burnt as a witch.
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6 comments:
I read the headline in the G online but couldn't be bothered to read the article. And it's only now, reading this, that I've realised I thought of Naomi Klein (not Wolf!) when I read the headline anyway! I did think it was odd. And I'm getting old, starting to mix people up... don't even know where my vagina is any more...
x
i'm not too fussed about nomi klein either to be honest. maybe it's something about the name naomi!
i wouldn't worry too much about the mixing people up. maybe i've had too many knocks in the head but i replace words. most commonly i can't, unless i really focus on it, differentiate between the words rhubarb and beetroot.
it happens also with names. i have at least two people in work who've had to accept i can't remember their names and will be calling them something entirely different. one of them thinks it's funny, the other thinks i'm sort of weirdo idiot....
so many great one liners in that article! and I'm so ignorant that I didn't even know "the feminists of the 70s were waging a battle to prioritise the clitoris over the vagina" - news to me!! she sounds a tad sensitive re the vagina pasta. I'll never forget when we went to gothenburg and visited the natural history museum, they had an exhibition on called the tunnel of love which was basically walls covered in hundreds of vagina mouldings... slightly embarrasing when I was showing my dad our holiday pics and forgot I'd taken pics at the exhibition lol
ah yes, maybe you dodged that particular feminist bullet! i was just pleased to be able to include phallocracy pin a post! but that's more reflective of just how much time i spent in the company of lacan and the like. amusing in their way but in the end you have to wonder if they have ever had a proper job. google gendered equations and luce irigiray for just that type of nonsense.
to my knowledge i never showed my dad a picture of a vagina. the nearest i can come was a time when i was visiting and my mum squeezed my shoulder and went ' oooh, have you been going to the gym' in a most unmotherlike manner. i was most discomfited!
Worth it for 'ices the shouty cake' alone! But finding out about the medical textbook = major bonus.
it's a gem. i'm sure none of my female colleagues would object to the 'robust, healthy male'!
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