What took you so long?

I’ve talked briefly here before about how I wasn’t always femme, and how my interest in skirts and makeup and glitter has taken me a long time to accept – truth be told, I still haven’t really accepted it. But I’m at least exploring it now. The real joke is that I’m 32 dang years old. I’m firmly over thirty now, and I have no idea what to do with my hair on a daily basis. I have no idea what the appropriate thing to wear to a formal dinner would be, let alone have a suitable outfit. I’m still taking baby, tentative steps into this whole fabulous world.

So what on earth took me so long? A fascinating conversation today with two lovely Tweeps of mine, @heathergracious and @helisalmiakki has brought a couple of realisations to the surface that I’d like to share, because I don’t think I’m the only one with these experiences.

Looks Like Community

I don’t think I can actually adequately express how important it is to me to feel like I’m helping other people, every day, no matter how small the effect. Helping other people do their jobs better is my day job. I started this blog to try and help other people discover they’re not the only one who has no idea what to do with their hair. I am an absolute sucker for Kickstarters and community projects in general. I wasn’t expecting to find much in the nail community to support this compulsion of mine – it’s a hobby built around material acquisition. You just...well, *I* didn’t expect much in the way of community. I expected everyone to be much more interested in external appearances, rather than internal qualities - in other words, superficial. But just as with BPAL, there is so much more to the nail community than pretty stuff to put on your nails. 

The polish I want to show you today is a great example of the way this community helps each other, and contributes to the wider world around them. Normally I wouldn’t show off something I know you can’t get – this polish was limited edition, and it’s all gone now. But the idea was just so lovely, and the polish itself is so gorgeous, I couldn’t help myself. Pretty Serious are an Australian indie polish maker, and they have been producing absolutely spectacular stuff for a while now. Emma Louise was a limited edition polish created by the owner of Pretty Serious for her friend’s 30^th birthday. Emma got to choose the colours, the glitters – her birthday present was a custom made polish, exactly to her specifications. This is an incredibly generous and creative gift to start with – but even better, Pretty Serious made a donation to the Australian Cancer Council for every bottle sold, meaning this polish ended up being a present to society at large as well. Naturally, I couldn’t let this opportunity to take part in such a great idea pass me by.

Image courtesy of the Pretty Serious website

Not only was this polish a great idea, it's just beautiful. You might have noticed by now that I have a huge weakness for glitter, and also dark vampy colours, and this polish brings them together gloriously. 

Dear John - Leibster Award Nomination

I’ve been nominated for a Leibster Blog Award by Natasha at Confessions of A Skincare Junkie, and while I'm not usually a fan of chain letter type things, I think this one is a lovely idea. We little bloggers have to stick together! Natasha had a great summary of what a Leibster Award actually is, so I'm just going to shamelessly steal it.

"Just what is this Leibster thing anyway? It took some sleuthing, but I did find a few facts. According to Sopphey Says, the first mention of the Leibster Award she was able to track down was from Germany blogger in December 2010. The word, Leibster, means “Sweetheart” or “Darling” in German.  It is actually used as a greeting for a boyfriend as in “Leibster Johannes” which would  start a letter to John.
Leibster Awards have several iterations with the number of readers and the number of questions changing as it passes along.  But the core of the award remains:

• This is a pat on the back to a blog with a small readership (current rules state 200 or fewer readers,but the original was for 2000 readers or fewer)
• You must thank your nominator.
• You must state 11 facts about yourself.
• You must answer 11 questions posed by the nominator.
• You must nominate 11 more blogs and pass on the love."

So first, lots of thanks to Natasha for this nomination. Natasha is one of a small proportion of readers who I didn't harass into reading, which makes her praise extra sweet. And now, the Dolly Quiz!

11 Random Facts You May Not Know About Me

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys

There are a lot of people out there who are really keen to tell women what to do with their bodies. On the whole, the feminist mainstream is pretty against this. A male morning TV host in Victoria decided to announcehow inappropriate breastfeeding in public is, and how this shameful thing should be hidden away – Twitter was on fire for two days, and the blogosphere went crazy with disgust for his arrogance at presuming to tell women how to deal with babies. Rightly so, mind you. The guy was clearly trolling, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve every bit of vitriol he got. Yesterday, a poor radio host got named , shamed, and forced to apologise publicly for daring to make her own decisions as to whether she was going to smoke or not while pregnant, as if her body belongs to the public domain now she’s incubating. Rightfully, feminist commentators were all over this too. The question isn’t whether smoking is harmful to babies, or whether breastfeeding is distasteful – the issue at stake other people’s apparent right to comment on what women choose to do with their bodies. In short, if  it’s not your baby, if it’s not your body, then I firmly believe you should shut up. As the Polish apparently say, Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy – not my circus, not my monkeys. (thanks for the edit, dear readers) If you’re not carrying it, if you don’t live in it, you can be quiet now. It’s disgraceful that these situations even come up anymore – I am constantly baffled by how many legislators and commentators think it’s perfectly okay to cast judgement on people’s choices without consulting the people affected in any way. And mostly, mainstream feminism is on my side. 

Not your monkey

 But sometimes, I get all over-excited and say something like, “Fuck those legislators trying to tell women what to do with their bodies! It’s just like people who’ve never been in the sex industry telling sex workers what they should be doing with their bodies!”

And suddenly, there’s silence.

Princess Vanellope Rulz

 

It's time for another Aussie Nails Monday, and given that this week's theme is "Bright" I decided to do a little tribute to my favourite Disney Princess - Vanellope Von Schweetz  from Wreck It Ralph.

If you haven't seen Wreck It Ralph yet, you really should, especially if you were ever a gamer in the era of 8 bit legends like Sonic The Hedgehog. It's a wonderful mix of everything great about Disney and Pixar, with none of the weaknesses of either. Although I will warn you to make sure you have tissues on hand!

Anyway, on to the nails. These pictures were taken in a bit of a rush, so they're not up to my usual standard, but I was so happy with the way the design came out I couldn't wait to share it.

Fat Money $pends

Just a little update today - I've been busy putting together a bunch of upcoming articles for other sites, which is still an idea I find so entertaining. I started this blog because I didn't think anyone else would publish my opinions, but it just keeps happening! Hilarious.

Image courtesy of Domino Dollhouse

Today's link is an opinion piece I bashed out with my ranty pants on for The Closet Feminist, who are a fantastic Canadian feminist fashion blog. I really dig what they're doing, and this article has been quite popular so far, so I'd be interested to hear what y'all think. It's about trying to shop in brick and mortar stores when you have a plus sized body, and how it's incredibly frustrating - Fat Money $pends

Fuck your Femme Passivity

One of the reasons I stayed away from all things femme for so long was because of the percieved association of femme and weakness, passivity, standing back and letting things happen. I am not that sort of girl - I never have been. There is a t-shirt sold by T Shirt Hell that says, "If I had balls, they would be bigger than yours", and it was one of my favourite things to wear out for a long time. I assumed (because I didn't know any better) that if I started getting interested in being pretty, getting my nails did, all that junk, that I would have to give up being a bad ass. As it turns out, I was totally wrong, and I am so fucking happy about that. But every now and then something turns up that reminds me why I made those assumptions in the first place.

I don't really do Tumblr. I don't understand it, I don't understand what it's FOR, and that annoys me, so I generally keep away from it - although there is now a Reluctant Femme tumblr, just so I have somewhere to push all these posts and my Instagram pictures into the same stream. This distrust/disinterest in Tumblr means I missed the kerfuffle around this particular musician, who used to go by Kitty Pryde but is now apparently just Kitty, because this is meant to make people take her more seriously. Let's have a look at one of her clips and have a little talk about why she pisses me the fuck off.