Demonizing the poor part 2: More on Food stamps.

There have been a lot of celebrities and politicians taking Food Stamp challenges. They only spend a certain amount on food and try and make that food last. The problem coming from these is that they often don't follow the rules that food stamps recipients must follow. It's not just spending only $29 on food for one week. That $29 can only be spent on certain items. Gwyneth Paltrow's experiment actually sent a combination of messages.One was that it is almost impossible to eat healthy the way she was used to on so little. The other though is that she is wildly out of touch with how someone must shop when on food stamps.

You can’t even buy ALL food with food stamps. You can’t buy “food that will be eaten in the store/any food sold for on-premises consumption” or any “hot foods” with food stamps. So nothing hot, nothing that gets blended together, nothing “pre-prepared,” and in most cases you can’t use your EBT card at restaurant. And now in certain states, as I mentioned in my previous post on poverty, seafood, steak and other items are also on the list of things you can't do. 

There are a lot of misconceptions about what people do with food stamps that often lead to food stamps being cut in budget bills in Congress and to Fox News hosts opening their mouths and inserting their feet.

First things first: you cannot buy electronics with food stamps. You cannot buy cigarettes with food stamps. You cannot buy pet food with food stamps. You cannot withdraw money with an EBT card (food stamps).

Other things that can't be bought with food stamps: Shampoo, soap, laundry detergent, toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, tinfoil, plastic sandwich bags, toothpaste, cleaning products, tampons, pads, over the counter medications (such as Tylenol, Ibuprofen, etc.), and anything else you can think of that you cannot physically ingest for nutritional purposes.

The fact that these necessary items are not covered means that someone living at, near or below poverty must scrounge up money to buy them and use their payment method plus their EBT card in the same transaction.   
People who complain about food stamps are so privileged beyond belief and should hope they never fall on hard times.  

A list of things that can’t be purchased with food stamps is on the Food and Nutrition Services website).

And another thing worth mentioning since a lot of times racist people, such as certain Fox News hosts and their viewers, like to bring race into their conversations on welfare and food stamps,  the majority of people that are on welfare in America are actually white people at 36 percent.

"Ain't I a Woman?" Seeing Laverne Cox gave me life.

Disclaimer: I am way behind on submitting this to my blog and turning it in on BlackBoard, due to the fact that I didn’t realize there was a specific date that it needed to be turned in by.

I saw Laverne Cox April 9, 2015 and I felt invigorated when I left, like a spiritual awakening. I was surrounded by people who wanted to see her just as badly as I did and the feeling of giddiness I got throughout was reminiscent of when I went to the Texas Capitol in June 2013 to be part of the unruly orange mob to watch the House of Representatives debate over the House counterpart to the bill that Wendy Davis would later filibuster. The feeling of knowing you're witnessing something great and making history.

It had been a long day and I had a 3-5 page paper to turn in by 11:59 that night, and I’d been in class pretty much all day. I even left class early to walk over to the Coliseum. All I wanted to do was take a quick nap and gain the energy to finish the paper but I wanted to and had to go see Laverne Cox speak.

I found my seat and ended up sitting next to a fellow classmate of mine from two of my other classes. We sat together and ended up talking for a short bit about how excited we were and, more importantly for me, when we thought it would end. Again, I was tired and needed to finish a paper, so I was hoping that the speech would end by no later than 9 p.m.

Before the speech, Greg Abbott had been announced as the commencement speaker for the UNT graduation, which caused a lot of controversy, especially among the LGBT community and the people who support them. We ended up discussing this and asking why UNT thought it was a good idea to have Greg Abbott speak, especially in light of the fact that UNT claims to be LGBT friendly and going so far as to have Laverne Cox, a known transgender advocate and activist, speak in front of a crowd of hundreds of people.

This was in the back of my mind when Laverne Cox finally took the stage, to the sound of a roaring applause from the audience, who all stood up and cheered.

She looked amazing, by the way.

I am a huge fan of Orange is the New Black, which was part of the reason I really wanted to see her speak. I have binge watched both seasons numerous times. My favorite characters in the show are Poussey, Taystee, Nicky and Sophia for their story lines and their humor in the show.

She spoke about her experiences and her life and spoke so eloquently but what I loved most about her speech was how, in between anecdotes and stories of her childhood and growing up, she added facts, startling facts, about transgender youth- suicide statistics, statistics about homelessness, and other statistics about the horrors that transgender people go through when they first come out and transition. The reason I loved these parts of her speech isn’t because I like the actual statistics- those actually break my heart. I love that she manages to be an advocate and activist for others even when talking of her own experiences and her own childhood.

The audience was made up of people of all ages and all backgrounds. I saw several drag queens in just a 50-foot radius around me as well as LGBT activists and other college students. I can’t say that I people watched much once Laverne took the stage, because she had my undivided attention until the moment she left the stage.

I left the coliseum feeling invigorated and feeling more aware, even just a little bit, of the issues that transgender men and women face. And I am extremely grateful for the opportunity given to me by my university to see an amazing human being speak.

Looking down on younger generations, but especially the girls.

I'm a Millennial. I can't even begin to count how many articles or Facebook posts or memes I've read and seen that degrade my generation and essentially me.
We're the "entitlement" generation. We have everything handed to us. We're narcissistic. We take too many selfies, etc.

One thing I've noticed though is that these criticisms tend to be aimed towards the activities of teenaged girls more so than boys.

All the time, I see posts criticizing girls on their clothing, on the way they speak, the way they dress and what they like to do in their free time or even which restaurant they like to go to.

As someone who was a teenage girl not that long ago, it really irritates me and not just because I think those criticisms actually apply to a section of all girls and can't be applied to every single one (which is true) but because there's nothing wrong with girls taking 1,000 selfies. That means they feel good about themselves, in that moment. Considering the body image epidemic in the U.S., I am not okay with ruining even more how someone feels about themselves. There's nothing wrong with drinking Starbucks Frappuccinos. They are delicious. If someone wants to enjoy them, they should be able to, without criticism.
There's nothing wrong with girls wearing yoga pants or leggings with Uggs...that outfit is frickin' comfortable.

I came across a post on tumblr confronting the very issue I'm blogging about right here. It included a list of links of things that teenaged girls have done and I thought I'd share them below:

• Volunteered for the first line of defense at the Battle of Stalingrad to fight against Nazis.
• Invented science fiction.
• Rode twice as far as Paul Revere, in the pouring rain and alone, to alert Americans to the approaching British during the Revolutionary War.
• Pioneered the art of investigative journalism, and its use as a tool of social justice.
• Turned the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.
• Put themselves in the line of fire, often literally, in order to help end injustice.
• Organized a student strike that helped spark Brown v. Board.
• Hid from the Nazis in an annex for two years and found such great poignancy in their experience that their ordinary day-to-day-thoughts have become world famous.
• Led Lewis and Clark across the North American continent— while pregnant/raising a child.
• Worked to desegregate schools in 1835, as well as to end slavery
• Helped found the ACLU and fought for women’s suffrage; also, got arrested for being radical socialists.
• Wrote the first known work of literature by an American black person.

I thought it was especially important to mention again Mary Shelley, who is the inventor of Science Fiction, especially given the crap that girls are given by boys and men in the genre such as calling them fake geek girls, etc.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818. Isaac Asimov, creator of Galactic Empire and I, Robot and often brought up as the creator of sci-fi wasn't even born until 1920.
And before Shelley was Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) who wrote The Blazing World in 1666, about a young woman who discovers a Utopian world that can only be accessed via the North Pole. The Blazing World is often credited as one of the first sci-fi novels.


Teenaged girls can and do do great things. And I think they deserve more recognition- not just when they beat boys at something but period. 

It's just a word. A word with a terrible history behind it, so stop using it!

In one of our classes, there was a student who said that the N-word is just a word and alluded to the fact that words only have power when you let them.

I'm a white, middle class woman. The only words that actually could even have the power to offend me are those aimed at my gender, such as Bitch and C---t (I refuse to say this word or even type it out because I disagree strongly with it.)
As a white person, there is no equivalent to the N-word or to any racial slur. Cracker is the only thing I can think of and I find it funny more than anything.

The reason for this is because white people have benefited from a system of oppression that puts us at the top.

I don't use the N-word in front of black people or by myself or amongst friends. I don't use any slur of any kind in front of the people it's aimed towards or by myself or amongst friends.

I think words do have power regardless of whether you let them or not.

The video above is a clip from Louis CK's show Louie and starting at 5:05, it starts talking about when straight people use the word Fa--ot when referring to LGBT.

"You might want to know that every gay man has probably had that word shouted at them when they're being beaten up, sometimes many times, sometimes by a lot of people all at once. So when you say it, it kind of brings all that up..."

Words like the F word and the N word have a negative history behind them. People who are similar to the oppressor, such as straight, white people, have no right to use those words at all.

In regards to who can use those words- I have no say on that. I personally think a)  that is something that the LGBT and Black communities can discuss themselves but they don't need or want my input and b) that these communities should be able to reclaim those words for themselves or remake them. 

"Ugly Feminists"

I saw a post on Tumblr with the following tweet and below the tweet, a compilation of photos of attractive celebrities (Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Beyonce, Rihanna, Emma Watson, Angelina Jolie, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and two girl groups that I don’t recognize).

 

 

Beneath the pictures were comments such as “Can I be this ugly then?”

The photos of the attractive celebrities, all of whom have identified as feminists, send the message that obviously the tweeter is wrong and feminists are attractive.

The problem with this is that it shouldn’t matter whether a feminist is attractive or not. Feminism is about  promoting the idea that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men. It's not a beauty contest. You don't need to be attractive or pretty or beautiful to want women to have equal rights.
This tends to pit women against each other actually.
There was also a thing in 2014 where the hashtag #feministsareugly was started. Many feminists assumed that it was created by a misogynistic troll and tweeted selfies, particularly selfies of them looking attractive.
This ended up being criticized, as shown in this link 
One response said, "Taking over #FeministsAreUgly is great, but I also think we're missing an opportunity to have a nuanced conversation about what "ugly" means."

This makes me think of the whole plus size argument in regards to plus size models, where people say the model doesn't look plus size, or looks too good to be called plus size. People get into an uproar when someone is called fat or plus size or ugly- but only when they disagree with the level of attractiveness of the person.

It's just interesting how attacking someone's appearance becomes the first line of offense when attacking someone's political or social viewpoints. It's also seen in random memes on Facebook about liberal democrat women vs. conservative Republican women (obviously Laura Bush is way prettier than  Michelle Obama, according to my crazy uncle.)

Demonizing the poor

In one of our class meetings, we watched a documentary on poverty. Families lived on very little money and opened their doors to cameras to document what it was like to be poor.

The controversy in the clas came when a family, who could barely afford to feed their children, ended up getting pregnant again and keeping the child. They said they didn't believe in abortion, which is understandable, but there were several people who pointed out that adoption was an option and that it was selfish to bring another mouth to feed into a home that was already struggling.
It led to a heated discussion on whether it was okay to police what the poor did with their families and their bodies and their lives. 

Someone mentioned the nails of one mother and having the money for that.

In class, I commented that her nails could have been free, full price or discounted. She could have bought the supplies earlier and done them herself, had a friend do them, or get them from Walmart. We don't know what they pay for things and how they pay and unless we are writing their checks, we have no room to judge or comment on it.

The whole discussion on people living in poverty made me think of this clip from the Daily Show where a Fox News commentator tells a Daily Show correspondent that the poor should stop being poor.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/03/07/todd-wilemon-healthcare-stop-being-poor/


 The discussion over how the families spent their money also made me think of several articles I read on limiting how people on welfare can spend their money.


http://www.refinery29.com/2015/04/85249/kansas-bill-curbs-spending-for-welfare-recipients?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=post&unique_id=entry_85249



http://www.sheknows.com/living/articles/1080454/nothing-wrong-with-using-food-stamps-to-buy-steak-and-crab



In one article, it says, "I have seen people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs with their EBT cards," Rick Brattin, the lawmaker proposing the bill, told The Washington Post. "When I can't afford it on my pay, I don't want people on the taxpayers' dime to afford those kinds of foods either."



This goes back to the point I made in class about how unless we're the ones actually doing their budgeting for them or writing their checks or whatever, we have no idea how they actually spend their money and whether they bought an item at regular retail price, got it on sale or received it as a free gift. People on food stamps often are working while receiving them. In order to receive food stamps, you have be making below a certain amount, showing need for the assistance. Depending on the state and the income level and I believe the size of the family, each family gets a certain amount each month on their card.  I doubt that steak or lobster are every day purchases, but even if they were, that amount is still spent from the initial amount given. If the lawmaker is saying they can't afford the steak or lobster, that's on them and they are the ones choosing not to spend however many dollars on meat.

I know people who are on food stamps and WIC (they're expecting a baby this summer) and the items that they can and can't get are limited to certain brands or certain food items and they have to spend it because while it will rollover, if they don't use enough of them, they run the chance of losing the benefit of food stamps. And they end up with a decreased amount over time.

Save the BOOBIES? Save the woman!

I recently saw another post on tumblr about the phrase "Don't let cancer steal second base!" and decided to make that my next blog topic.
Naturally, someone commented their outrage over women with a deadly disease being belittled to mere body parts and said, "HOW ABOUT DON’T LET CANCER STEAL WOMEN’S LIVES
BECAUSE WOMEN AREN’T JUST BOOBS THEY’RE PEOPLE JESUS CHRIST."

Those are similar to my thoughts exactly. 

My brother, who is 2 years older than me, used to wear a burnt orange Save the Boobies bracelet. I didn't pay much attention to it until I came across several posts that spelled it out for me how problematic this was. They explained how it is mostly men who are advocating for women to save their breasts by checking for lumps. Save their breasts. Not Save their lives. They used catchy slogans such as "Save the Boobies", "Save Second Base", etc. Nothing is mentioned about the woman to whom the breasts are attached to.

This comic came after Angelina Jolie elected to have a double mastectomy.

Another thing was pointed out in this article about how Breast Cancer is the third leading killer of women, behind heart disease and lung cancer, but it receives 15 times more funding than heart disease. The article says, "Breast cancer is marketable because sex sells. Breast cancer is perceived as the absolute worst kind of cancer because of its implications. The possibility that a woman might lose her breasts, which in our society is tied to a woman’s value, naturally garners more attention."

I'm trying to picture the reverse, if women sexualized men and colon cancer or testicular cancer and used catchy sayings that also doubled as innuendo. I don't see it in the media or online or hear about it and I have a hard time picturing it gaining the same popularity as the breast cancer and boobs have.

On social media, women who post pictures of their chests after a mastectomy have their pictures taken down. They have their breast feeding pictures taken down or are ridiculed if they choose to breastfeed in public. It's all about saving the tatas or boobies and paying homage to them until they are used for anything besides sex.

I hope I've instilled in my older brother a number of things regarding gender and feminism and I hope he understands why Save The BOOBIES/ Save the TATAS/etc are problematic, even though they raise money. 





 

"Plus Size women don't go to the beach because they don't like the way they look!"

So Sports Illustrated made "history" by including a plus size swimsuit advertisement in their Swimsuit Edition for the first time ever, as well as featuring their first ever Plus Size model.

It was mentioned in class, when the picture in the magazine was shown, that the model isn't plus sized, she's "normal" sized.
I would agree but I think that it should still be celebrated that they've deviated from their standard size 2/4 swimsuit model.

When you compare Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, or even Victoria's Secret models, to the typical fashion runway models, the one thing that stands out is that, while they are all still relatively thin and the same size, the swimsuit and underwear models are curvier. They have achieved the unattainable and have both a flat stomach and somewhat large breasts.

The average woman in the U.S. does not look like that. The average woman is a size 14 with a cup size of a 34DD, which is a sister size to a 36D and the size women are more likely to find in Walmart.
You'd think that more people would want to see models that look like them rather than the 6' tall, size 2 or 4 models we see everywhere we look.


My minor is Merchandising with an emphasis in Fashion. One of the required classes is Fashion Theory. In that class, we got to talking about size. The professor showed pictures of our favorite Disney Princesses but instead of their usual tiny selves, they were very very very fat. So fat they were actually round in shape. Everyone laughed and  someone said, "Obviously, we don't want our cartoon characters to look like that. That promotes an unhealthy lifestyle." For me personally, it was an awkward moment and I kept my mouth shut but my initial thoughts were that showing someone who is fat is not promoting ANYTHING. It gives representation to a group of people who actually exist.

The next topic was of the different body shapes that were held up as ideal throughout history. During the Middle Ages, women wore clothing and padding that made them look pregnant as that meant they were fertile and healthy, which was important considering most died way early.
In the 1600s, or the Baroque period, there was an artist named Peter Paul Rubens. His paintings of full-figured women, with large hips and thighs and stomachs and smaller breasts, gave way to the term "Rubenesque".

His paintings were extremely detailed and showed all the flaws, including the dimples on the thighs and buttocks and the rolls on the stomachs.
Our professor showed the following picture to the class.

The class was fairly large- with about 100-150 students I want to say. It was held in Curry Hall in one of the lecture halls on the first floor if that helps any.

The makeup of the class was mostly female, with about 20 or so males. The sizes of the women ranged from probably a size 0 all the way to a size 20 or 22, but most of the women in the class were between a size 0 and 9.
One girl, who looked like she would wear a size Small, sitting in the middle of the class with about five larger sized women, myself included, around her, saw the picture and said, "EWWW. That's DISGUSTING."

The whole class got silent. I was shocked because she had a plus size women to the left of her, to the right of her, behind her (that'd be me), and diagonal in front of her. She essentially said that, at the very least, all of us looked disgusting, never mind the fact that cellulite, which I assume is what she was referring to, doesn't just appear on larger sized women but also smaller sized women.

The professor said, "That's how you feel. Some people like cellulite. Some people don't care that they have it. I saw a skinny girl walking around earlier wearing short shorts, showing off her cellulite. More power to her. I couldn't do that," and quickly moved on.

In another Merchandising class, Fashion Forecasting, we were talking about fads and trends in clothing. I was one of maybe 4 or 5 people in this class of about 50 or 60 that would be considered fat or plus size. I went up to the professor and asked about fads and trends in plus size fashion because that subset of fashion tends to be late. She said that most plus size fashion brands and stores focus on basics because that's what the customer base wants.
Wrong. I'd love floral print and the cute trends but the only things I can find that fit me are for grandmas or strippers.
We talked about swimwear. Someone brought up plus size swimwear and the lack of it.

"I think there's not a market for it because plus size women don't like going to beach and wearing swimsuits because they don't like their bodies," some thin girl said.


I love the beach. Everyone I know who is plus size also loves the beach. Beach loving is not limited to a size.
I don't however like wearing a swimsuit that my 80 year old grandma would wear, nor do I want to wear a swimsuit that makes me look like I'm in a porno. Sadly, until recently, that has been the case.

Plus size women like the beach and they like their bodies. Companies who sell only senior swimwear for anyone above a size 12 are the ones not listening.

Swimsuitsforall, the company behind the plus size swimsuit ad in Sports Illustrated, featured above, teamed up with Gabi Fresh, the plus size blogger who coined the term "Fatkini" in 2012, to release more fatkinis, or bikinis on fat bodies. The first round of bikinis and other swimwear released in 2013 and the campaign enlisted the help of fellow plus size bloggers, Nadia Aboulhosn and Maxey Greene, and the galaxy print one ended up selling out.

In 2014, Gabi Fresh teamed up with Swimsuitsforall again and designed another bikini.

A swimsuit that wasn't a tankini or a one piece that actually provided support for top heavy women and coverage on the bottom and it came in a cute print.

For 2015, they teamed up again and released another collection with fun, YOUNG, cute prints.

In class, someone pointed out how the men in the video ad are all hot and attractive still. You can also see the same thing in the last picture of Gabi.
I would argue that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Thin women get paired with both attractive and fit men as well as fat and ugly men quite often. It's used quite often in movies and TV shows. When there is a plus size woman on screen, she is often either paired with a thin man, who is deemed average, or a man of the same size or larger. Rarely do we see her with a buff, hot looking man. This leads you to believe that a buff, attractive guy won't ever find a fat woman attractive or that if he does, he has a fat fetish.
This is disheartening to say the least. I think one show that actually doesn't follow this trope is My Mad Fat Diary, which has a normal sized, attractive guy attracted to/ in love with the fat girl.

As someone who is on the lower end of plus size, and has difficulty finding clothes that I like and that fit, and as someone who was insulted and teased for my weight and size, I think that I'll desperately take representation anyway I can.