Musings of an Inappropriate Woman

Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography

The V&A is currently showing an amazing exhibition of contemporary South African photography, investigating race, gender, sexuality, street style, HIV/AIDS, post-Apartheid life and more through the eyes of some of the country’s leading photographers.

The above shots are taken from Graeme Williams’s ‘The Edge of Town’ series.

I had the privilege of seeing the show this afternoon under the tutelage and guidance of my friend Amy, who wrote the exhibition catalogue. And thus, needless to say, knows her stuff.

If you’re in London between now and July 17, I highly recommend checking it out.

Elsewhere: Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography (Victoria and Albert Museum)

To speak or not to speak, that is the question: AKA, How to act like a clueless white woman

I’ve already drawn attention to Beppie’s post on intersectionality and privilege in last week’s “Best of the rest of the internet”, but I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about in more detail here.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, “intersectionality” is a way of talking about power and privilege that recognises that these things operate on multiple axes. People aren’t just female, or Black, or Asian, or straight, or working class, or trans, or a parent, or prone to depression - everyone falls into a number of different categories that colours their experience of the world in specific ways. In the feminist context, it serves as a useful reminder that not all women have the same experiences, and calls into question the still dominant notion that the neutral “female” experience is one that is white, heterosexual and middle-class.

I’m also a fan in part because it just makes feminism a whole lot more interesting. Gender is not the only front on which the personal is thoroughly political, nor should it be the only one we talk about.

Beppie’s post is about “addressing the squishy bits”, those parts of our political engagement where we face up to our own assumptions and privileges (or lack thereof) and are forced to step outside our own comfort zones. She writes about identifying those times when we should speak up, and those times when we shouldn’t.

Part of the reason it’s so important for people who occupy particular privileged positions to just shut up sometimes is because it’s impossible to escape that privilege: because no matter how good one’s intentions are, that privilege is embedded in the structure of the language that we use, it’s embedded in seemingly innocuous cultural assumptions, and simply by speaking, if we occupy that privileged ground, we reinforce that privilege.

Her post reminded me of a workshop I went to at a conference recently, ironically on feminism and intersectionality. It was clearly a “squishy” topic for a lot of the people there, because much of the conversation was uncomfortable and stilted. What perhaps made me most uncomfortable though was that in this room of 20-25 women, only two were not white, and neither of them said anything throughout the entire session. I wondered if they found the situation as ironic as I did.

The internet feminist textbook would suggest that, as a middle-class white woman, this would have been a very good time to shut up. I didn’t, mostly because I feared that shutting up would make the conversation even more stitled than it already was. I also considered asking the two non-white women in the room what they thought, but I figured this too would be rude and presumptuous - what if they simply didn’t want to say anything?

And so the entire session played out in pretty much exactly the way intersectionalist feminists critique clueless white women. I don’t know how it could have played out any differently, though. Perhaps better moderation would have done the trick? In any case, it definitely qualified as a “squishy bit”.

Have others encountered similar situations? What would you have done if you’d been in that workshop?

Image: See, hear, speak no evil.

Whitewashing women’s magazines: racism or just bad Photoshop?

Or a little bit of both?

Something you may not know: as part of my last job, I was responsible for sourcing and lightly photoshopping images for publication. This could mean different things, depending on the image in question - cropping for size, creating composites of different celebrities, adding a question mark or an arrow to an image, and so on.

Regardless of the other work involved, every image would undergo two procedures before it was uploaded to the website: it would be sharpened for clarity, and we’d play around with the ‘curves’, making the image brighter or, yes, lighter.

On images of white people, this has the effect of creating that glowy, luminescent look you see in so many glamour or advertising shots of celebrities. It’s part of the reason they look prettier than the rest of us. On images of non-white people, as in the case of Gabourey Sidibe above, it has the unfortunate effect of making them look whiter.

In my case, I had enough social/political/media studies knowledge to keep this in mind when employing my rudimentary Photoshop skills on images people of colour. But the experience does make me look at these controversies, when they inevitably arise, a little differently to some of my feminist/media blogger counterparts.

I emailed professional retoucher Abbie Muntz of FauxPink for her view on the Sidibe cover. Below is an edited version of her reply:

One retouchers’ trick is to increase the most highlighted parts of a models skin to make it seem more dewy. It’s the same seen here with Naomi. Glowy highlights blown out.

The lighting of the ‘before’ shot in the blog post you sent me has a completely different style of lighting [to the lighting used on the Elle cover]. Classic beauty lighting often involves a silver lined umbrella and card and this technique is not necessarily the way to shoot dark skin.

Still, the Jezebel blog post used a very extreme example in the other direction. Here is [an unretouched shot] of Sidibe on the red carpet with different lighting again…

The fact is that skin reacts to all different types of lighting in all different ways.
It all starts with how the photographer shoots the subject. In this case, the image should have been darkened all over. Looking at the colour of Sidibe’s hair on the cover shot, it’s really really light.

In other words, it isn’t that white magazine editors hate black people, it’s that they erroneously employ photography and retouching strategies that work best on white people. It’s not unlike the issues Jezebel identified the week before with how Sidibe’s hair had been styled - seemingly by someone inexperienced in styling African American hair.

None of the this, of course, is to excuse the image. Racism that stems from the blind assumption that what works for white people will work for all people is still racism, even if its roots lie in ignorance rather than prejudice or disgust. And one of the first things I learnt as a student editor was that what people make of what you have to say is as important as what you intend to communicate: the systematic whitening of black models’ and celebrities’ skin has been discussed enough that it’s something any magazine editor, art director or retoucher should be aware of when designing a cover.

I don’t think covers like these stem from a perception that black skin is ugly - although they probably do stem from an assumption that white models, and white magazine buyers, are the unmarked default - but by this point, editors must be aware of what the consequences of their choices are likely to be.

What do you think?

Reblogged: Are you a Nice White Person? Some free advice for you →

And for me.

Rabbit Lord of the Undead writes:

Too often Nice White People are far more interested in being perceived as non-racist than they are in actually working to do something that might address the structural inequities racist beliefs and assumptions are built from and reinforce.

I know because I’ve been that Nice White Person. I still have my moments of it.

The only way to stop being that Nice White Person — if you’re interested in actually stopping — is to start with acknowledging two things:

You harbour racist beliefs and assumptions. This, by itself, is not actually your fault and says nothing one way or another about you as a person except you live in a society filled with racist images and texts. It would be remarkable if you didn’t absorb at least some of what your environment has to teach you. (Distressingly, non-white people have to live in the same society and are exposed to the same racist images and texts and harbour many of those whiteness-imposed racist beliefs and assumptions.)

I’m not a big fan of cognitive theories of psychotherapy, dependent as they are upon reinforcing the idea that the patient is largely powerless to effect change in ou environment. Therefore the patient must change ouself such that ou environment is somehow no longer harmful or distressing. But there are some concepts useful in other contexts and a cognitive-dialectic model can help a person harbouring implicit assumptions and beliefs to counter them when they arise. It takes work and a willingness to do a lot of not-very-comfortable self-examination, but by keeping watch over yourself and asking ‘Is my reaction to this person / image / story racist? Is this based in fact or is it based in prejudice and racist myth’? It does work, though not quickly.

You, as a white person, benefit from white privilege and the denial of opportunity to non-white people. Again, this is not anything about you personally — yet. This is an artefact of a racist society and is unavoidable. If you want to work against racism you need to be aware of how privilege works: It does not mean you personally do bad things to non-white people and get stacks of cash for it. It means that (to get into sport metaphors) you had an enormous head start and a relatively smooth path to run. Non-white people start from farther back and face more obstacles and are denied opportunities you don’t even notice because to you they’re just how things are. (And not all white people have all these benefits — but nearly all lack a lot of the disadvantages nearly all non-white people face.)

For example, let’s say you’re a white person trying to get into university in the US. You may have played a sport in high school. You might have played a musical instrument. There are two years of art classes and three years of French classes on your high school transcript. You may have done volunteer work. In short, you’re a well-rounded student. Also, your mother attended one of the schools you’re applying to, making you a legacy application which gets you bonus points just about everywhere. Your parents aren’t wealthy but they own a home and have a big chunk of the mortgage paid off which gives them access to a home equity line of credit should they need it. But you may have been able to get access to some of the increasingly large pool of non-need-based financial aid many schools offer. Your parents probably know enough about how the school loans system works to get loans directly from the government that have lower interest rates and less onerous terms of payment.

If you were a non-white person you may not have been able to play a sport officially. You might have had to work after school at something that pays money or something that doesn’t like looking after younger siblings. With the rapidly increasing re-segregation of public schools and the eternal budget crises in school districts with large non-white and poor populations programmes like art and music and foreign language get cut. Classes are dedicated to teaching children to improving standardised test scores and little else. Buildings are eroding, books are in short supply, good teachers are rare. (I cannot tell you how many people we’ve run into who have told my wife she was the best teacher they ever had and how fucking heartbreaking that is: She taught first grade.) Your parents have rented their whole lives and have no equity to borrow against. You qualify for federal financial aid but the forms are deliberately confusing and difficult. Aid is weighted heavily towards loans and financial aid officers at the state school you can sort-of-but-not-really afford to go to have an agreement with Citibank to steer loan applicants their way.

Even if you get into college it will be harder for you. White students (and many white teachers) will assume you’re there because of affirmative action even though affirmative action has been dead for fifteen years. Many will feel no compunction telling you have everything so much easier because you are non-white. White students who went to nearly all-white schools will want to get to know you, will want to touch your skin your hair ask if you tan ask what it’s like to be non-white. They will write opinion pieces in the school paper about how hurt they were that one time they tried to go sit at The Black Table in one of the cafeterias and no one would talk with them. Credit card companies will lean on you hard to get and use their products assuring you you’ll be able to pay everything off no problem when you get out of school and get that great job. It’ll be hard to find a mentor amongst the faculty. You’ll have an advisor, but they’ll probably be white and they probably will not even notice the barriers created by institutional racism — especially not the ones in their own institution.

The white students you go to school with will have parties themed around the worst stereotypes of your culture. If you complain be prepared for race-based hate threats and violence. Spend every day knowing you will be expected to do twice the work to be though half as good as a white person. Go into every film, every TV show wondering if the person who looks like you is going to get killed first. If the person who looks like you is going to get any lines.

There’s more. There’s lots more. But you don’t need me to tell you. Non-white people have been writing about their experiences for a long time and their writings are widely available. Find them. Read them. And always, always understand that a person who is sharing their lived experience with you is giving you a gift. It’s their life. Sharing it with you puts them in an incredibly vulnerable position. It’s not a philosophical point about which reasonable people can reasonably disagree and it’s not a debate topic.

Try to not fuck up. When you do apologise. Understand what it is you are apologising for (and it’s not ‘I’m sorry if you were offended by my completely harmless words’). Work on becoming a person who can be trusted by people who have had their trust shattered every day of their lives.

Do it because you want to be that person. If you’re looking for external validation you’re going to be disappointed and probably flounce off eventually having not changed a damn thing.

Elsewhere: Rabbit Lord of the Undead

I’m tired of middle to upper class white cissexual Internet feminist all-stars dominating the debate over what is acceptable in feminism and what isn’t. I’m not saying these women aren’t talented writers; they are. But I want to see myself (not literally, although of course that would be nice — a chick’s gotta eat) and other marginalized feminists represented in the feminist all-star constellation. I want to read articles in WaPo and Slate and Salon and the NY Times by marginalized women dealing with issues that actually affect us, and don’t involve pot meeting kettle. I want to see articles on the big woman-oriented blogs that deal with intersectionality, that talk about deeper issues, and that inspire me to think and take action other than reaching for the Tylenol.

Is White Really the Combination of All Colours? - Tasha Fierce, Feministe

Following on from Monday’s post, and from conversations on Britticisms’ blog about the lack of a public conversation around intersectionalist issues - despite the very active and ongoing conversation around gender issues.

Reblogged: Why I Stopped Buying Frankie Magazine, Part Two →

Tiara The Merch Girl writes:

I once saw the editor Jo speak at a panel at the Brisbane Writers Festival a couple of years ago. She talked about how she started Frankie because she didn’t think the other women’s magazines spoke to her - the rowdy, weird, indie pub girl. The girl next door. It was an alternative, more accepting and open, she said.

But like you I noticed a discrepancy. All they ever seemed to profile were the prototypical Hipster Indie Girl: white middle-class, crafty, lithe, twee, slightly old-fashioned look mixed in with modern sensibilities and rebellion. But no brown girls like me, unless we were completely Indie or completely Exotic. No curvy girls. No non-hipster indie girls.

This is a letter I wrote to Jo and the rest of Frankie after that panel. I never received a reply.

Dear Jo and all else at Frankie,

I read your magazine semi-regularly - it was the first magazine I picked up when I arrived in Brisbane from Malaysia two years ago and I was quite surprised that there was a women’s lifestyle mag that wasn’t super cliche about everything. I quite enjoy the variety of topics and the showcase on creative people in the magazine.

I went to the session with yourself and Kate (Dumbo Feather) and Karl (Map) at the Brisbane Writers Festival this week. In the session you talked about how the girls you feature on Frankie’s cover (and content) are the “girl next door” - people that seem realistic, instead of some celebrity high expectation. While I can see that Frankie’s models don’t fit a typical fashion mold, I do have to say that it is not very representative of Australia’s vast cultural diversity.

Put it this way: I hardly see anyone like me in the magazine. South Asian, not particularly fashion-coordinated, experimenting with creativity, giving things a go. Passionate about experiencing life any way it happens. The only time I see anyone not white (aside from Benjamin Law) in the magazine is when they fit into this current trend of “cool” - hipster, ironic, penchat for Etsy-style creativity, hangs on to Western icons of the 80s as inspiration. There is a certain aesthetic to Frankie, and while I understand that Frankie does have its own image to consider, I’m not sure it really embraces the diversity of looks, thoughts, and aspirations from its readers.

Sometimes I feel that the typical Frankie “girl” is a little “too cool for school”, and would not have anything to connect with my experiences unless I am shown off as being “exotic”.

This is something I’ve generally noticed in many Australian mags - while they do mean well, they can be quite Anglo-centric and make it look like Australia’s only full of slim slender super-Westernized blonde blue-eyes. I love The Big Issue to bits (as an example), but one time they had a Really Great Australians list and all of the people (bar one) were white. These were the people that The Big Issue claimed had affected Australia’s community in positive ways - surely there were people from other cultural backgrounds (particularly Indigenous) that made a big impact in Australia’s community too? (I wrote them a letter about that after the incident; they gave me a book for my trouble but it still remains to see if they’ve taken my thoughts into account).

I figure that since Frankie aims to celebrate diversity in women, it could do with going with a more obvious solution - featuring non-AngloSaxon women who don’t necessarily fit a certain fashion aesthetic. M.I.A. and Bats For Lashes etc are great, but it sometimes seem to me that they were only noticed by Western media because they in a way fell into the current Western notion of hip/cool. (And I say this as a very iconoclastic rather Westernised woman.) How about those that completely break the mold because they don’t feel the need to be in it? How about those that celebrate their culture their own way - and create their own brand of cool?

Looking forward to see some different colours on the magazine soon,

B*B, Tiara

Elsewhere: Tiara’s blog.