The Battle for Women's Bodies Is Full Steam Ahead | Sanja Iveković's MOMA 'Sweet Violence' | Meryl Poster @ Weinstein
/Daily French Roast
Anne is reading …
A little-noticed story got our attention yesterday. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators provoked outrage and condemnation on Sunday by dressing children as Holocaust victims and making one boy wearing a centerpiece of the protest against devout Jews seeking gender separation in Israel.
His hands were raised in surrender and a yellow Star of David inscribed with “Jude,” Jew, in German, was sewn on his jacket. The image mimicked a memorable photo of a terrified Jewish boy during a roundup in the Nazi-occupied Warsaw Ghetto in World War Two. “Nazis, Nazis,” some of the protesters shouted at police.
Writing at that moment a response to Bro. Dennis’ recent 2Ps in a Pod post about loving our bodies as a temple, Anne turned course, asking how a modestly-dressed eight-year-old girl who is called a whore on her way to school can grow up with a positive self-image.
A core premise of Anne of Carversville is the insatiable need of men to control women’s bodies in every aspect — from flogging 40,000 women a year in Sudan for inappropriate dress to setting 100,000 women on fire a year in India in a practice called “bride-burning”.
Anne has written before on all roads in global politics leading to Jerusalem, where crazy men — Jews, Christian and Muslim — will torch the world in the name of God.
Update in Israel
Ultra-Orthodox extremism is a reaction to growing reform in the community Haaretz (Israel)
One ultra-Orthodox woman who did not stay silent Haaretz (Israel)
Yocheved Horowitz had considered protesting for a long time. “I wanted to signal to the extremists, and not only on buses, that women are not hefker” [literally “ownerless property,” though in this context meaning expendable]. “Of course I was scared at first. The Haredim don’t like things like this. They fear having their name and image publicized. I was afraid of what people would say, especially my family. But I went with my truth and I knew that without a name the act would be less credible, and so I decided to go public.”
Horowitz views the extremist Sicarii campaign in Beit Shemesh, who made headlines last week after grown men spat at an 8-year-old girl whom they believed was not dressed modestly enough, as a gross misinterpretation of the Torah. “The Sicarii are insane, and I don’t even consider them religious. Lately everything has become forbidden, and I think that’s extremist and twisted.”
Haredi women resent intrusion into their sphere The Jerusalem Post
From Anne:
Controlling Women’s Bodies Is a Fight to the Finish
Placebo Effect Update
The Wall Street Journal visits the amazing effect of placebos across a wide range of treatments for medical conditions. One factoid caught our eye, a reference to ghrelin levels as related to dieters and food consumption.
Last week’s New York Times in-depth The Fat Trap references ghrelin levels being 20% higher among weight losers. The focus of the article was on the difficulty of not regaining weight. Writer Tara Parker-Pope presented raised ghrelin levels as hormonal and biological, perhaps a reflection of the body’s concern about starvation.
This new article from WSJ slants the question differently, suggesting that perhaps the mind — a preoccupation with food and hunger so often associated with weight loss — also triggers ghrelin levels. If we believe we’re not getting enough food, our body responds accordingly.
More DFR
The goddess on her huge pedestal (Lady Rosa of Luxembourg, 2001) is the work of Sanja Iveković. A regal and pregnant Nike, she rules over New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s central atrium in Iveković’s MoMA retrospective “Sweet Violence,” (on view through March 26).
Capital New York writes:
Iveković’s body of work stretches across drawing, photography, film, video, and performance, and largely examines the interlacing of the personal and the political. She is also—famously—the first Croatian artist to declare herself and her art feminist. Conceptual projects based on photo-collage and -montage like Double Life (1975-76), a series which pairs personal photographs of Iveković and magazine ads mirroring the gestures or appearances, probe how representations of the lives of women may determine the lives of women. The ads usually post-date the photographs, vexing the issue of causality further.
Meryl Poster Fashionable TV
WWD in-depths Meryl Poster, president of television for The Weinstein Co. Having previously worked for Harvey and Bob Weinstein at Miramax Films for 16 years, Poster is back.
Her list of shows she’s producing includes “Project Runway All Stars,” which makes its debut on Thursday on Lifetime Television; “Project Accessory,” which wrapped up Dec. 22; “Project Runway,” which will begin its 10th season in June; “Mob Wives,” whose second season premiered Sunday and has already been renewed for a third season on VH1, and “The Nanny Diaries,” which she is producing with Ryan Seacrest for ABC.
Progressive Theater Politics?
On the one hand female playwrights historically haven’t found Broadway welcoming but this season is an exception, writes the New York Times. Along with a darkly comic one-act from the veteran , Katori Hall and Lydia R. Diamond are making their Broadway debuts, and Theresa Rebeck, a finalist, has her second Broadway production to date, the comedy “Seminar,” now at the Golden Theater.
Ms Rebeck’s ‘Seminar” begins with the line “Boys, boys, boys!” but promotes is own “insidious glass celing’ writes Claudia La Rocco.
In other plays, Ms. Rebeck has exposed cultural hypocrisies among the so-called enlightened, and true to her modus operandi, “Seminar” trades in stereotypes. At least there is a Kate to argue with Leonard — in sharp contrast to another current Broadway production, Woody Allen’s “Honeymoon Motel,” one of three frivolous one-acts in “Relatively Speaking,” which, like “Seminar,” celebrates the true (male) writer-artist and rewards him with a much-younger blonde. Ms. May’s “George is Dead” presents even drearier depictions of women, but the playlets as a whole are such offensive throwbacks, it seems petty to quibble with how any one group is treated.
Read on in this provocative critique: Women Playwrights and Gender Stereotypes on Broadway.
From Anne:
Anne of Carversville
Elizabeth Taylor by David Downton | ROUGE Winter 2011/12
AOC Style
Kate Beckinsale | John Russo | Harper’s Bazaar Arabia January 2012
Dakota Fanning | David Slijper | Elle UK January 2012 | Dakota will see you now…
Bambi Northwood Blyth | Natasha Alaverdian | Harper’s Bazaar Russia January 2012
Alice Dellal | Philippe Kliot | Vogue Brazil December 2011 | Grande Família
Sensuality News
SN Living
Sam Pinto | Majoy Siason | FHM Philippines December 2011
Jacob DeKat & Prince Chenoa | Lovecat Kittens of 2012 Calendar
Alessandra, Emanuela, Evandro+ | Michael Roberts | Vogue Brazil December 2011 | ‘Coquetel de Cores’
Ali | Roberto d’Este | Grazia Italia January 2012 | Let’s Party
Du Juan | Trunk Xu | Vogue China January 2012 | Creative Sky
Julia Lescova | Mark Sarco | FHM Russia January 2012
Ursula Corbero | Toni Torres | FHM Spain January 2012
Lad Language
British Lad Mags Quotes Score Worse Than Talk Of Real Rapists
This verbiage is also from one of the magazines: ‘A girl may like anal sex because it makes her feel incredibly naughty and she likes feeling like a dirty slut. If this is the case, you can try all sorts of humiliating acts to help live out her filthy fantasy.’ By contrast, here is a convicted rapist discussing his crime: ‘There’s a certain way you can tell that a girl wants to have sex … They way they dress, they flaunt themselves.’
Dr Peter Hegarty, of the University of Surrey’s Psychology Department, added: “There is a fundamental concern that the content of such magazines normalises the treatment of women as sexual objects. We are not killjoys or prudes who think that there should be no sexual information and media for young people. But are teenage boys and young men best prepared for fulfilling love and sex when they normalise views about women that are disturbingly close to those mirrored in the language of sexual offenders?”
In both studies, one asking a coed group to rank the comments in terms of derogatory nature and the other by self-identification, the lad mags were scored worse than the statements of rapists.
Coco Café
We are a young company, recently launched out of Santa Monica and we are excited to serve you with our all natural, supreme quality, ultimately functional beverage.
The idea originated from Elan, one of Coco Cafés founders. Developed in service of his ambitious lifestyle of recreation and work, Elan needed a healthy form of recovery and subsequent energy boost.He essentially stumbled upon the decadent combination of hydrating coconut water and invigorating espresso on the way to one of his mother’s early morning yoga classes. Required to recover each morning from late nights out on the town, long business trips, and grueling hours at the job, the first brew of Coco Café was born.
Coco Café website
Sergy Korolkov | Acqua Di Sensi 2012 Calendar Sensuality News Wide Screen