Monday, March 05, 2007
Let Bert the Turtle show you the way
It's starting to get a little cold. My favourite season is here, and I'm looking forward to the time when I can slide on my boots without having my legs sweaty and sticky after about half and hour, when it suddenly becomes hot again (as it is wont to do) in the very sketchy transition from summer to autumn.
Sunday
Traipsing around town with the Singapore Students Society. The programme for the day was a choice between *nudges Jiawei* wisecracking socialists and whiny Singaporeans, and in the end the promise of free mutton curry, coconut rice and cheng teng soup won out.
I had a good time (mostly) and I made some more new friends. I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations here… But. But. (Some) Singaporean men are horrifically sexist, racist and apathetic. Somehow it slipped out that I have feminist leanings (I think I was saying something about how women should do compulsory NS) and it led on to sexism, and somehow someone ended up telling me that men suffer more from sexism, because of the need to look ‘buff, suave and cool’ to attract teh ‘chio bus’. You know, I don’t think I have the breath or energy to go into the whole eating disorder phenomena that affects mainly females; the pressure to fit a certain image of feminity (which takes bloody long, hard work); and women being valued primarily based on their appearance. I don’t deny that men suffer from having to fit certain moulds, and I deplore that this is the case and want it to be changed, but I think we can cut the crap about the whole “men suffer too, boo hoo”. Men suffer because of sexism, but not nearly as much as women do. The only way forward is to liberate everyone from enforced gender roles. But that ain’t gonna happen if you want to put men’s suffering as the ‘more important’ suffering. It’s ridiculous. This. Is. Not. The. Opression. Olympics!!!
I made a new friend from RMIT, JX, and while I think he’s a likeable person, I hated the fact that he thought he had every right to comment on my appearance, as if I was some piece of public property that needed critical evaluation. He didn’t make any disparaging remarks about me, which I would never have stood for anyway. Though his comments were fairly neutral observations, they reveal a disturbing sense of entitlement (ho ho, my favourite new phrase of my crazy new phase) about feeling free to discuss other people’s property (their bodies). Points that he thought were apparently up for grabs in the discussion department:
1) That I wore contacts
2) That I pluck my eyebrows (although he had the nerve to tell me my eyebrows were too long at the edge – wtf??)
3) have thick hair
4) and apparently now I have a ‘dislike of accessories’ (erm, just because I wasn’t wearing any yesterday doesn’t mean I dislike accessories – hell, I have tons of them at home)
Hello, Captain Obvious. How about you pick my brain, and stop picking on my looks? Jeebus.
Monday
USA Today lecture. Sat in between Petra and Alex (ooh la la) , two very lovely people. Our third USA lecture of the semester had the entire hall giggling after we were shown "Duck and Cover", a 50s propaganda film featuring Bert the Turtle, who buoyantly tells us what to do in case of an atomic bomb attack. It made me grin so hard, I just have to share this video...
Enjoy.
After the lecture, I had a coffee with Petra and Maddie W (a media com/ commerce student) to pass the time before my next tute.
USA Today tute was ok, I was a little less vocal than I was the previous week, only managing to come up with a pretty weak one-sentence summation of Joseph McCarthy's drumming up of nationalistic sentiment to veil his own political agenda. Ah, well. Rest of the tute was spent at the library, learning at how to use microfilm. It’s all very cool and Veronica Mars-y, but damn! It’s confusing.
Cinema Studies Tute was horribly discouraging. Everyone seems to be some kind of film conniseur, so I ended up feeling very stupid and clueless. I might speak to my tutor about this, but hell, no way am I going to pull the “oh comfort me and tell me I’m ok and I’ll be alright and everything’s gonna work out” because this shit isn’t gonna stick.
Two very bright spots in my day: the first was while Alex and I were walking to the library, we started discussing Ugly Betty. Alex started to grimace, and I thought he was going to rant about how clichéd and boring the show is (the former I agree with slightly, the latter notion I vehemently oppose) but he went on to say with no small amount of passion and sincerity…
“I don’t think she’s [Betty] ugly in the least. I don’t think she’s ugly at all! In fact, I think she’s gorgeous.”
I was momentarily stunned, and very, very moved. I think I was speechless for a while. He has a beautiful soul, that Alex, truly.
The second bright spot: L___ called to meet up with me tomorrow. I cannot explain why this makes me happy, but it really does.
Sunday
Traipsing around town with the Singapore Students Society. The programme for the day was a choice between *nudges Jiawei* wisecracking socialists and whiny Singaporeans, and in the end the promise of free mutton curry, coconut rice and cheng teng soup won out.
I had a good time (mostly) and I made some more new friends. I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations here… But. But. (Some) Singaporean men are horrifically sexist, racist and apathetic. Somehow it slipped out that I have feminist leanings (I think I was saying something about how women should do compulsory NS) and it led on to sexism, and somehow someone ended up telling me that men suffer more from sexism, because of the need to look ‘buff, suave and cool’ to attract teh ‘chio bus’. You know, I don’t think I have the breath or energy to go into the whole eating disorder phenomena that affects mainly females; the pressure to fit a certain image of feminity (which takes bloody long, hard work); and women being valued primarily based on their appearance. I don’t deny that men suffer from having to fit certain moulds, and I deplore that this is the case and want it to be changed, but I think we can cut the crap about the whole “men suffer too, boo hoo”. Men suffer because of sexism, but not nearly as much as women do. The only way forward is to liberate everyone from enforced gender roles. But that ain’t gonna happen if you want to put men’s suffering as the ‘more important’ suffering. It’s ridiculous. This. Is. Not. The. Opression. Olympics!!!
I made a new friend from RMIT, JX, and while I think he’s a likeable person, I hated the fact that he thought he had every right to comment on my appearance, as if I was some piece of public property that needed critical evaluation. He didn’t make any disparaging remarks about me, which I would never have stood for anyway. Though his comments were fairly neutral observations, they reveal a disturbing sense of entitlement (ho ho, my favourite new phrase of my crazy new phase) about feeling free to discuss other people’s property (their bodies). Points that he thought were apparently up for grabs in the discussion department:
1) That I wore contacts
2) That I pluck my eyebrows (although he had the nerve to tell me my eyebrows were too long at the edge – wtf??)
3) have thick hair
4) and apparently now I have a ‘dislike of accessories’ (erm, just because I wasn’t wearing any yesterday doesn’t mean I dislike accessories – hell, I have tons of them at home)
Hello, Captain Obvious. How about you pick my brain, and stop picking on my looks? Jeebus.
Monday
USA Today lecture. Sat in between Petra and Alex (ooh la la) , two very lovely people. Our third USA lecture of the semester had the entire hall giggling after we were shown "Duck and Cover", a 50s propaganda film featuring Bert the Turtle, who buoyantly tells us what to do in case of an atomic bomb attack. It made me grin so hard, I just have to share this video...
Enjoy.
After the lecture, I had a coffee with Petra and Maddie W (a media com/ commerce student) to pass the time before my next tute.
USA Today tute was ok, I was a little less vocal than I was the previous week, only managing to come up with a pretty weak one-sentence summation of Joseph McCarthy's drumming up of nationalistic sentiment to veil his own political agenda. Ah, well. Rest of the tute was spent at the library, learning at how to use microfilm. It’s all very cool and Veronica Mars-y, but damn! It’s confusing.
Cinema Studies Tute was horribly discouraging. Everyone seems to be some kind of film conniseur, so I ended up feeling very stupid and clueless. I might speak to my tutor about this, but hell, no way am I going to pull the “oh comfort me and tell me I’m ok and I’ll be alright and everything’s gonna work out” because this shit isn’t gonna stick.
Two very bright spots in my day: the first was while Alex and I were walking to the library, we started discussing Ugly Betty. Alex started to grimace, and I thought he was going to rant about how clichéd and boring the show is (the former I agree with slightly, the latter notion I vehemently oppose) but he went on to say with no small amount of passion and sincerity…
“I don’t think she’s [Betty] ugly in the least. I don’t think she’s ugly at all! In fact, I think she’s gorgeous.”
I was momentarily stunned, and very, very moved. I think I was speechless for a while. He has a beautiful soul, that Alex, truly.
The second bright spot: L___ called to meet up with me tomorrow. I cannot explain why this makes me happy, but it really does.
Labels: Sexism, University
# posted by me lah @ 9:15 pm 
