Accomplishment chart, 6/14 – 6/20

For the week of 6/14 – 6/20:

Writing
- finished the second edit of Mrs. Loring
- 4 blog entries
- 7 daily Hipster Feminist tweets

Theater
- performed in four Merchant of Venice preshows with Zero Point Theater
- submitted Public Enemy for consideration for performance and reading
- submitted No Clean Break for consideration for performance
- submitted The Late Mrs. Chadwick for consideration for performance
- submitted Work-Life Balance for consideration for performance
- submitted Mrs. Hawking for consideration for two readings
- submitted Mrs. Hawking for consideration for performance
- worked on memorizing lines for A Midsummer Night’s Tempest
- had rehearsal for A Midsummer Night’s Tempest
- had a reading dinner for the second edit of Mrs. Loring

Sewing/Costuming
- helped clean out and organized HTP storage
- got some costumes for Watch City Players
- sewed decorative patches onto a costume for Caucasian Chalk Circle

Literature/Media
- read the second half of The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Berthold Brecht
- listened to the Cabin Pressure Christmas special

Physical
- 1 one-hour circuit workout
- 1 hour ballet practice
- 30 minutes walking around town

Cooking
- made inaccessible rice and roasted sweet potatoes

New Tumblr: Traditionally masculine men doing traditionally feminine things

I've started a new Tumblr, in addition to the one I use as a purely self-indulgent collection of pictures I like (which ends up being mostly just shirtless shots of Captain America.) This one is dedicated to images of men who have a presentation that reads as traditionally masculine while participating in an activity that reads as traditionally feminine. I've always loved this combination, as it suits both my aesthetics and my belief that shouldn't be any proscribed gendered behavior. I like men who are secure enough in themselves to do whatever it is they want to do, regardless of whether our society traditionally codes those activities as "unmanly." Feminism of course requires women to enter into fields they were kept out of because of their genders, but it also requires celebrating instead of devaluing the work women traditionally did-- sewing, childcare, nursing, teaching, and all other such fields. And, as valuable pursuits, to encourage men to participate in them too.

The thought that inspired this was when I learned that apparently Jeremy Renner, the hard-as-nails-looking actor who plays Hawkeye in The Avengers, paid the bills while struggling to make it by being a makeup artist. And not like, movie monster makeup, traditional feminine made-up-face kind of makeup. I love the idea that somebody who reads SO HARDBUTCH was interested in something coded SO SOFTFEMME. It's very attractive, and I just love the extremity of the contrast.

One of these days I would like to design a costume that if you boiled it down to its literal component parts, the ensemble would be coded as feminine-- like, high-heeled shoes, a skirt, a corset, items that tend to read as gendered female --but designed in such a way as, when worn by a man, would instead come off as masculine. Like, give those gendered clothing items enough characteristics that read as masculine as to cancel out their feminine signifiers. "Harder" styling, dark colors, metal, leather, geometric shapes, heaviness, solidity. The corset would emphasize a masculine shape rather than a curvy feminine one. Stuff like that. I'd love to design a look like this and then take pictures of some male-bodied person wearing it. I like how it would mess with people's perception of societal coding.