Cupcake Fascism

I haven't published a blog post in quite some time because I have been unexpectedly busy over the last month. Since my schedule is yet to alleviate I thought it might be some time before I was able to write something. However, today I came across an article that enraged me to such an extent that I cannot possibly restrain myself from writing a rebuttal. 

What, you may wonder, could have evoked such apoplectic rage in this gentle soul? The Guardian today published an article portraying cupcakes as abominable and decrying their ubiquity as a form of fascism. As someone who bloody loves a good cupcake, I could not in good conscience let such a slander go unchallenged.

To start, author Tom Whyman pronounces that the cupcake "possesses none of the ideal essence of cakiness"; it is "neat, precise and uniform... dry, polite and low-fat." That is indeed a disparaging list of adjectives and I am left wondering where this poor sod has been acquiring his cupcakes. A good cupcake is absolutely smashing. Festooned with a crown of buttery, creamy magnificence, a cupcake is just as decadent as its full-sized brethren, just travel sized for your convenience. I know many splendid perveyors of baked goods who produce glorious concoctions stuffed full of jam, chocolate mousse, praline, gooey salted caramel, nuts and generously sized chocolate chunks. These gastronomical masterpieces are not uniform or polite and they are certainly not low-fat. 

I think poor Tom Whyman may have let his inexplicble bias against cupcakes blind him from their numerous advantages. He misconstrues their size as an attempt for "flat-stomached people who think consuming sweet things is 'a bit naughty'" to stop themselves from over-indulging. I don't eat cupcakes because I am under some illusion that they are somehow healthier due to their diminutive size. I don't eat cupcakes because I am trying to count calories or watch my figure. If I want to consume a whole, full-sized cake, I will do so. Unfortunately, cakes can be somewhat cumbersome and, luckily for me, cupcakes offer a far more convenient and portable alternative. I don't have the time to faff around acquiring crockery, cutlery and, ideally, a table every time I want to enjoy some sugary, spongey goodness. The cupcake, with its little paper cup negating the need for a plate, can be consumed anywhere and at any time.

Another advantage to the humble cupcake is the opportunity for variety. Tom Whyman seems to think that there is something inherently limiting about the cupcake. He dscribes them as "restrictive", "uniform" and "neat and predictable." But cupcakes are the very opposite of limiting and restrictive. The variety of available cupcake flavours these days is frankly mind-boggling. And, due to their small size, one is able to partake of a myriad of flavours in one go. If I eat a full-sized cake, I'm stuck with the same flavour from start to finish. If I eat four cupcakes (which, as friends and family will testify, I regularly do), I get a plethora of creative and varied flavours in one sitting! 

Tom Whyman goes on to argue that the "austerity of the cupcake-form" supposedly prevents us from embracing "the joy of being open to genuinely alternative possibilities." It utterly baffles me how anyone could argue that cupcakes prevent us from embracing alternative possibilities. The small size of the cupcake actually encourages risk taking. You might not be entirely convinced by a bacon, walnut and maple syrup cupcake, but you might as well give it a go since it's only little! Nothing encourages gastronomical discovery quite like the humble cupcake.

So, my poor Tom Whyman, I almost feel sorry for you for having evidently endured an entire lifetime of underwhelming cupcakes. I say 'almost' because once you are done disparaging the tiny but mighty cupcake, you then go on to disparage those who enjoy cupcakes and then I loose all sympathy for your plight; I will defend my fellow cupcake lovers with all the linguistic fortitude I can muster. 

Whyman's most damning criticism of cupcakes is that they are infantillising. The cupcake is for "never-never-land" adults; if you enjoy cupcakes you are "a cognitive child... drily conforming to a prescribed set of rules." Apparently my love for cupcakes has revealed me to be cognitively impaired and unable to "engage with the world in a way characterised by the joy of possibility." People who enjoy cupcakes are seemingly both stupid and narrow-minded; how infuriatingly patronising.

Tom Whyman's article is not the first time I have come across the argument that cupcakes are infantillising. It seems to be a pretty common opinion that those who enjoy cupcakes are developmentally regressive and desperately trying to cling on to an idealised childhood devoid of intellectual challenges or cognitive burdens.

Cupcakes are apparently infantallising because they are enjoyed by children. But there is something somewhat insidious with this argument. Fish and chips are enjoyed by children. As is mac and cheese. And yet these foods are not labelled as infantallising and those that enjoy them are not accused of "neurotically trying to remain a child." Why do cupcakes inspire such a fervently negative reaction compared to other beloved childhood foods?  Cupcakes are distinguished from other childish foods in that they are intrinsically feminine; cupcakes are not overwhelmingly associated with children but with women. Cupcakes have therefore been deemed by some people as childish and silly because women are still seen as childish and silly. The backlash against cupcakes is just part of a bigger problem in which anything associated with women or 'girliness' (the colour pink, dresses, the nursing profession) is seen as inferior or frivolous. 

I am an ambitious, intelligent, career-driven woman. My love of cupcakes is not an anathema to this. In fact, the conveniently portable cupcake fits perfectly into my busy, hectic, mentally stimulating lifestyle. So can people please stop denigrating things which are overtly 'girly' or feminine. It's not girliness which is the problem; it's the perception of girliness as inferior which is problematic. And someone please get Tom Whyman a good cupcake, maybe four...

Bits and Bobs

It's been a while since I've made a Bits and Bobs post which means I have loads of interesting links to share. Hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day - mine was spent eating ice cream and watching Star Wars. I regret nothing...

- Have you seen those articles making fun of stock images? Now Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In movement is partnering with Getty to make a collection of feminist friendly stock images.

- Screw expensive couple's therapy - apparently watching and discussing rom coms is good for your marriage.

- Check out this incredible article about a woman living with retrograde amnesia. 

- I don't believe that violent films make people violent but I do ponder whether films are, in general, getting more violent and what this says about our society. I therefore found it interesting when Harvey Weinstein recently announced that he's going to back away from making violent films - here's an interesting article discussing his decision and violent films in general. 

- Apparently the most successful online dating profiles are the ones that defy gender norms. Thank god I have a masters in war, making me the most desirable person on the internet.

- the weather has been crazy recently! Polar vortexes in the US, snow in Cairo, flooding in the UK - I'm pretty certain a weather-borne apocalypse is just round the corner. It's so bad, the penguins are apparently on anti-depressents. 

- I love this 1866 pamphlet arguing for female suffrage.

- Want to listen to an incredible jazz cover of Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine? Damn straight you do!

Have a wonderful week and stay safe with the weather. Maybe watch a couple of Roland Emmerich films and take some notes.

Bits and Bobs

I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend. I went rock climbing earlier today and I'm now in a whole world of pain. I have never been so grateful that I live in a ground floor flat before - my thighs do not enjoy staircases right now.

I'm afraid I'm a bit sparse on reading suggestions this week.

- Here's an interesting article looking at Downton Abbey and how it punishes the female characters any time they attempt to do something that subverts gender expectations.

- 3D printed cake?! My mind has been thoroughly blown.

- All my friends seem to be either getting married or attending a lot of weddings/ wedding-related gatherings. This all sounds like a lot of effort and is proving ridiculously expensive. Here's a very witty article talking about what it's like attending 18 weddings in one year.

- If I watch a tv programme or a film in which some computer genius must hack a computer system or otherwise do something clever with computers, I always wonder whether the text on the screen actually means anything or whether it's just been made up. My brother is a huge computer nerd and he always mutters grumpily under his breath when computers are depicted inaccurately on screen. I therefore found this article, deciphering the computer code shown in popular films, really interesting. 

Warning of What?

I recently read an interesting article over at Slate about 'trigger warnings'. Trigger warnings are tags included at the top of articles warning readers that the article may contain content that could trigger known mental illnesses, such as an eating disorder or post traumatic stress disorder. The trigger warnings allow the reader to decide whether they want to proceed with reading the article or give it a miss to avoid painful relapse or flashback.

The article specifically links these trigger warnings to feminist blogs. I'm not sure why such a correlation would exist (do feminists have more mental disorders or are feminist bloggers just more considerate to those who do?) but I think Slate is wrong to focus just on warnings on feminist blogs without considering the prevalence of warnings on all sorts of media.

Usually, I don't mind a warning when perusing the internet. I appreciate it when fashion blogs warn me whether a particular editorial contains nudity (particularly when I'm perusing while at work) and I appreciate it when news organisations warn me about particularly gory video content before I accidentally traumatise myself. And of course, warnings are not limited to the internet: most murder/ crime shows are accompanied by warnings pertaining to their graphic nature to warn off those with a delicate constitution. However, there are occasions when I'm confronted with a warning which makes me feel somewhat uneasy.

I was recently watching a documentary about Christianity, specifically it was debunking a number of myths about Jesus (for example, the shroud of Turin). The documentary was not particularly salacious or controversial and, to be honest, I probably would have forgotten about the whole thing if the documentary had not been accompanied by a somewhat peculiar warning. At the start of the documentary, and repeated after each ad break, was a title card reading something along the lines of, "warning: contains talk of Jesus." What mental disorder could possible be triggered by discussions of Jesus? Who was this warning supposed to benefit?

If you're non-Christian, you probably don't care what this documentary has to say about Jesus. If you are Christian, you're hopefully unafraid to engage with an academic debate that challenges your beliefs. And if you're Christian but also narrow-minded and uncritical, then you're probably exactly the kind of person who should be watching an informative documentary about theology. People should not be pilloried for their beliefs but neither should those beliefs go unquestioned and no-one should shy away from the opportunity to reassess or reaffirm their opinions. Warning people that there is healthy debate on religion afoot is not indicative of a thriving intellectual discourse in our media.

So, by all means, keep your trigger warnings on your blog posts if you want to discuss eating disorders or rape without exacerbating the trauma of those who have endured them. But we shouldn't have to warn people against intelligent or sensitive debate. When we start seeing warnings like, "warning: contains political views contrary to your own", or, "warning: champions minority opinions", then we know something has gone seriously awry.

Bits and Bobs

I moved flat this weekend - for the fourth time this year! But this time it's for good (at least for a very, very long time). All this moving is exhausting. I'm glad to have moved in time for Christmas though - it means I can enjoy Christmas day with my family without worrying about flat stuff. The new flat doesn't have the internet though which is pretty painful for me. How am I supposed to know what's going on in the world without the internet?

Well, here's what I've been reading this last week:

- This live, worldwide wind simulation is pretty awesome (and oddly therapeutic). Position the globe so that the Antarctic is in the centre of your screen and it looks pretty cool.

- Here's a fascinating article about putting a sculpture on the moon. It's a shame that the whole endeavour became marred with politics, money and scandal because I love art and I love the idea of art being a part of the space programme.

- Life-size Origami elephant?! Yes please!

- This article articulates what I have thought for a long time regarding the Lord of the Rings and, more recently, the Hobbit films - New Zealand, while beautiful, doesn't look like the Middle Earth that I had in mind when reading the books. Peter Jackson should have stuck with the landscapes that Tolkien had in mind when filming: the dank and old countryside of Yorkshire and Ireland.

- I love this article about writing about women in science. By focusing on their gender, we do a disservice to their contributions to science. This is obviously applicable to women in all male-dominated fields but this article is wonderfully argued.

- I've often heard/ read that Marilyn Monroe was a size 14. Usually this little factoid is trotted out every time someone wants to say something about body acceptance or the need for greater diversity in Hollywood or fashion. However, as someone who has seen numerous Marilyn outfits at assorted Hollywood costume exhibitions, I know that this is a lie. Marilyn Monroe was tiny! Here's an article looking at the myth of Marilyn's body size and why her love of books is more important than her dress size.

- There are so, so many articles every week about Millenials. However these articles are always about the Millenials living in the Western, liberal world (mostly America) and lack any kind of global context. This great (and somewhat depressing) article tries to remedy this oversight by looking at the Millenials coming of age in Syria.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Criticising the Hobbit and Exploring Tolkien's Feminist Credentials

 

I saw the new Hobbit film, The Desolation of Smaug, yesterday and I, unsurprisingly, have opinions. I’m a huge fan of Tolkien’s books and I think when you’re a fan of a book you can have two responses when that book is then adapted into a film: either you hate it irrespective of quality because no film can ever compare to the film that played out in your head when you were reading OR you love it despite its flaws because you’re just so pleased to return to a world that engrossed you for hours. I suspect that I probably fall into the latter category because I could tell that the film was flawed (so very, very flawed) but I still found myself enjoying it.

The first Hobbit film was infamous for making people sick with its super high definition, frenetic camera work and its frantically paced action scenes. This film is definitely an improvement in this regard but Peter Jackson still makes some odd choices with the shooting of certain scenes.

The constantly moving camera in some sections is disorientating. The camera will sweep, while pivoting, over characters as they move through scenes, making it virtually impossible to follow the characters or the action. I don’t remember this being a problem for the Lord of the Things trilogy but the swooshing, swirling camera is frustratingly persistent here. Why has Peter Jackson suddenly decided that dizzying camera movements are the way forward?

And when did Peter Jackson get so keen on close-ups? There are so many shots of people’s faces really, really up close and I can’t quite figure out what these shots are supposed to show except that Peter Jackson has a really nifty camera.

Cinematographic criticism aside, what about the actual story? After the first Hobbit, I don’t think anyone was really surprised that this second film is not particularly faithful to the book. I personally don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. The 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park, starring Frances O’Connor and Jonny Lee Miller, is such a poor adaptation of Jane Austen's novel that I tend to think of it as ‘inspired by’ the novel rather than an actual adaptation. I can still enjoy it as an Austen-inspired, regency romp, just not as a book adaptation.

I think it’s best to view the Hobbit films in the same way. The original book is pretty short so by making the decision to turn it into three films, it is inevitable that there’s going to be a lot of additional stuff thrown in there. Most obviously, a lot of characters that were not in the original book have been added to the films, like Radagast the Brown, Galadriel and Legolas. But for the Desolution of Smaug they have not only added Tolkein characters where they don’t belong, they’ve invented a whole new character! A lady elf!

The introduction of a new female character was a welcome move to me. As much as I love Tolkien’s books, they are woefully devoid of female characters. I was really surprised while reading an interview with Hobbit screenwriter, Philippa Boyens, when she said that, “Tolkien writes brilliantly for women.” Really?! Has Philippa Boyens actually read Tolkien?

When the Lord of the Rings books were made into a film trilogy, the female characters of the books were all substantially bolstered. This makes sense because modern audiences and critics expect the inclusion of female characters, even if they are often rather shallow. A lot of time and energy is spent dissecting the portrayal of women in films and Swedish cinemas have just introduced a film rating that judges a film on its gender bias. So Peter Jackson wisely took the virtually non-existent female characters from the books and made them into actual characters.

Out of all the female characters, Arwen is the one that is altered the most from books to films. That epic horse chase with Arwen carrying an ailing Frodo away from the Nazgul? Not in the book. Arwen’s internal conflict over whether she should go with her fellow elves to Valinor or stay in Middle Earth? Also no. Arwen is a complete non-entity in the books. Other characters mention her and how beautiful she is but that’s pretty much it. So I have no problem with Peter Jackson plonking her in an action sequence and giving her an internal conflict over her future.

Galadriel’s role is essentially the same in the books and the film. Galadriel is adored because she’s beautiful – that’s pretty much it.

And then of course we have Eowyn. Eowyn is a sword wielding, Witch-King killing badass in both the books and the films, it’s just that her part is obviously bolstered in the films. Eowyn feels stifled by the gender expectations of her society, she’s good with a sword, and she defies her father to go to battle. So you could perhaps argue that Eowyn shows that Tolkein can write feminist characters but you would be wrong. At the end of Return of the King, Eowyn meets Faramir, they fall hastily in love, and Eowyn declares that her days of shield maiden-ing are over. The book makes it sound like being a badass is just a phase that women go through while waiting for the perfect man to turn up.

Peter Jackson made the right choices in the Lord of the Rings films in bolstering the roles of the female characters and I think the introduction of the female elf character, Tauriel, in the Desolation of Smaug was a good idea as well. And they haven’t just added a token female character; she’s actually quite interesting. She’s a competent fighter who can hold her own like any of the male characters and she’s conflicted in her responsibility to her people vs her desire to help the people beyond the borders of her home. Since the Hobbit films have A LOT of characters, she’s about as developed as she could be. I just hope she’s developed through the next film and not just sidelined and forgotten.

War Between Women

 Don't be fooled by the smiles; we all hate each other...sluts...

A study was recently published in the journal, Aggressive Behaviour, which apparently shows that women will act bitchy towards other women they see as promiscuous. Several websites have reported on the study but, disappointingly, haven't pointed out how epicly flawed it is. In the study, 86 participants were left in a room with another woman (either a friend or a stranger) and told they would be contributing to a study on friendship. Instead they were interrupted by another woman. Half the women encountered a pretty, blonde woman in a blue t-shirt and sensible chinos. The other half encountered the same woman in a hot-pink, low-cut top, mini-skirt and knee-high boots.

The participants' reactions to this interloper were assessed according to a 'bitchiness' score of 1-10.  The authors of the study, Vaillancourt and Sharma, found that the participants were more likely to be bitchy when the 'sexy' woman walked into the room and that their bitchiness was more pronounced when the participants were with friends, rather than strangers. The authors concluded that women stifle each other's sexuality through indirect aggression, bitchiness, because women use sex to negotiate with men and it is therefore in their best interest to punish promiscuous women to maintain a limited supply of sex. Vaillancourt's study is small but supposedly demonstrates slut-shaming in an experimental context.

To me, the first, and most obvious, criticism is the very concept of a 'bitchiness score'. Observing someone's reactions and placing them on a 'scale of bitch' seems preposterously unscientific, even by psychology's standards. Is an eye-roll more bitchy than a laugh? Is a smirk more bitchy than a glare? And facial expressions may not always accurately portray someone's opinions. A participant may have an excellent poker face - that doesn't mean she's not thinking bitchy things. Given psychologists' propensity for questionnaires, why not use a carefully crafted questionnaire to quantify the participants' opinions rather than the far less rigourous method of observation? Of course observation can be an invaluable tool for scientists in experiments but you can't arbitrarily assign numbers to vague observations and then think you can make meaningful conclusions from an analysis of those numbers. 

I also question whether the woman's differing outfits really convey what the authors want them to convey to the participants. 'Sexiness' is an incredibly subjective attribute. I don't think her outfit looks sexy, I think it looks immensely unflattering (hot-pink is no one's friend). And even if we were to decide that there is only one universally recognised standard of 'sexiness', sexy is not coterminous with promiscuous. I can think that someone is sexy and not think of them as a potential home-wrecker.

Even if we were to accept that bitchiness can be objectively measured, and that 'sexiness' and 'promiscuity' were both coterminous and universally recognised, the study still fails to show that women slut-shame other women because it excludes men. Various news sites have picked up on this study to conclude that there exists a war between women. But if men also show this same behaviour against people they perceive to be their sexual rivals, clearly we don't have a war between women but just war between people. Other studies have in fact shown that both men and women display competitive behaviour, using strategies of self-promotion and competitor derogation. This experiment is only half of the story and any conclusions about female behaviour, as separate from human behaviour more generally, are completely unfounded.

What the Fashion Industry Could Learn from the US Military

A petition on Change.org, requesting the restriction of ‘thinspiration’ language on twitter, has just reached 1,781 signatures. Thinspiration is a portmanteau meaning ‘inspiration to be thin’, which has become associated with pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia communities on several popular social media sites. The petition argues that permitting thinspiration language and imagery to proliferate on social media sites results in the promotion of unhealthy body types and encourages young women to develop eating disorders. Pinterest and Tumblr have already taken steps to remove thinspiration content; now twitter is being pressured to do the same.

Reading about this petition has brought me back to thinking about the ongoing discussion of the size zero phenomenon. The debate on size zero reached frenzied heights in 2006 when models Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston died from anorexia, resulting in Madrid Fashion Show banning size zero models. Milan Fashion Week followed suit shortly after, prohibiting models with a Body Mass Index lower than 18. The frenzy seems to have abated somewhat in recent years but the gaunt models, and the followings they have online, remain. 

Those opposed to size zero have long bandied around names of who is to blame. It’s the model agencies’ fault for hiring only unhealthily skinny girls. It’s the fashion magazine industry’s fault for publishing photos of visibly bony models. Now it’s social media’s fault for not banning the language used to promote unhealthy body ideals.

But for me this debate ultimately comes down to design because, at essence, that is surely what fashion is all about. Strip away the magazines, the photographers, the stylists and the model agencies, and what you’re left with is the designers… designing. If we want to ensure that women in the fashion industry are a healthy size, we need to start designing clothes for healthy-sized women. It’s here that the fashion industry could learn a lot from the US military.

Pentagon officials and engineers have historically built a bias against women’s bodies into military technologies through the use of restrictive design guidelines. Military Standard 1472 suggests the use of 95^th and 5^th percentile male dimensions when designing military systems. By using this standard, only 10% of the male population cannot be accommodated by a given design feature. Unfortunately, the gap between a 5^th percentile woman and a 95^th percentile man is vast. A significant number of women are thus deemed ineligible to use a variety of military systems.

The most well-known case of bias against women’s bodies in military design is the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS). Originally, the JPATS specifications included a 34-inch minimum sitting height in order to operate cockpit controls effectively and eject from the aircraft safely. However, at 34 inches, around 50-65% of the American female population was excluded. As a result, a significant number of women were prevented from pursuing aviation careers by prohibiting them from JPATS training.

Change was eventually achieved through government interference. Former Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, publicly recognised that women should play a greater role in the military through a directive issued in April 1993. Then, in 1994, the Defense Authorisation Bill was passed, including a provision which prevented the Air Force from spending $40 million of its $41.6 million trainer budget unless the Pentagon altered the cockpit design for the JPATS (Weber, 1997; 245). The Clinton Administration, reeling from the embarrassment of its poor handling of gays in the military and trying to make a stand against an increasingly confrontational Pentagon, was the driving force behind innovation in cockpit design.

Excluding women from air combat because they couldn’t fit into cockpits was deemed unacceptable. Excluding healthy women from the fashion industry because they can’t fit into the clothes should be deemed similarly intolerable. 

Of course the pressures applied to the military cannot be applied to commercial companies. With military procurement, the state is the consumer and thus the issue of design is political, making it open to discussion from interest groups and control from legislation (Weber, 1997; 236). With commercial production, design remains an economic issue, viewed in terms of managerial preference and profit calculus. Thus, commercial cockpit design lags significantly behind the military in addressing problems in accommodating women’s bodies.

But it shouldn’t be assumed that fashion houses are immune to pressure. Prada, Versace and Armani all agreed to stop using stick-thin models when faced with criticism from the Italian Government and general public following the two models’ deaths in 2006. And design innovation can be financially rewarding as well. Todashi Shoji has built his career on designing for all ages, ethnicities and figures. His numerous dresses designed for voluptuous actress Octavia Spencer’s red carpet appearances, including the stunning sparkling number she wore to receive her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2012, are always at the top of best dressed lists.

If we want to combat the idolisation of unhealthy body types, limiting what can be said on social media is only going to achieve so much. Instead, as with combating bias against female bodies in military technology, we need to go to the heart of the problem, and that means compelling innovation in design. 

Bibliography

Weber, R N (1997) 'Manufacturing Gender in Commercial and Military Cockpit Design' in Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol 22/2

If you want to read more about gender and military technology...

Golstein, J F (2001) War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa

Richman-Loo, N and Weber, R (1996) 'Gender and Weapons Design' in It's Our Military Too! WOmen and the US Military, ed. Judith Hicks Stein

Smart, T L (1998) 'Fast Women: Or why women who fly high performance aircraft are fast but not loose', in Australian Military Medicine, Vol 7