Friday, January 9, 2015

F-ck Tropes and Resolutions


Day 3: Hair Styles vs. Games

Since my marriage fell apart I have attempted to style my hair every single day.  I say “attempt” because my hair is still mostly big, glittering, and unruly but not for lack of hot irons and smeared goop.
  

Forfeiting my Girl Card

I know that I am not an unfortunate looking woman.  However, I have never been a girly-girl.  I do not enjoy shopping and do not feel like its necessary to purchase special occasion attire annually: I have a good LBD.  I do not own a cache of smelly lotions and perfumes.  I do not coordinate things like make-up, accessories, or jewelry for occasions or seasons.  I like the color black because you can wear it all year round.  If I have a special occasion I have to watch youtube tutorials for how to apply make-up and eyeliner or just pay someone to do it for me.  My mother-in-law helps with the girl-ifcation process and is in many ways my own personal shopper.  I am compelled to mention her during this post and give her credit, because if you are pleased by my appearance you should know she has bought the majority of the make-up, purses, and jewelry I own.     

I spend my spare time watching Hulu, reading books, doing yoga, and now a lot of time (gasp) playing games.  But now that I am having relationship troubles I feel like the fact that I am a semi-attractive geek is not enough.  Society and culture condition us to believe that if things go wrong it is probably because we aren’t pretty enough.  And I did not write this blog post fishing for validation, praise, or compliments (comments are completely un-necessary).  I wrote it because it is not fair that women are made to feel shitty about themselves when we do not have a Sephora card.  Even in the midst of how crappy I feel about myself, I have resisted going into the make-up mecca because of my firm belief that if it’s not on Amazon prime I can live without it.

Resolutions

The New Year has amplified the problem, including the many smart educated women in my life, everyone seems obsessed with looking better.  Not being happy but physically looking better.

Resolved 2015:

I will daily remind myself that my brain makes me hot.
I will continue to not go to Sephora.
I will spend more time gaming than primping (FYI grooming aka showers is not primp).

Tropes

I wrote about in my masters thesis a topic that has been popularized by Anita Sarkeesian that gaming tropes are not helping women.  Side note: I am totally geeking out about Joss and Anita hanging out and talking patriarchy.  As a geek I think that I am immune from social standards of beauty but that’s a big ole’ lie.  Booth babes, hypersexualized female game characters, and young attractive gaming journalists continue to make women geeks feel like shit.  I am writing this post because I don’t want to save my relationship by looking more like Christie Monteiro, Chun Li, or Lara Croft.  Instead, I am just going to keep being an awesome professor with hermoine hair, non-trope curves, and a ginormous brain.  

Beauty Rant Ended Some Other Stuff About Playing Games

Playing: Diablo 3
System: PS4
Developer: Blizzard

Reflection: Last night was my best friends birthdays so after a yoga class I joined her at a local gastro pub for a night out.  After I got home the kids were asleep and lunches were packed so I picked up my controller and played Diablo 3.  The bad news is that when you have had a margarita sometimes you run up to your party members thinking they are enemies in game.  The good news is that I leveled up twice, looted some new gear, and took the lead on teleportation. 


We decided yesterday that my husband should do some guest blogging.  We will ease into that with an interview format and maybe he will build up to actually contributing his own reflections.  Overall, it might be good to have more than a one sided conversation with the internet.

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