The Pursuader

A machine gun shaped handbag.

Then there's The Peace-keeper


These are by a guy named James Piatt and there's more on his website. To be honest I don't quite know what to think about any of it. There's a lot of 'glamour' photos of women in odd situations. One poor woman is completely swamped by potatoes and only has a shiny handbag for protection.

OK this is more like what I mean

It comes from a site called Radical Cross Stitch (Australian):

Earthsharing Australia has a campaign to visually demonstrate the true picture of the housing affordability crisis. Every time you hear the real estate lobby arguing for more land release on the fringes of cities, ask yourself what they’re doing with the land that’s already zoned residential, already has infrastructure and in heaps of cases already has a house on it!

So we decided to do a cross stitch about the I Want To Live Here Campaign to highlight to the people of Newcastle the madness that is going on in their own city.

I'm not only interested in fabric/sewing related things, but I suppose they are stereotypically 'anti-masculine'. I'm not even looking for that really... It's about resistance without the blood and sweat, and probably without the bombs to be fair. I don't know... but it's absolutely not about feminism.

Matt's right in that I have no content. I have no target. This is what I need.

But if my target had been property developers, I think this is how I would like to have approached it.

Sick and aimless

Because I'm not very good at doing nothing at all, I thought I'd just make something for the hell of it. It was going to be a crocheted grenade [not because I think it's a good idea just to keep my fingers occupied]. I found these on flickr.




I like them in a way. They are much weirder and 'real' than the pink and green 'sculptures' of weapons. Why the hell would you make a cosy for a grenade? I can't think of any reason whatsoever, except because you can. See them all here.

On a Barbara Kruger trail

With regard to the content of the resistance, i actually think that Barbara Kruger is great. Although it's full on feminism, that i know Laura wants to avoid, she does highlight and communicate some of the 'top issues'. Here is a couple of examples;


This i like because of its link to the masculine idea of the hero.


And this because it highlights the personal body space as a place of resistance.

Consumed

I think the feminized resistance project could go in a few different directions... Looking at the Fight Club catalogue and thinking about Project Mayhem, it's really important that they are resisting capitalism - the overwhelming cultural pressure to consume. I think, as designers, this is something that we are uncomfortable with. So far, we've avoided discussing the 'content' of the resistance... maybe we need to explore specifics?

When 'resistance' is prefaced with 'feminized', is it important to link it to the act of consumption - shopping? Are the acts of resistance, acts of resistance against the stereotype of feminised consumption?

Feminine Arsenal

This is brilliant. Watch the clip below, keeping a special eye out for the pink one. They are the Himitsu Sentai Goranger(s), and she is Peggy Matsuyama (ペギー 松山, Pegī Matsuyama) or Momo Ranger. According to her description she has;

an assortment of uniquely "feminine" weapons. Her heart-shaped earrings doubled as high impact bombs which she would hurl with a curt taunt -- "Are you ready?... Here we go!" (いいわね・・・行くわよ！, Ii wa ne... Iku wa yo!?). She also carried heart-shaped "Momo Card" throwing shurikens, and a "Momo Mirror" jamming device which would confuse and confound her opponents.

SEE HER HERE!!!! The earring are the most amazing things: they aren't attached to her ears!!

This one's even better: at 3 minutes in you see her grab an earring and chuck it.

Whatever these are...

They do look a bit like hair nets now I look at them again.

Vilma the Activist

So this was Vilma today in her coincidentally crocheted hat. She made it herself. The badges might be the way to go because I am not convinced about the flowers I am currently using (too cliched). Vilma's hat-wearing today has convinced me that the hats are on the right lines, although perhaps they do need a bit of extra room in them.

A different sort of anarchist? not that i fully understand what it is to be one.

Female Anarchists

Emma Goldman (1869-1940)


Frederica Montseny (1905-1994)


Rose Pesotta (1896-1965)


Famous Female Anarchists all look very similar.

Female Fight Club 3

Jimmy says my female heroine might look like


So I will borrow Death Proof and report back.

What I think about Pat butchers earrings. (but might be wrong)

it seems to me that she uses the larger earrings as a device for instilling
respect even fear, the larger they are the more terrifying.

They operate like the mane of a lion or the heckles of a dog acting to
intimidate in moments of heightened arousal when she needs to be at her most
'Pat'.
This is demonstrated in the image with the black droppers huge
impressive and we see her (and her scary but sometimes sensitive mate)
coiled like a mighty spring.

The more modest ones (yellow dangly 'cut' amber) seem to be employed when
she is in a more sensitive, reflective or philosophical mood and seem to
reflect a calmer state.

With the diamante danglers we see Pat in a state of brave misery. These were
probably sported for a date or a reunion that went wrong.

The classic pink droppers depict Pat in a defiant mood. Possible scenarios
include a great night out with Roy with some family secret threatening to
reveal itself and Pat saying "don't you dare ruin my special night out you
tart, it's my anniversary"

I agree the Black ones are very classy especially with the cigarette. I
think in this image Pat is preparing almost meditating on Patness what it
means to be Pat and how Pat will be ready for everything that life throughs
at Pat.

Nb: I have never seen her wearing green earrings and I wonder what it would
mean if she did.

Female Fight Club 2

What I'm not sure about right now, is whether this is about reality or fiction. Whether I'm concerned with the actual trappings of female social/cultural resistance or with mainstream representations (film mainly I suppose). Here is an attempt to drag from my brain the raw material of this idea...

Most of my favourite films involve male protagonists in roles that have no adequate 'feminine' equivalent. When I watch these films I am drawn to certain characters with whom I identify: I imagine myself as them. But they are men. I don't fantasise about being with them, I want to be them. Clearly this is an uncomfortable state of affairs because, of course, I have no desire to be male. But, I want a way of seeing a woman in the way that I see those men without her being masculine, lesbianised (in the perjorative sense of showing lesbian women as overly butch) or leathered and kick-ass.

It's also not to do with Feminism.

It's because I want there to be a female version of Blondie [Clint Eastwood]. Or Tyler Durden.



Which is where the Fight Club bit comes in. Essentially my view of Fight Club is that it is anti-advertising/media. It is about rejecting contemporary roles and anxieties which are 'forced' upon us by largely capitalist regimes. It deals with a set of issues which is not exclusive to men: it just focuses on them from a male perspective. Fight Club and its message could quite easily be reversed as a bunch of women hell-bent on Anarchy and social reconfiguration.

But then, what would it look like? As I am thinking a lot about representations rather than actualities (real anarchists do not look or act like Tyler Durden etc.) then maybe that's where it has to stay. It's a fictional project with no real-world context.

I don't know.

Female Fight Club

The project examines a feminised approach to social and cultural resistance, it begins to study and critique the overtly masculinised mode of anarchist behaviour embodied in films such as Fight Club. Throughout the media, resistance to dominant ideologies – capitalism, democracy, Christianity – is carried out largely by male protagonists, when strong female characters are included their femininity, sexuality and gender-centre is shifted to either a fetishised or de-sexualised state i.e. they’re either ‘lebian-ised’ or ‘croft-ified’ [ref: the word croftified has its origins in the ancient world of Tomb Raider].

How does political, economic and cultural resistance become embodied in the tools and objects that you surround yourself with? How can women adopt radical approaches to life without them loosing their ‘femininity’? What are the first rules of female fight club? How can alternative views and subversive action be taken to the ‘desperate housewives’ of suburban England?

Pat and Roy: The Earrings

So these show two sides of the relationship. There's clearly love and harmony in the first, but a potential melt down in the second. I think it's the flamboyance that indicates her emotional state. It's confidence (big and bold) verses no confidence (slightly more refined/simplified).

Femorist Hat

Feminine Terrorist's Hat.

Pretty Lady:


KAPOW!


There's quite a bit wrong with this first attempt. Colours don't work, face part too heavy and too loose, not quite enough facial coverage.

Tilly likes it though.

Pat Butcher and her earrings

We'll start with the pair we all know about. Nice and cheap. Probably Plastic.



Chains to the shoulders.



A bit like grapes.



Now these next ones look to me as though they might contain some type of dangerous liquid/nerve gas a la The Rock.



These are brilliant. Look how massive they are.



And finally, given the outfit I reckon this is a funeral. Superb earrings and a fag. Class.