Short rant incoming. I'm currently watching MasterChef Australia which I love for it's good-vibes-only approach and this time, genuinely super talented home cooks. They recently had a challenge where they had to recreate a dish inspired by the person they looked up to most with regards to cooking. Every single contestant named a mother, grandmother or a nonna - unsurprisingly. Their stories were super nice and they praised these wonderful women in their lives, not just for their ability to whip up a meal out of nothing but their devotion to their families, their strength, determination, love, etc. Overall really great stuff. Left me quite teary-eyed.
After each contestant had shared their own story, the judge then goes on to say "each one of you mentioned a member of your family as your inspiration" and I rolled my eyes so bloody hard. No, they didn't do just that, though. They all named women.
It might sound like a small thing but I reckon the food industry specifically is one of those fields where women make basically all of the work & invent all of the things (at least have done so historically); and manage to make meals and food something so important to us socially and culturally. And then some snobby dudes come along and act as if they single-handedly came up with the concept of cooking. Fuck off already!!
I'm so tired seeing women being sidelined in these tiny yet meaningful ways. Nearly every cook or chef who's asked about their inspiration name their mothers or grandmothers, but still zero to none of the actual credit goes to them. They were, you see, just these stepping stones for the marvelous men to enter the picture and make cooking cool and great. Ughhh.
The food industry is also massively misogynistic (to the surprise of no one) so it pisses me off that even this small gesture of saying "you were all inspired by the women in your lives" seems like too much to ask. Stop omitting us from our own history and this important part of our cultures and lives! You did not invent this.
We did.
Love!!
I highly recommend her Instagram, I’ve been following her for a couple years & first heard about her on radfem tumblr. She talks a lot about the female experience. She does AMAZING things with her hair. She discusses how she doesn’t shave, how only women get periods, etc.
She’s amazing. <3
So gorgeous. I love her work.
Also, there’s a radfem tumblr?
There’s a huge radfem & GC community on tumblr. It’s amazing!
Oh wow! I had no idea. I’ve been thinking about exploring tumblr again (haven’t used it since college, lol)
There's a very active radfem Tumblr.
That’s awesome! I’ll try to find the community! I’m assuming we can’t link to them, but if we can, are there any specific large blogs you’d recommend?
this woman is such a breath of fresh air. her instagram captions always contain insightful discussion of womens issues using clear, female-centric language, and i've never seen a single TRA whining about it in her comments, just other women praising and supporting her. love it!!
Beautiful. Nothing quite like seeing a woman create beauty through her art, soul and culture.
When I was a kid I was a nerd. I'm a totally Cool Stacy now, of course, but before I became Cheer Captain and was chosen for Prom Queen, I spent hours in the school library. A particularly favorite topic of mine was other cultures past and present, how they did their clothes and hair and fashion in general. I remember looking at pictures like these. The text was often too above my comprehension level but I remember being so impressed, flicking page after page in wonder.
Amazing. I love seeing modern recreations of historical hairstyles and clothing, especially when the artist is only going from paintings or photographs and has to guess what tools and techniques were used. I wonder how she managed it?
These are awesome. The skills are mind blowing. I can't even curl my hair.
These are so beautiful. One of Angela Bassett's headdresses was similar to one of these styles.
These are so cool! Gorgeous, too. And I can't imagine the amount of work/skill involved.
Thanks for sharing.
Very interesting. I'd always heard that black peoples' hair grows up, not down. It's cool to see them use that trait to their advantage in their styles.
Here is an article about Laetitia KY with cool photos of her cool hair and some interesting quotes:
I would love to know the technique and products used.
I love seeing women reclaim traditional dress and cultural hairstyles. This is beautiful
I love this account. I see more and more younger black women ditching the weaves and wigs in favor of natural hair and I love it. When I was in high school it was practically unheard of for girls to show up without wigs, or at least without spending hours trying to straighten and tame your hair lest someone dub you a "nappy headed hoe" for the next few months. This is one of the very few things I think social media is making a positive change with.