BirthMarkings: A beautiful Documentary Project

This beautiful short film is a project by Margaret Lazarus.  It is moving to watch.


So much of our lives as women, we battle with our bodies and unrealistic beauty standards all around us.  Lazarus makes the poetic comparison between birth markings on womens' bodies and the effects of nature in our universe.  We are inspired by the beauty of swept sands, aging trees or layers upon layers of rocky sediment, yet the marks of stories and creativity on post-birth bodies are often erased by cosmetic surgery or hidden, and called ugly.


Sometimes, simply the visibility of our beauty and diversity can help us reframe our perception.  May you come away with a fresh perspective on birth markings as well.

From the filmmaker, Margaret Lazarus:

The idea for this project began percolating in my mind when I learned that the fastest growing plastic surgery for women was the post-birth tummy tuck. I started to think about what it means that we want to erase the signs of something so important and profoundly creative as giving birth. I wanted to explore this with women of different ages, backgrounds and experiences. BirthMarkings is a result of this exploration. I saw that so many of us internalized negative messages about our post-birth bodies, but that images of the passage of time, and the impact of physical forces on earth, trees, sand, stone and in space could be seen as beautiful. I wanted to reframe the image of the post birth body in this way. When I talked about this project I was overwhelmed by the number of women who offered to show me their stretch marks and scars and wanted to be part of this film. One of the biggest challenges was to select only some of their stories. Through the making and the showing of this film at festivals and in public spaces, I am continually reminded about how powerfully women are affected by the commodification of our bodies and how important it is to relate what happens to our bodies after we create life to the beauty of the natural world.

Camera/Editor: Sarah Ledoux, Producer/Editor: Renner Wunderlich, Still Photography: Tricia O'Neill

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About the Author

Margaret Lazarus is an author and documentary filmmaker. With her partner, Renner Wunderlich, she has produced and directed over 20 films including: the Academy Award winning, "Defending Our Lives"; the groundbreaking "Rape Culture" and twenty five years later, its award winning update "Rape Is"; the original "Killing Us Softly" and "Still Killing Us Softly" which were two of the most widely used documentaries in academia; festival award winners "Strong at the Broken Places," "The Strength to Resist," "Pink Triangles," "The Last Empire," "Eugene Debs and the American Movement," "Life's Work," "Not Just A Job," "Taking Our Bodies Back," and others. She created the UN General Assembly film presentation "Women's Rights: Human Rights." For several years she was a senior lecturer at Tufts University teaching Producing Film for Social Change. She is a coauthor of the chapters on violence against women in the many editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves and has published numerous op-ed pieces and journal articles. She has two sons, whose births began her journey towards "BirthMarkings."

Brickhouse Betties Hands on Workshop:Tantra for Big Bodies

Greetings Everyone!!

Come join us this month as we focus on tantric breathing and techniques that are geared towards big bodies. In an environment where you can feel free to ask questions, our presenter Stan Alexander will be going over how to position yourself comfortably, the advantages of learning to be in your body, and most of all the art of breathing with a partner, in a class enviorment that is filled with other wonderful people of size.

Bring at least 2-3 pillows and comfortable clothes for comfort and if the mood suits you, tasty snacks to munch on after the workshop!

Presenter Bio:

Stan Alexander has had an interest in altered states of consciousness, and erotic expression for many years. As a result, he has spent much of his life studying how the human erotic experience can be brought to a higher level. As a workshop presenter, Stan has conducted numerous classes on Tantra, Erotic Hypnosis, and Kink. Stan holds a Master of Education in Counseling, as well as being certified as a Clinical Hypnotherapist, Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and Life Coach. For more information please go to www.stanalexander.com

When: Wednesday, November 2^nd at 7:30 pm
Where: Self Serve Sexual Resource Center
3904 Central Ave SE # B
Albuquerque, NM 87108-1057
(505) 265-5815

Cost: Free!!
Attire: Comfortable

Your V is fine. Don't be a Douche.

I am so glad when I hear about an upsetting ad campaign when it's already been mocked by Stephen Colbert.  Apparently Summer's Eve used pretty bad vagina puppeteering to relate to women about their products.  I think it's best to learn about such finds from Colbert Report.  Enjoy.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Vaginal Puppeteering vs. D**k Scrub
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Brickhouse Chronicles: Fat Positive Cheerleader Burnout: What Would Kermit Do?

I’m writing this blog under duress. My Beloved Wife (aka She Who Must Be Obeyed) told me that I needed to write a blog by this Friday because it would be “good for me” and that the writing process would help me stop beating myself up over feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the running of the Brickhouse Betties group. She stated that writing a fat positive blog would be a wonderful experience in that it would help me become more emotionally centered. I reluctantly and grumpily agreed that she was right, whereupon I then proceeded to procrastinate all week long on the actual writing of the “therapy blog”.

My justification on why I wasn’t starting the blog usually veered around the area of “I don’t have the time for this” or the more self deprecating but emotionally honest reason of “I’m too scared and tired to keep putting myself out there”. So there I was two hours before my deadline and still steadfastly avoiding putting cyber pen to paper and thinking, “what the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I get this done?”, when it hit me……..I didn’t want to focus on myself in an honest and self nurturing way.

Like many people, I’m in the throes of Fatty Cheerleader Burnout.

I define Fatty Cheerleader Burnout as that state of mental, emotional, and sometimes physical exhaustion that can come to someone when they get so caught up in the righteous fight for fat and body positive image awareness, that it becomes all too easy to avoid taking care of themselves. It can become a vicious cycle where the amount of self awareness needed to simply say “I need a break” isn’t there because the person needs a break in order to come to that conclusion. If it sounds familiar to many of you, it’s because it’s happens to everyone. I doesn’t just happen to fat positive cheerleaders, it happens to political activists, teachers, spiritual leaders (organizing pagans is like herding cats), social organizers, caregivers’, parents’ and supportive wives who make their spouses write blogs.

I’m in good company!!

So let’s say that you’ve identified that you are in the throes of Fatty Cheerleader Burnout, the next dilemma for a lot of people is what do you do now? In all honesty, I’m slowly making my way through the healing and renewal process but here are the personal goals that I have for combating FCB…. maybe they can help you too.

1) Give Myself Permission to Feel Whatever Emotions Wash Over Me Without the Guilt- Once I finally admit that I’m going through burnout, letting myself feel emotions such as grief, anger, and resignation is quite difficult for me to do without feeling very guilty. I’ve internalized the idea that these emotions somehow convey that I’m not a good leader because I’m not happy and strong all the time. Giving myself the affirming message that “it’s okay to not be okay”, is certainly a lot harder than it sounds, but I know that I can do it. Right now, I’m finding that saying “I’M NOT OKAY!!” out loud is having a surprisingly cathartic effect.

2) Unconditionally Accept the Reassurance and Loving Positivity that People Give to Me When I Reach Out for Help- Like with many people who experience Fatty Cheerleader Burnout, I tend to feel panic and surprise when people offer words of comfort and encouragement. I know that one of the main reasons for this is that I still feel like I’m whining when I share what I’m really going through. I know that part of the process of loving myself means that I need to accept the fact that other people love me too.

3) Don’t Take the Journey of Others Personally- As the founder of a fat positive group, it has become waaaaay to easy for me to internalize every pitfall that my Betties face as a personal failing on my part. Telling myself things such as “If I was a leader then she wouldn’t continue to engage in fat hating relationships” and so forth, has taken more of a toll on me than I realized and I am having to relearn the importance of letting people make their own mistakes. This is allowing me the emotional space to concentrate on my own.

While this has been a difficult blog to write, in end I’m glad that Beloved made me do, if only for the simple reason of being able to say “thank you” to everyone for all that you make the Brickhouse Betties. And a special thank you to my beautiful wife for all that you make me.

Brickhouse Betties Yahoo Group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Brickhouse_Betties/

Brickhouse Betties Facebook Group:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/brickhousebetties/

My Wife’s Amazing Leather Bear Blog

http://selfserved.blogspot.com/2011/07/leather-bear-tails-through-looking.html

Brickhouse Chronicles: The Evolution of Body Image-Part 1

For the majority of world history, what was considered beautiful varied wildly from culture to culture to say the least, but they shared one common factor in that beauty was determined by local standards. What I mean by that is people in China determined the beauty standard for Chinese people and people in Ireland chose the beauty standard for Irish people. To be even more specific beauty standard cold vary drastically from village to village and region to region within the same country. A good example can be found within pre-colonial North American indigenous tribes where the beauty standards and physical characteristics of the southwestern Navajo tribe were quite different from the beauty standards and physical characteristics of the Midwestern Coer d’ Alene tribe.

This is not to say that certain practices of body modification for beauty and sex appeal weren’t painful and debilitating just because they were by the people and for the people. The ancient practices of foot binding in China, the leg and neck stretching of the Ndebele women of South Africa, and the Ampallang penis piercing of Indonesian males are good examples of the old adage “pain equals beauty”. but what I am saying is that these practices illustrated just how differently cultures around the ancient world manifested their image of what beautiful and healthy was.

The world’s political and economic turn towards globalization had a dramatic affect on the concept of what was considered beautiful and healthy all over the world. As time went by and western modernization reached all corners of the globe, so did the now accepted western concept of beauty. This meant that the images and ideas of what was beautiful and healthy were no longer determined by local culture and you now had the majority of cultures, tribes, villages’, and ethnicities from around the world attempting to mold themselves into the image of beauty that was formerly found only in the region of Northern Europe. In other words, the beauty standard one tribe has become the enforced beauty standards of every tribe.

The story of body image and beauty within the United States is very similar. Like the various cultures’ fond in the indigenous population, post colonialization US was large enough by the 19^th century to have such a variety of cultures’ and ethnicities' within her borders that you begin to see a subtle variation in what was considered beautiful and healthy from region to region.

Heavy concentrations of German and Polish immigrants in the northeastern United States meant that the ideals of beauty and health were much more different than in Louisiana with its population that sprouted a high percentage of French, Spanish, Africa, and multi-racial people. Also, take into account that what was considered the epitome of health and beauty in the rural areas of the USA, with its emphasis on the strength of body needed to run a farm and raise a large family was quite different from the industrialized areas of the Northern, or even of the ruling classes in pre-civil war Sough. With the exception of Louisiana with its sly wink and nod stance on interracial dalliances, the common factor in the standard of beauty found throughout these regions, urban and rural was that you had to be white.

Fast forward to the flapper era of the 1920’s and we begin to see a developing trend in the idea that one standard of beauty should apply to everyone within the US regardless of your social and economic status. In other words, the beauty standards found within the village of the ultra wealthy leisure classes with their emphasis on tanned caucasian skin (which is not to be confused with dark skin that you’re born with), and extremely thin bodies started to become the enforced standard of every village, rural and urban.

With a brief deviation in the 1950’s, little has changed in the United States’ concept of beauty and health from the iconic flapper of the 1920’s. The visual image that many people conjure up when they think of a “healthy” body on a woman is pretty carbon copy of the flapper with the exception that DD breasts that are now added via Photoshop. The image of what is considered a healthy male has fared little better in that the ideal physique of a man is depicted as that of someone who obviously has the money and time to spend endless hours in the gym to attain the hyper sculpted figure of a “healthy person”.

The concept beauty and body image among people of color within the United States is fraught with the complexities and emotional landmines that come with trying to fit a mold of beauty that DNA has pretty much rendered impossible. African Americans in particular face a unique split within the community due to the fact that dark-skinned black men are now considered part of the ideal male body image while dark-skinned black women still remain at the bottom of the mainstream society’s beauty totem pole. Add to this the commonly believed myth that black women don’t suffer from body image issues like their caucasian counterparts and you get a pretty good picture of how the concept of body image is a complicated issue within our country to say the least.

Brickhouse Betties Yahoo Group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Brickhouse_Betties/

Brickhouse Betties Facebook Group:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/brickhousebetties/

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