draft
Y’all. I’ve been writing copypaste for a year!! If you want to go back and read the very first of copypaste, here you go. Thank you for subscribing, for vibing, for 69ing. If you have any ideas on what you’d like more of, less of let me know! (I promise that’s the last time I will say the word 69ing.)
I am very much about complicating things that should be simple. In my personal life, this makes for a lot of ‘arguments’ that are just me explaining why the fact that you didn’t text me back within 2 minutes really hurt my feelings because I’m feeling insecure about the way I trimmed my bangs and also hungry.
BUT I think more often then not cultural phenomena, Miss America pageants, fairy tales, feminism, are pitched to us as simple things (entertainment, aspiration, empowerment [respectively]) but deserve the kind of pmsing, obsessive eye that we save for finding all the ways to feel bad about our bodies.
Bottom line: things are not always what they seem. When we look on the surface of things or just accept the most advertised image and it’s concurrent criticisms, we miss the forrest for the trees. In truth, all of these stories, functions, etc have obvious issues. But there is a nuance that might allow us another view, that might allow us to see yet another way to be inspired, to read a story, to be human.
Good Reads
Miss America, Swimsuit-Free, Enters the Era of Wokeness - Jia Tolentino
We’ve entered a sort of room of mirrors in regards to mainstream wokeness. Corporations and former Trump properties have finally bought in to the forward thinking. They’ve rebranded.
Miss America 2.0.
Don’t be fooled! It’s a rouse! A distraction!
Per usual, Jia Tolentino lays it bare: “For now, with this rebrand, Miss America can draw on both our culture’s persistent gender traditionalism as well as the current marketability of progressive ideals.”
This sudden rebrand is a sign that Miss America is far less relevant than it once was.
Because here’s the thing, we aren’t really fighting so that no woman has to wear a bikini on a convention center stage. We are fighting for control over our bodies, equal pay, freedom from fear.
Maybe it’s time we just let Miss America go.
Read this if your dad might say some fuck shit at the dinner table about how he enjoyed the Miss America pageant less this year because his favorite segment is gone. *hard eye roll*
The Virtues of Willfulness: How Fairy Tales Teach Us to Look for Truths Beyond the Simple Stories - Cate Fricke
I am very invested in common stories. I think the stories we tell define who we are. They not only give us narratives to live and understand the world by, they help us determine who is mature, who is powerful, who is worthy. To assume that fairy tales are easy to deconstruct and discard is to ignore the impact these stories have on our consciousness.
Cate Fricke loves stories as much as I do. She begins this article acknowledging the way one dynamic and diverse stories like Cinderella have been Disney-fied and thus flattened and white-washed. She illuminates the ways these stories, when taken as a diverse collection of versions that share a common narrative, contain more truth about us than Walt would like us to think.
“The more versions of this tale that I read, the more I come to see Cinderella not as a passive princess, but as a woman of vision. She has outside help, yes, but at the same time, she has the ability to see her life as something other than what it is, and to take the steps necessary to prove herself worthy of that life. She holds fast to hope even in dark times, and in many, many versions of her tale, she walks to the place where she will meet her fate without the aid of a mouse-drawn carriage. In short, she’s willful. And I like that.”
Read this if you want to level up your analysis of fairy tales.
White Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels - Rachel Elizabeth Cargle
I’ve been saving this article in my “to-read” for a while now. Rachel Elizabeth Cargle is doing the Lord’s work (On instagram especially. If you don’t already, go follow her here.)
This article clarifies the definition of white feminism, that toxic, non-intersectional mess that rallies for beautiful women to not be forced to wear bikinis on stage (?) but stays silent on the disproportionally high maternal death rate of black mothers.
“If there is not the intentional and action-based inclusion of women of color, then feminism is simply white supremacy in heels.”
This puts it in to perspective:
“As these things play out over and over again, it is made painfully obvious that many white women believe that the worst thing that can happen to them is to be called a racist. Let me be clear, it is not. Seeing your child gunned down in the street by the police unjustly is much worse, being turned away for medical care due to race and underlying biases by medical staff, resulting in death, is much worse, being harassed by authorities only to be charged yourself instead is much worse”
Read this because it’s required reading.
Hate Read
the news.
Believe women. We aren’t asking for restitution. We are hardly even asking for justice. We are just asking for acknowledgement.
Rec of the Week
Educated: A Memoir - Tara Westover
As a memoir, this is a gem. Westover is masterful in the way she’s structured this book. The short, contained chapters allow her both breadth and depth into family, religion, mental health, perseverance. If you enjoy the craft of memoir, you need to read this.
If you’re in it for the story, I still think this holds up. It shows untreated mental illness from the perspective of the people who are affected by it. Don’t be fooled by the title. It is much more about an education in life than in academics.
Read this if you’re ready to be crushed slowly by the unrelenting force that is Westover’s prose.
(Don’t read this is you’re squeamish. There is quite a lot of blood.)
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