Word! Comments of the Week: “I don’t really care what people say, I don’t really watch what dem waan do.”

These are my favorite comments of the week, eliciting the profound monosyllabic response of “Word!”
This week features dot@hampshire, Ami, kely-doc, bella08 & s mandisa:
“I also wanted to share something that happened in the Q&A section I really liked. Bianca was asked, “How do you go about claiming your identity/identities when you have been so discriminated against by feminist?” She answered, “To quote Sean Paul, ‘I don’t really care what people say, I don’t really watch what dem waan do'” -dot@hampshire on “CLPP 2010 Feminine-tastic”
“I don’t want to sound like the “that’s cool but you know what would have been better” police, but here I go. That’s awesome. I commend her for doing this. However, I still think there’s a lot still going on here. As others have said, the originals still portray an unrealistic standard and we label normal bodies as flawed. Plus, by printing these side by side, it points out those “flaws” and makes them more salient in our minds. (Her thighs have some cellulose. They took that out. My thighs have cellulose and are therefore also lesser than.) Additionally, the helpful details about what was changed don’t even begin to scratch the surface of what all has been done to her body to make it “magazine” ready both with things to her real body (cosmetics, hair removal) and to the photo digitally. So yeah, awesome…but I’m hoping someday we drop the fakeness all together and celebrity women with media clout only allow themselves to be printed in their true forms. So there’s no before and after. Just befores and no-really-that’s-still-hers.” – Ami on “Britney Spears highlights airbushing in latest ad campaign”
“Puja is the girls name rather than the activity. I guess they have gone to that place for her/in answer to a job placement. As an Indian I just wanted to add that while the vogue cover does not cover the full range of skin colours in India, most of those models would be considered dark skinned (At least in the North where I grew up). Fifteen years ago no add campaign would feature models of this skin colour and our films still tend to favour light skinned actresses. When I first saw this add, what I was most struck by was that it featured a father (seeminly in the absence of a mother) pushing his daughter towards a career of her choice. Fair and Lovely always showed parents worrying about how to get their daughters married off. I counted that as a small win even if it did end up hawking Fair and Lovely – (similar to the Fair and Lovely for Men – equality in skin colour discrimination??)” – kely_doc on “Indian Vogue takes on color prejudice”

“I read the article you linked to, and I thought it was pretty good and mostly agreed. However, I really should stop reading comments to blogs except for Feministing (because most of the time, the comments are pretty good) because the comments to this post made me sad for humanity. Back to the movie, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to see it (because it doesn’t interest me) but I’m glad that it had a strong message that marriages (and ALL relationships) should be about communication and mutual respect and have equal roles. So that’s exciting! ” – Ms. Junior on Chloe’s Date Night movie review Emphasis mine
“I,too, won’t even consider changing my last name I will either hypenate it or keep it just as it is. There are no men in my family to carry on our last name and I feel a sense of needing to carry that on. Plus, I just really love it and feel it is so much a part of my identity. Unfourtunally, I’ve been confronted with some people who think that this is a horrible idea and that my future children (if any) will be somehow damaged or robbed of a meaningful life if our last names aren’t the same or if they are hypenated. In fact, my own sister told me straight up that I would have a hard time finding a husband that would be ok with this. My response was that I wouldn’t want to marry someone who would refuse to accept my decision. To me feminism is about being informed about how sexism and patriarchy effect the world we live in and making the choice to choose what we want to participate in and what we just can’t put up with. It’s about giving back choices that we have been robbed of for so long.” – bella08 on nicolechat’s Community post “Refreshingly great advice from an advice columnist!”
“I cry as I write this. I wasnt aware that she died on April 2nd (law school keeps me so, so busy). Carolyn Rogers is one of the reasons I learned it was ok to identify as a feminist, b/c up until I learned of her and her writings (and a few more influential black women) I thought feminism was for my white female friends talking about issues that were definitely important but not at the focal point of what I was dealing with and other black girls as well, macro and micro. Ms. Rogers is also one of my favorite writers and influenced my decision to write, regardless of what else I do. All feminists should mourn her passing.” – s mandisa on “In memory of Carolyn Rodgers, feminist and poet”