2 Links

[brigid]

This Plant Changes Shape To Look Like Other Plants
Great article on a plant that can imitate the shape of other plants near it, and just how it might be able to do so. Can plants see, with essentially what are eyes? Can they think? Make decisions? Can trees talk to each other? Probably not! But what plants can do is still incredibly neat!

"Effortless" Femininity
I have rarely identified less with an article. I was somehow able to opt out of traditional American femininity at a young age due largely to being obtuse and also not having parents who enforced it. I'm effortlessly a woman because I put almost no effort into it. I bathe, I try to dress neatly, and that's about it. I do this while also extremely aware of the fact that my appearance, and gender presentation, are more heavily policed because I'm fat. And at the same time I'm aware that because I'm white I don't face the same pressure to conform to established feminine standards as women who aren't white, and as a cis woman I don't face the same as trans women do.


I'd normally share this kind of thing on Twitter.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

Yeah, I somehow grew up without ever acquiring most of the girl skills that my friends all view as mandatory, so I just ... do not. My younger kid was truly perplexed that I could not teach her how to shave her legs. (I said, look, basically everyone my age learned how to do it at 12 at a slumber party because mothers in the 80s were all 'but you're too young!' so I'm sure you'll figure it out. She hit up friends, same as all the 1980s girls did, and sure enough, it was fine. For makeup, she used YouTube.)

Jo Walton says her gender identity is "this is a perfectly acceptable way to be a woman, and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise," and that's absolutely mine!

[brigid]

My mom: Why do you take so long in the shower?
Teenage Me: Well, it takes a while to shave my legs.
My mom: Just wear a pair of jeans, it'll rub off from the friction!

There's this episode of "Laverne and Shirley" where Laverne, as an adult, grapples with grief and anger over the death of her mother and all that she missed out on by not having a mom in her life. Shirley helps talk her through it and I forget exactly how it comes up but they mention her knees having bangs (bc she only shaves up to her knees) which, uh, I did too.

[princessofgeeks]

I'm so obtuse, I'm not sure I know what traditional American femininity even is. Shaving one's legs? Wearing makeup? I guess?

[brigid]

Yeah, removing body and facial hair, styling head hair, wearing makeup but only the right kind of makeup, wearing the right kind of scent, wearing the right kind of clothing and shoes (not too boyish but not too feminine but not too dressy but not too casual), nails done "right," "appropriate" jewelry, having the right shape body (slender, small nose, boobs but not too much boob, small butt and hips), etc. There's so many fine lines to walk and it's so, so aggressively WASP-y.

[princessofgeeks]

Wow; I totally failed! Thank goodness I was mostly oblivious!

[ankaret]

I get the 'must not lose face around people who are already predisposed to judge us' thing because I was brought up with something similar, but wow, that sounds like a whole lot of internalized Other People's Stuff she's got going on there.

[brigid]

It's something that I see a LOT of women deal with. It's hardly unique to her. And I'm so incredibly glad I dodged it.