Kuukausi: lokakuu 2015

What is art fighting for or is it the institutions that choose the proper fight for the context for the eyes of the privileged and easily traumatized?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2015/10/youth-advisory-board-discuss-censorship-of-art/ ”When we reach a point that art depicting toy to depict a terrorist threat is considered too dangerous for public consumption, one has to wonder what we are really fighting for.”

Censorship is the one that has always been there for me whether it is in form of self-censoring which women do instinctively, or the authority has done the censoring and called it curating or editing or just looking away. Usually it is disapproving without discussion and show of contempt for the artist. Something that must be only perfect has a perverse side to it. Art is not about depicting a perfect world, perfect people looking perfect doing perfect things and being great, only great and wonderfully glorified. World glorified, artist glorified, art something that matches the interior and appeals to aesthetic taste is a trend which is forcing itself still as we are given big names and stars, proper contents packaged, expensive gladly, not bad light on rulers, not politics, not ugliness, not cursing, business-likeness which has taken the art world is obvious. We are here to sell and please.

So art on menstruation, female genitals, sex, pornography, bombs, terrorism, art world pretense and phoniness, cleaners, garbage, dirt, prostitution often are banned, scrutinized or at least artist’s mental health is questioned and her intentions. Those topics may be more suitable for male artists too, but still daring. He is so daring and brave, she is just odd and dangerous. To say the word clitoris aloud is difficult, so I am interested why so, to watch pornographic images which are on the net for all to see displayed in art context cause a stir. Scandal is why art scene is so conservative, still sexist and prudish, still perverse. I also wonder what kind of people art is for and what is expected of art, why these expectations do not match with desires of an artist to explore openly, discuss and show what world is like.

For artist to do what is expected is dangerous.

To lose femininity, to be without that characteristic of yours which is a stigma, which puts you in to a group and frame. To me it is impossible and stigma I refuse, stigma of weakness. I am first a person not my gender and sex.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
It is strange to think that women who do manly jobs which for some reason are majority of jobs, that imitate men to make it in their branch of expertise would mean losing their femininity. Femininity is still something that does not speak up, seduces, does not take over other than sexually and women have to learn how to physically defend themselves since feminine women do not know how to. Or maybe they know but the ban is so strong they are paralyzed and scared that punch on them is lethal. Something that is lost may be visible and a tradition we like to be used to, that is expected to be there, be found and it strikes as odd when it is replaced with something that does not belong there ’naturally’. Femininity is seen a natural characteristic and women are expected to bring that natural element in them forward appropriately: caring, submissiveness, beauty and fragility, helplessness, posing and being wanted, loved, looking for love forever. When women begin to help themselves they are easily viewed as to rough, outsiders, too active, outspoken which is not good for them and not having time to pay attention to their outer bodies and beautify themselves, not giving attention to their families enough, forgetting to keep themselves smelling good for joy of others.
Women’s naturalness versus beautifying is the paradox, too much or nothing at all? Finding likability as women, that niceness, kindness and gentleness which are virtues, of course, such things in a person are good to have but such unchanging obedient category where women very easily are put in and they put themselves in is not working anymore if it ever has. To be able to choose and have variety is what is good for the whole of society. Societies develop on many levels much quicker and wider when women are applauded for courage to make change happen for them experimenting their limits and limits of all in society because it is other people who have the opposition and hold up the wall for women to climb up, to fight against. Preconceptions hold on tight also in Finland. To try to work in a field which is usually for men only, not because to make a feminist move but out of pure interest for the craft, is in many ways demanding, it is adjusting and feeling the atmosphere. Bias is strong and women are seen as physically and mentally weaker which is interesting, incapable even evidence of otherwise is there and to talk with women, what topics are there that bunch of men could ever find interesting to talk with women.
When gender is not fluid and expectations are build solid thinking how things should be means exactly that, nothing much changes especially when society is very gender bound, when there are jobs specially for women and men. And how slowly things change in that area. What are women capable of and do we have to compare to men since we can do both, things that men do too.

http://review31.co.uk/article/view/353/uncategorised-freedom ”Mechanics of language and gender are performative in the Butler-sense (‘gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original’)”

Interesting talk by Esther Perel: adultery and infidelity, for anyone who has ever loved.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
This is my stand: I am not for betrayal but when I am betrayed I betray you. Quite brutal don’t you think?

 

How do Muslim women defend themselves? What does it take to strike back?

| Henna Timanttimetsä
How to deal with religious fanatics? Women taking up arms is a sight not often seen which is why I have wondered the fierce opposition Kurdish women have given to ISIS and have continued to wonder why threat of ISIS has not made it so that all women under attack by ISIS do not confront these brutes with force? Women who would be defending themselves, their family members, whole of society and other women against belief that is brutal, medieval and a nonstop wave of crushing human dignity which stops people and Muslim societies from developing and keep rest of the world in fear. To rule with fear is something that has to be answered with, not by fearing but showing no fear and no respect for use of violence, violence that is obviously very normal and in use daily, a threat which hangs over women and girls all the time. To be submissive may be a virtue but in this case self-defense is acceptable and encouraged to be taken. When there is a culture of self-defense being acceptable and a human right women can feel they do not depend on others to defend them and rescue them. This goes for education and providing for oneself, standing up to oneself and speaking for human rights. It is unacceptable for women and children to have to bear a heavy burden of constant violence, loss, destruction, dictatorship, male dominance and hatred which is based on religion, in God’s name, given word and will. It is intolerable that divinity is used to make such slaughter, misery and death. It is godless. God helps those who help themselves has some truth to it. That is spirituality in action and you must have spirit. It is sad when women are made to feel helpless without means, without any say over the matter of their lives, that they are minimized into slaves that can be stolen, sold, raped and murdered on a whim of men who are mentally teenagers and spiritual cavemen.

So I ask, how do Muslim women defend themselves and I have a right to ask as the flood of refugees becomes more and more overwhelming? How does one defend one’s right to the land that ISIS and other rebels have taken over? Why ISIS is the one with arms and means to bomb everything down, slave and slaughter people as it wishes, make judgments over people’s lives and act like God was on their side only?

Women who do as men do are often ridiculed for having lost their femininity in the process when they grab a weapon. It is a little loss in comparison to what ISIS is taking from Muslim women and children. To ban women from moving anywhere without a chaperone, under rule of their fathers, brother, sons, other male relatives wearing a complete cover is surely a paralyzing factor.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mmw/2007/12/muslim-women-learning-to-defend-themselves-what-a-joke-2/
”(Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath men the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.) (An-Nisaa’ 4: 34)”
http://www.protectedpearls.com/womeninislam.htm

Who can say to be a woman? Is one with genitals of a woman, those outside and inside body with hormonal functions of a woman and bodily cycles of a woman.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Personally I very much like women who speak their minds and stick to what they think is right. What comes to what sex we feel we are we should be is the agony of contemporary people who have endless desires and needs that must be fulfilled. Well, you are the sex you are born to, this I agree with. Whether transgender people and transsexuals feel they are more women than women normally I want to ask what is more woman than a woman? How dare you diminish womanhood of anybody who is born female. Is sexuality the most ruling characteristic in being human, something to be altered, something to parade and compete with, something to constantly go through and be traumatized with, something that you can build with plastic surgery if you have the money. You can make a scene of yourself, a fabrication and an act of being a woman. When womanhood is clothes and makeup, maneuvers of extravaganza and theatrical flamboyance to show off to be the most feminine you can be what are you other than a pose and fake. To be more than a woman is someone who also is a man, that is two sexes in one body at least. Figure out a new name for that sex, won’t you and be proud of that creation without imitation. Germaine Greer has right to her opinions. She is not violating anybody. To be able to tolerate difference is something transgender people should obviously learn.

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/men-talk-about-periods/411931/ ” In one 2011 study, researchers asked a group of college-aged men to describe how they had learned about menstruation. The responses had a few common themes, the authors observed: The men had largely picked up snippets of knowledge from female family members and, later on, girlfriends, but by and large were still fuzzy on the basic mechanics of the female reproductive system. “Boys’ early learning about menstruation is haphazard,” the researchers wrote. “The mysterious nature of what happens to girls contributes to a gap in boys’ knowledge about female bodies and to some negative views about girls.””

Observation point: How observations made with help of drones are analyzed? Data collected and used.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

 

My recent sketches of drones with watercolor.

Do I feel safe? No, I have never felt safe.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

What is the amount of safety we should feel to be comfortable? That going out is not an issue, that meeting people is a good thing, that walking at night is something one can do without hesitation, wearing what one wishes is something one can do without getting any negative comments or any comments whatsoever. Not being able to be safe in one’s society is a serious concern, that people have to be ready at any time to defend oneself because we can be attacked, targeted, followed, stalked, bullied etc. in continuum. Such atmosphere and constant alert make one adjust to people as enemies and never trust anyone. I am always alert, always ready to defend myself. To feel completely safe in one’s life can also be a risk that one is no able and willing to risk that comfort and beautiful harmony of not having to face violence, not having to think that there is a possibility to be violated.

It is probably more common than people admit not to feel comfortable where you are and who you are. The demand of fitting in, blending in is violent itself. To avoid conflict and isolation we adapt if that is what we must do to feel comfortable, safe and belong, make friends, be social. It is also common to think that to adapt to society as society wishes you to and wants people to behave is social behavior, not arguing,  rebelling, misbehaving, and as such what society wants is good, a kind of fluency in a culture. Society partly or fully wants people to be submissive and accept what society orders us to do and think, learning to understand how we must be in society to succeed, be liked and popular. Any other kind of behavior is hostile. Hostility hidden right there. Such assimilation citizens are supposed to do can be a form of violence, forcing and denying self, not making an evolving society and evolving people. As has happened to countless of women to this day that have had to push aside what they have wanted to be, what they have wanted of life, to be what society and other people expected them to be and become. How do you assimilate yourself when it is clearly impossible? As George Clinton perfectly put it you give up, you give up the tiring demand for yourself to be something you are not, to fulfill expectations of others and what is around. You will only fulfill demands of yours. You become the best you that is possible and love yourself despite what is expected of you. That is a threat to people who are content in a mass of similar.
http://www.thejournal.ie/brent-pope-outsider-art-2390349-Oct2015/?utm_source=twitter_self ”They are self-taught artists and often use the form to deal with difficult personal situations.”
A Short History of Empathy http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/a-short-history-of-empathy/409912/?utm_source=SFTwitter

Importance of remembering Suffrage movement and what it has meant.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
http://time.com/4079176/suffragette-word-history-film/ ”The word suffragette, however, was used to describe strictly women, the type who were disrupting local meetings and spitting on policemen, the type who were getting arrested and going on hunger strikes in prison and, in one case, taking an axe to a famous Spanish painting of Venus admiring herself in a mirror, which happened to be hanging in London’s National Gallery.”
It is an important movement for me personally as I identify with them and their cause which is a cause for all women and their children, generations to come, message so important that it lives on. I compare Femen with Suffrage movement. They are both powerful, they both make me proud and emotional, proud that such people exist. Suffragettes were and are so important it is a crying shame they haven’t been more widely applauded and are easily forgotten. This I gather is due to their gender, straight forward message, hostility towards oppressors, methods which were direct, uncompromising and fearless action without avoiding self-harm. And harmed they were, mentally and physically, to fight for women’s equal rights was so appalling an idea that at the time there were women and men who openly showed their disrespect and hate. Suffragettes were treated like criminals. The amount of influence Suffrage movement accomplished globally to achieve is something we can’t deny. It is monumental and lasting. The power women can have, the determination and will to change living conditions and unjust ruling of women out of the politics when it is lives of women and children that are used and abused without them having a say over. It is still intolerable that child labor has not been abolished, that 2/3 of the illiterate are women http://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/worldswomen.html, that religion dictates women inferior to men turning them into sex slaves, home bound maids who have nothing else to expect or protect than be obedient and have honor which is the most prized possession. When woman loses her honor she becomes worthless and can be killed. This is what is the religion of ISIS and it is the case of online bullying, sheer misogyny where women are not capable thinking people but objects of sexual fantasies and abuse who do not have any business in entering areas and places dominated and ruled by men.
There are people who say feminism and women’s right movements do not have a job anymore, that they are old and worn out. What kind of people say that? In what kind of world do people who do not see how women are treated today live? It is good to pay attention and yes it is good to change tactics and ways of protesting when old ways do not do the wanted visible mark and make change, because there is a lot to do.

Portrait of a perpetrator

| Henna Timanttimetsä