human rights

Under lucky stars: how are the stars lucky?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

How do you define luck? It is a very subjective matter, what we consider as good things to have and happen in life, to grow from, maybe, a pleasant place to dwell and form as a person. It is like when you won something, a competition, situation of being conceived and further developed, when partly randomly you become a human infant. When you are born if you are lucky you grow to be more you, bigger and bigger, more aware hopefully or maybe a human infant in an adult’s body, or something which is decided is you. This is you, hopefully you’ll like it. This is what you should be is still a very common thought which comes from outside of you. We are defined by other people constantly. There is not a moment we would not be monitored when there is more people than you there. Some people are monitored more than others I have noticed, wonder why… Many believe whole-heartedly that norms made are what we should play by, that we are here to be filled with joy and the norms make this filling happen and if that is not happening we feel miserable and blame the feminists for ruining such a good thing. What brings us joy then, living fulfilling lives in comparison to others without need to change, just to match up? Crises are there to wake us up, loss of luck, out of luck situation. To keep on winning and how to is a trick because it is difficult, demands strength and effort. How do we measure the winning, the jack pot, what is it worth and what is the jack pot in the first place, what do we value? How to win in being and becoming you? Or what is your impact within the bigger picture, you feel lucky to be able to live for yourself without concern over others?

Welfare state is a result of decades of hard work. People having build a welfare state and thinking despite where the child is born he or she can have an education, free meal, healthcare, sense of security and support. It does not remove the fact that there are people who would like to see such situation gone, that there are people who think we are bound to luck, circumstances and that is a good thing, the roughness is now lacking. Something which makes us value more what we have got. We don’t have to struggle as humans as much as we should. It has made us lazy especially in thinking. People have become spoiled, naive and arrogant. This much I can agree with. It has come across many times that I should feel lucky I am born in a country where I can realise my goals and dreams just as anybody, sure I can as long as my dreams and goals stay within the given frame. Frame is kind of too small. Don’t be fooled I feel very fortunate and welfare state has been proven effective in my life. To be an artist with my background is an oddity which I find funny as hell.

Here too there is a price to pay for a woman who does as she pleases, as she chooses. My decisions have always been out of the ordinary. Freedom and luck are about being able to choose aren’t they. How about responsibility, how about originality, how about something to say? As it has occurred women are not allowed to break gender norms that easily or at all without it being a scandal, wrong and an outrage of some sort, art being a very fine example. It has also been shown that gender norms are very much violent and intact, changing slowly in slowmo and to repeat why feminism is important must be done individually like drawing a map. You do not hate men or do you? Ok, let’s get this hate thing sorted..

Freedoms men have manifest the problematical within the gender roles. Being able to choose because of physicality, being bigger and traditionally seen as more of this and that, as idiotic as it sounds, is there, it is ’easy’ and society is letting them freely exercise their maleness and the role of a leader. To let girls be bossy is one way to get the thing solved. Me being male is a horrifying alternative but I must try it out. I have a process of wiping feminine role of a subject. Maleness is aggression which women can’t exercise without being labelled crazy and hateful, having lost femininity. For men there is more authority in what they say, stature and credibility in what they do, isn’t there. This is like self-evident. There is black and white, small and big, bad and good, men and women. Whereas woman can prove to be very able many times over and still not be given credit for what she does, quite the opposite. What does she think she is. For her to be grand is to play like a man. Fortune and luck are somewhat different for the sexes. They are very material, the more and bigger you are in the right way the better and the bigger you will become and the more things you can make and have the more you are. Respectability and fulfilment by gender and possessions is a very male outlook on things and gender but yet again women play the same game. To impress via size and amount, measurements and possessions and we all should have that to feel good about ourselves?

For some it is impossible to understand and see the luck they have had and share. It is taken for granted or seen a possession which must be earned. Maybe luck is the wrong kind or there is no such thing. Woman is the filling and the only luck she can have is her looks, oh the blessings of appearance and visuals. They run the world but are cheap. It is confusing. If she is difficult meaning she thinks for herself it could it be seen lucky, she is capable of thinking?

The situation can be she does not understand the good man brings, the good man thinks is the good. When you have every material thing but you feel alone, you still do not feel lucky, you need to feel wanted. Loneliness is the defining thing even though you have got all man could possibly want and you like to talk about this all. Bragging about luck but failing to appreciate it is the disease. The infantile need to feel wanted and loved is there even though you have got what is called success by the terms of material modern man. To be born male is a stroke of luck but he feels partial unless he does not have what is expected of man to have. Tragedy of being male are also the expectations. To feel successful, loved and lucky, basis is on the feeling. It is an irrational state, an out of control loop where you think you have the control because of what you have, have been able to accomplish, own and maybe feel unlucky because of what you do not have. This eats you up. Isn’t this what TV and social media is full of nowadays.

We are lured to think happy is what we should be feeling and we think we know what things bring us happiness, which feeling is tightly connected to being lucky, having luck. Whether you like to dwell in feeling unlucky in some ways or are able to feel lucky for what you have got is a matter of maturity and looking at things as they are. Do we see people as they are or via made lenses?
When your chances living your life fully (whatever that means) as a creation of your own is not only a narcissist daydream but something we can all pursue without exploiting others and without hurting anyone in the process, that is fortunate. Idea of luck is what I make of is kind of interesting as we seem to think it is something where we are born into, or with, and are granted like a gift, partly yes and partly no.
To be born under lucky stars is a moment, like a wish for the baby that she or he will be lucky in her/his life. Lucky is of course to be born in the first place. Lucky to be on this earth. To be born screaming, to be born a boy with all your toes. You will be treated differently from early on as you are defined by your sex. How is that lucky? Maybe luck vanishes in that moment of defining and knowing which sex the child is. The situation of being born a girl and how that effects your life. You can be mistreated, killed, abandoned, rejected only for this reason. We know this. Girl is a burden, also for the girl herself her sex is a burden.
So what is the lucky part? When we are loved as we are, since we are not able to impact on how we get to be born. It is out of our hands. Therefore it is huge wrongdoing to place the blame on the child, isn’t it.

Cunt is currency, looks is currency, what else is there than having currency and something to buy?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

I can approach this topic by how I have always been viewed by people, commented and stared at. Pushed into a role of female which is highly narrow and limiting, refusing this is irregular and not wanted, to understand power of feminine attraction is awkward, what power, and which one thing one should understand is how to exploit this situation, to see the whole picture over and over again unchanged can be defeating. To me it has been traumatising no less to figure out how trapped we are by visual pleasure instantly and how women do not have power because our thing is to please and via that get attention and be liked, loved, noticed, approved, hired etc. It is sad as hell. By kissing ass and doing as we are told we do not get power, we do not have power, ever.

To be female in a shallow profit driven world and succeed is to accept how one-sided women should be, are desired to be, not try build more dimensions and possibilities. Assumptions and options which repeat the same stay boring and have nothing to do with progress, intellect, human rights and dignity or my line of work when one tries to change the state of things and one’s life, tries to change the expected. My worth as a maker is in the work I do, not on how I look like and what I have under my clothes. To pay attention to my looks when I work is pure sexism and I do not tolerate it, not from women and not from men. I am many times left out because of my gender and looks play an unwanted bizarre role, sexism functions as limiting and exclusionary like picking the fruit to be eaten. I do not play games which sexism is all about and expects to play along. I do not accept my role as all pleaser which is the part of women and rules of this game are set for women. We all are scaled out through and through how attractive we are which tactics is wrong and hurtful in many ways not only for the people but for progress within society.

Attractiveness is subjective and the easy breezy simple way to see and judge people, why on earth is it so? Stereotypes live on as do behavioural patterns, models of thinking. It is far too easy to think and stick on to the view that women who are attractive are stupid, available, weak, deaf, easily led, want certain things, can be manipulated and to overcome this bias they must work harder, look ugly, learn to say no, work harder than those who do not have the burden of looks and sex, burden of sex is the expectation, assumption and the ready-made image which must be met. Yes a burden because whether ugly or beautiful we are judged by it completely and it is waste of time, human resources, energy, unnecessary bullying and repeating of old thinking patterns which do more harm than good. How to be objective and be sure to get accurate results is obviously very difficult task but it is not impossible. It is not enough to be impressed by work done, we must be impressed by character and habitus, to please and like are more important than what has been accomplished. What comes to doing one’s job well, is it a matter of gender and appearance because cock has more valid info and capability than cunt? We live in a corrupt world where to understand laws of corruption pays off. I must grow myself a cock. What do we do to end corruption is not play with it.

In business and in art where you come from, gender and appearance strikingly have big roles still, looks and gender can tell of intelligence and talent usually lacking which correlation to me is pure fascism. That is the most comment sparking thing about me I appear and I am not what you expect me to be, such issues which concern me as a human being are almost solely about my surface from head to toe. Best thing is of course to say so that I can hear that I am fuckable. Oh yes fuckable of course, how else can someone like me be understood and set to one’s place but naked and legs apart. I am trying to be a professional artist but it fails for many to behave as professionals somehow (is there piss in your heads?) who think they are professionals when it comes to gender roles and how women are treated and perceived within the industry. Someone who looks like I do cannot be talented and her looks must be commented because that is the compliment, right. I don’t find it flattering, I know what I look like and I do not push my appearance to be the most important thing in me.

One more thing: when photographing an exhibition, it is more interesting to photograph the artwork than the artist. When I say I don’t like to be photographed, please don’t insist because I mean what I say and I am showing my work not myself. For me this has a huge difference whether you get it or not. I’m not into posing with my art, it is fucking lame.

TRANSWOMEN are transwomen Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Surviving or living, survivor or victim. A matter of choosing your outlook based on what happens to you, how to stand up for yourself. Learning of a lifetime.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Nyrkillä tapettava is a Finnish phrase for someone who is small and defenceless and can be killed by punching. It is cruelty in a neat package, the whole being of someone is measured and defined by physical appearance and that person is not a threat at all. It is very telling of culture where size matters, use of violence measures your worth, what one can do with size and by threatening behaviour: habitus is to intimidate, minimise and silence.

The strangest and scariest as it is a surreal repetitious event has been to witness misogyny done and realised by women. How misogyny kind of belongs to the territory of being female that you are hated, despised, suspected and treated like garbage as such especially if you are young, pretty, talented, seem lost, in need of help, scared, have thoughts that challenge existing views, roles and hierarchies. I still seem lost because it is my constant feeling and experience among people where I should know how I should be and live self-evidently but I do as I please. I still look youngish but have looked young and naive as like I was born with it which equals to many someone to abuse. So the weird dilemma of not fitting in is the normalcy how it happens, and I don’t seek to fit in because it is a lie to fit in. I should have to pretend. My looks and gender justify ill-treatment.

Question is why so? Someone who looks fragile is to be beaten down because she deserves it and is an easy subject? Maybe you have got another thing coming. Those who choose the so-called easy subjects surely know what it makes of them and what kind of ethical problem it is to think bullying is a sign of strength and power. This is all about competition and here we do not differ from animals. Logic for many is very straightforward and uncomplicated which in a complicated world is not logical. There is more to everything than what the eye can see and you think is true. Question to be asked is who and what do you stand for, why you do what you do, what motivates you. Often it is hate which cannot be admitted to because it would be admitting to being a hater. This issue is a difficult one to talk about without it sounding asking for empathy (empathy is for the weak and for friends) and being a victim of bullying which the whole not fitting in sets, a place for a weirdo is all about, meaning to be marginalised and set outside is more a rule. For a blonde, thin and childlike such as me which characteristics to many equal mental disability it is to learn self-defence, how people react to you remains unsurprisingly unchanged. And I for example have began to see this existing position more of a strength than weakness. People are surprised when I answer back and do not settle for what I am given, why should I. I am arrogant when I think myself as able.

To be on someone’s side because of their genitals is to understand how gender roles function and believe it, and what they are for, roles and genitals. Be on side of women because they are women and women supporting men because they are men. Do men support women because they are women and therefore worthy of support or do we support people because to support is a human thing to do and all need support, especially mental support, caring. Eh, I don’t know. Maybe people support those who they care for, supporting someone supports also you. Gender works for those who fall into such roles effortlessly and think they are a good thing. It has been obvious solidarity can be nonexistent when safety and balance is threatened. Something new appears. Threat is a curious feeling as is fear. Fear of dramatic change is what keeps traditional roles needed and in part they do have a place.

I kind of have a theory. Have you ever been target of gossip? I call it ill talk because something is very wrong in that situation. I have been talked about all my life in a bad sense. To repeat all could be made into a crystal idea: there is something in this person that pushes buttons instantly, is out of ordinary. It is about the way one looks, what one does, how one does it and how one is in a world and how well one fits in. Why  the fitting in is important, so much so that it is compulsive and neurotic? It is a ritual and way of telling there is always something wrong with you and those who talk do not like you until you are crushed or do as they want you to do. Most of gossip is ill and about this problematic nature of humans where safety, acceptability and being similar next to a clone is what does not threaten power and self-worth of tiny minds. This hurtful way of communicating has its plus sides. I have become very good at reading lips, noticing body language, guessing facial expressions and how certain people think. There are no surprises there. Most hurtful it is when women see it their issue to slam other women to leave someone out and stigmatised. Means of finding who mean something and finding one’s place when it is not to be found. My fault? Strangely I am accused. And we are so surprised that she answers and questions us, something that is seen solid and good. Your good is not mine and enough by far because I place my bar high.

Demonising

| Henna Timanttimetsä

As I see it, it is a normalised way to regulate, isolate, define, rule and be made feel guilty of having done and said something that has broken safety barriers of thought of how women for instance should behave, talk, dress, live etc. This is similar to politics where the ’enemy’ is demonized beyond anything imaginable to be the arch-enemy and evil on earth. It is no wonder Russia has had the label of the enemy nr 1 in people’s mind. How can I like Russia, someone asked me. There is so much to like about Russia and not to like, as there is in anything. One-sided truth is accepted because it is a machine that keeps the story alive, so much so that truth remains to be uncovered for those who go look for it and they have to dig deeper. Demonising works especially well when the enemy is fairly unknown, does things unconventionally and looks different. The one who speaks of the enemy is somewhat trusted, has authority and is known as legal truth teller knowing what is what, is close by and is verbally as visually convincing. demonizing is a basic tool to hold power, keep things unchanged because those who wish to change anything are labeled bad influences and in any way unfit to manage anything, know anything, are unreliable, rotten, threatening and unsafe to be with and be listened to. Weirdos, freaks, punks, anything that goes beyond the normalised and steady balance.

Demonizing has been used through out all times and works for those who do not know better. Anything and anyone who threatens the order of things and ways to think is often put down by the tool of telling a one-sided view, a scare, the truth, and with help of the mass who believe this given truth it can be the only info there is, only info that must be believed or otherwise you will be labeled as well. What to believe and whom to trust?

Women are and have been, as we all know, ones very fragile and poorly protected what comes to being demonized. It still does not take much rumours, dressing and behaving inappropriately to be targeted and monitored by those who themselves think are superior authorities holding mandate to judge and label. Authorities speak among themselves and forward what they see fit. To rebel against doesn’t take more than to have a different opinion and argue forcefully those who should not be argued. Why are there people who think they cannot be argued? Let me know if you know the answer. What is the absolute truth, what is the absolutely correct way to exist? For women it is clearly more narrow than for men and this unchanging state of affairs cannot be objected and forced to change? How weird is that. It takes decades and lifetimes of work and effort.

Punishments for there is devil in her, punishments against her as she lets her demon to have power over her and ruin her purity and good nature, and more importantly her devil contaminates the society and men. Amazing is how old ways of thinking and behaving stick, how labelling people makes society tic and makes hierarchy where those who have stigma are made to fall unless they have an enormous amount of faith and strength to rise above. To be alone in a hostile environment is what such person must endure wherever one goes. To jump into conclusions about people based on appearance, way to talk and what one chooses to do in life is of course something we are bound to do regardless of whether we try not to judge.

Much of pop culture test our limits of acceptable and toy with our conceptions about proper and stability. To play a bitch, witch, sex goddess, nymphomaniac, addict etc. belongs tightly to culture of idols. This is also what art at its best does. It tests and questions authority and our rules of acceptable. To raise abomination, judgement, scandals, abandon safety and conformity.

 

Why women drink? Excellent essay by Kristi Coulter in Quartz.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

https://qz.com/762868/giving-up-alcohol-opened-my-eyes-to-the-infuriating-truth-about-why-women-drink/ ”The magazines telling me strong is the new sexy and smart is the new beautiful, as though strong and smart are just paths to hot. The Facebook memes: muscles are beautiful. No, wait: fat is beautiful. No, wait: thin is beautiful, too, as long as you don’t work for it. No, wait: All women are beautiful! As though we are toddlers who must be given exactly equal shares of princess dust, or we’ll lose our shit.”

Drunk passed out

Kuva | | Henna Timanttimetsä

 

 

My interest in Marilyn is interest in how the dilemma of gender culminates in one person so perfectly

| Henna Timanttimetsä

What is spoken of her and why. What do people want to know, what is of interest for anyone in a beautiful woman. What do we pay attention to and why she is seen via her sex which seems to dictate all she can do, how she can be and must do, how she must do to make an effect. She is an effect, a special effect on the set. That is her purpose. Her value seems pretty infinite despite she is ripped off her value as a multi talented person. Her value is partly in the tragedy of not having achieved enough professionally that she is diminished no matter what she accomplished and modelled to be something  to which she contributes voluntarily because it seems she had no other choice. This no other choice to succeed but via the sexual part of a blond shell is part of the puzzle for me. To have a lot but be limited as an artist by the system and the way women are seen.

Those are the terms to succeed is like a plan given. Do as you are told and this is what is wanted of you. This is what the public wants to see, you are for yes only (I mean eyes), to pleasure others. Why is this what is thought the public wants or are we so simple-minded it really is what we want? It puzzles me still although it is clear in a way that the public is infinitely narrow-minded and seeks to be entertained in the simplest of ways. That is also what gossip is all about. That is also the trap in to which entertainment industry constantly steps: repeating the same imagery and narrative which is luring, attention seeking, fabulous visually and repeating the gender roles and stereotypes as if nothing ever changes, and yes things do change slowly. Something else than the real life and not so much.

My interest is in how someone is talked about. What becomes of this tale which is continued, passed forward. What is the story people like to give, they believe it themselves, what are their motives, what is the truth and what are the reasons for telling the story. Who knows the truth and who is a reliable witness. Because what is being said and what is the reality can be very different from each other so much so that surreal is the reality. What people believe is the truth is bound to bias and what is wanted to be seen as the truth. How personal experience of someone is true and what is the value of telling this personal view forward.

A person who is dimensional but does not show all of her dimensions is infinitely interesting obviously applies to women. To believe women are able to achieve excellence takes work for some men and women. Simplicity and less are easier to believe to be true and accept than someone who is much. Much is difficult to control and tolerate.

Can you tell what is the meaning of sex? The core meaning for our existence?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Is it an instant gratification to show one’s penis to strange women? It is seen today as something else than hundred years ago. It is a bit difficult still to capture the whole meaning of the theatre of image, all of them and difficult to see the mind behind nude photos which are an empowerment culture for free sex and do what you want. Dirty and naughty that is done maybe for laughs, maybe for other reasons which surely are many. Image of a penis is not enough to turn on no matter how pretty the organ is, well-shaped, large or what direction it is pointing at.

I really want this, should probably be the answer, which makes me ask why is it so that women are perceived differently here than men. Is it the question where goes the line of acceptable and prohibited and this line must be crossed to make an effect. An unstoppable need to know one is being wanted and seen in an openly sexist way, see this, all the things done with this thing shown and more to come if you are willing. I’ll be good to you. Portrait of a one way street. What is the moment when we look at genitals and what do we see in them? If you have seen enough, it is naive to think sex is what we live for, what keeps us alive maybe or definitely. To cross lines works up till it doesn’t anymore. Maybe it, sexism and harassment, is important when we need to breed and that is why visibility matters, I don’t know. It must have other meaning than having power and direct effect, a success.

Sexually implied harassment is an every day event. To be seen and desired as a sexual being who is aggressive in thinking and having sex, it is the most fun to people or you can have it and that hunting and showing off one’s sexual drive plus ability bring the high in life even unfilled, that act of playing and poking the ice, breaking the ice with all that heat from your sexy body and attitude radiating via electric cords and the way you walk and talk, is justified and ok. What kind of culture makes people think all want the same things and should like this.

The most of you being your penis is not much and it is not a turn on but off. Reason for me to inquire is that the need to bring the subject forward, act of sexism fucking a mind, fucking in mind disregarding consequences, harassment and display are on the wall and unbelievably rampant. It is like no other part of culture, sex. I have come to think it is the energy we live from, even those who deny sex being important or are ashamed of it, such vulgarity is what is a kind of nonstop pain but tolerated because it is the fun, fun for me kind of self-centred self-pleasuring. Is it a thrill to go to a stranger and make an advance just like that, flash. That there are no ties, no other pressure than the harassment done by a person to another person who is supposed to give response of some sort. Someone who wishes to be openly sexual in predatory fashion, make verbal and visual comments thinking this is the best shit there is and play with people in hopes to end up having an act of fucking for fun. Who says yes and agrees to being used?

It must be something to people who prey online. They do not see it themselves like being wrong because the behaviour is normal, the search for fun and amusement happens in a flash of a moment, it is something made for them and theirs. It is their game which all should understand. When you turn it upside down and do it reverse, response is an utter surprise and silence, ummm. Then it is not normal anymore. There is a point when repetition mode will get tiring. It is when the majority of messages are the sort where intercourse is the main reason to contact and interact with women. To say someone is interesting and suggest anal sex and any casual meeting for you to get your release is the lamest shit, lazy, boring and unacceptable. Sure it makes me laugh out loud, still I wonder what the fuck goes on in people’s heads.

http://nautil.us/blog/the-novelist-and-critic-siri-hustvedt-raises-an-eyebrow-at-science ”There are these rather weird sexual connotations attached. The idea that women are closer to nature, which is of course out of birth, is absurd. Nobody is more or less natural than anybody else. This gets played out in a number of interesting ways.”