Daily oppression

When you are walking in the streets that seem so familiar and known to you,
When you are reading your favourite magazines,
When you are talking to your best friends or parents,
When you are interacting with your girlfriend or boyfriend or other,

Don't you think that you may help what is actually oppressing you? Let's just pose it simply : just try to wonder whether or not what you're looking at (movie, picture, adverts) is increasing or challenging clichés about masculinity and/or femininity. Is what I am looking at or hearing or hearing a stereotype or not ? Somehow, it can change your whole vision of your daily life.

I tried this, once. Just by looking at a beautiful picture, an add actually, for a new perfume. Despite my aesthetic judgment (gorgeous work, indeed), I couldn't help but felt myself disturbed by the way the girl and the guy on the picture were represented. I was trying to guess why the position of the girl looked both "normal" AND inappropriate to my own values. I found the word : SUBMISSION. The girl was deliberately represented as the object. Both for the guy of the picture AND the spectator. Gender's mainstream images (that is, submission and objectivisation of women) were enforced by this kind of Art. Personaly, I have always prefered challenges...

From this moment on, I couldn't help but questioned every day my perceptions of my direct environment and how it relates to my own perceptions of gender and sexuality (in its broad meaning). Try it, use it and challenge. You can call it "Day-to-day Resistance".

Have a nice challenging day.

B.V.