June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[girl_dee]

Holy heck i am cross posting on the Planet.

i realized i probably should have posted this here!





i think for some people, possibly myself included, we don't feel that we are whitewashing history by adopting certain behaviors from that time period.

i get that women had no rights, i get that women were stripped of our dreams, hopes and the right to live in our own skin. Hell as an adult i was told i made less money than my male co-worker because he had a high house note to pay. We did the exact same job, only i did mine more efficiently.

By me choosing to embrace being a home maker doesn't by any stretch mean that i do not get and honor that time period and the struggles we still go through.

In fact it feels even more empowering in some ways because i am choose to live this way, i love what i do, i get to choose, and no matter what my choice it is honored.
__________________

ETA Maybe this is my kink?

[The_Lady_Snow]

I hear and get your choice.


Your choices differ from mine.


When I speak of racism when it comes to The Cleavers, I have to, it's a kick to the gut when someone wants to hold you up to something you will never be.

(not saying dee is)

So when I bring up race, culture I do because it's part of my everyday function as Snow the Latina.

[The_Lady_Snow]

I thought of getting some ink, and I was discussing it with my Pack and I shared what I was thinking.

Months passed by and on Friday Worm comes to me and says:

"I've been thinking about you Joker tattoo and then I realized you could NEVER (he used quotation marks when saying never) EVER be Harley Quinn."


I was like oh?

"Nope, I am pretty "SURE" you can't and let me tell you why"

I sat quietly and waited....

I've gone through this with my kids before so it happens.


He reminds me that no only am I "Mexican" I was not "Blonde" I did not have "Straight Hair" then he went on this description of my hair.

I was like.

I can be Harley Quinn if I fucking want Worm, because it's Halloween.

He walked away and I started having this long and deep discussion about that AHA moment with a few other people.


I can role play somethings, I can pretend to be something, but somethings. I will never be able to be.

He's right.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

I thought of getting some ink, and I was discussing it with my Pack and I shared what I was thinking.

Months passed by and on Friday Worm comes to me and says:

"I've been thinking about you Joker tattoo and then I realized you could NEVER (he used quotation marks when saying never) EVER be Harley Quinn."


I was like oh?

"Nope, I am pretty "SURE" you can't and let me tell you why"

I sat quietly and waited....

I've gone through this with my kids before so it happens.


He reminds me that no only am I "Mexican" I was not "Blonde" I did not have "Straight Hair" then he went on this description of my hair.

I was like.

I can be Harley Quinn if I fucking want Worm, because it's Halloween.

He walked away and I started having this long and deep discussion about that AHA moment with a few other people.


I can role play somethings, I can pretend to be something, but somethings. I will never be able to be.

He's right.

But do you want to be?

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Cajun_dee

But do you want to be?

Laughs, well yeah sometimes I want to be white..


I would love to know what it feels like to sit at dinner with your guy and his cousin and not have some dick head look at you like you have boogers on your chin and ask you:

"So where are you from?"


I'd love to just be able to fucking appropriate Cinco De Mayo with my girlfriends, eat $1.00 tacos, drink some margaritas, SCREAM LOUDLY HAPPY CINCO DE DRINKO!


Sometimes, I do think about it and I want to be.


Then I think, don't be such a cunt Snow stop shitting on your people cause you want easy.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Do you ever want to be a woman of color?

[blush]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Do you ever want to be a woman of color?

Yes. The actress from Modern Family, Claire Huxtable...

I'm jealous of the seemingly effortless power those women embody.

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Do you ever want to be a woman of color?

nope. i like it easy. i am not proud of the suffering of others at the white man's hand, because i am white. i am ashamed actually, but wouldn't want to trade places with a person of color. i have always admired the power of Latina women. My Latina friend told me she would never marry a Latina man because they expected the women to do it all. My niece married a Latina man and his family was pretty much in shock when she expected him to help with the child raising and housework.

without doing the *my best friend is a POC* i will say...


i grew up with and have had lots of POC in my life. My best friend as a kid was Hector from Mexico. i often thought it was cool that his dad didn't do the disciplining, his mom did. They ate cool food and gave me my first taco. i learned what home made tortillas were and he learned what a beignet was. i also knew that no matter how little we had, they had less. Our moms were best friends and we would go to the church to pick up boxes of food for them. i knew then i was lucky to be who i was. Privilege without realizing what it was.

Growing up people i worked and played with were mostly POC, and some people from Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras, then when the Vietnam was over we received thousands of Vietnamese folks in our area. Thinking about it i think we were the only white folks in the neighborhood. Hearing their stories of what real struggle is all about, and not even hitting the tip of the iceberg of what their life is like, has always made me grateful to be born on an easier route in life.

When i was a kid i didn't feel much different from them, we were all just trying to survive, but now i know we are worlds apart. The only thing we really had in common was we lived in a poor neighborhood and didn't have much in the world.

Actually until it was pointed out to me (much on this site) i honestly denied my privilege.

i am now in Canada where i have seen about two POC since i got here. Quite a contrast from where i am from. i am so glad i grew up where i did in a way because i was exposed to all different people my entire life.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Do you ever want to be a woman of color?

going out on my limb---

when i went to live with my parents, one of the things my mom told me was that i could be anything i wanted to be. (she was white so she had the luxury of telling me that)

i told her i wanted to be a hummingbird or a dragonfly.

it took her a week to drum up the stones to explain that i couldnt be either and i was truly heartbroken because being human isnt the end all and be all to me. frankly, there are times i could give two f*cks about being human at all. she told me, in a nutshell, that i had to limit myself to human being things.

sometime after that someone asked me what i wanted "to be" when i grew up and i said i wanted to be like Mrs Prejean (a teacher at my school). he said, 'oh you want to be a teacher!' and i said, 'no, i want to be a ballerina and a botanist but i want to look like Mrs Prejean because she's the smartest and prettiest lady i know.' so my 6-year old shit hits this guy's fan because Mrs Prejean isnt white.

when i think about her now, through that 6-year old's eyes, she may still be the smartest and prettiest lady i know. the 49-year old remembers her as the person who told my parents i needed glasses and the person who let me read ahead rather than making me wait for the rest of the class and the person who cleaned me up when someone's belligerent, alcoholic father scared the piss out of me (literally) on the playground.

stupid kid story. yeah. i know. do i want to be a woman of color now? WANT? no. i'm too steeped in my privilege. f*ck i dont even know how much privilege i have. but my heart says i'd rather be Mrs Prejean than June Cleaver any day. Mrs Prejean was real.

[girl_dee]

Yes and i hadn't read your post before i posted mine. i just did.

Thanks for the reminder because in my world/skin it's easy to forget.

i've been thinking lots about this since this thread started. Thanks for that!

[aishah]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

When I speak of racism when it comes to The Cleavers, I have to, it's a kick to the gut when someone wants to hold you up to something you will never be.

this, for me, is the biggest kicker. the fact that non-white women are held to this standard when it is something that we could not and never could have met - and it's really a double bind because the system is set up specifically to deny us ever having the possibility of being like june cleaver. during this time period native & black women were also being sterilized by the state, as were disabled women, and our children were forcibly taken from us and sent to boarding schools for forced assimilation or adopted out to white families.

[Sachita]

Originally Posted by Cajun_dee

Holy heck i am cross posting on the Planet.

i realized i probably should have posted this here!





i think for some people, possibly myself included, we don't feel that we are whitewashing history by adopting certain behaviors from that time period.

i get that women had no rights, i get that women were stripped of our dreams, hopes and the right to live in our own skin. Hell as an adult i was told i made less money than my male co-worker because he had a high house note to pay. We did the exact same job, only i did mine more efficiently.

By me choosing to embrace being a home maker doesn't by any stretch mean that i do not get and honor that time period and the struggles we still go through.

In fact it feels even more empowering in some ways because i am choose to live this way, i love what i do, i get to choose, and no matter what my choice it is honored.
__________________

ETA Maybe this is my kink?

I understand choice. I don't understand any type of support for discrimination..... however,

I always viewed the adoption of such things more as a type of fetishism. Fetish doesn't have to be tangible, although can be. It's a set of behaviors, rituals and maybe "things" that unlock a desired state of being or passionate response. Ain't nothing wrong with this or role-play for that matter. It becomes empowering because YOU own it, it doesn't own you or dictate rules.

I think June Clever was a hardcore female supremacist who made her husband wear panties under his suit. She used her feminine magic to subliminally control her family. She also cuckolded her husband by having a beautiful black man at her disposal. This is why she was always happy and smiling.