Women of Choices: On Socialites and Post-feminists.

If you’ve been here just few days ago, you’d realise that there’s one post missing, titled On post-feminism. The post was adapted from a friend’s thesis questionnaire and I’ve deleted it; now I am about to merge the subject with other topics related to it: the controversy on Indonesia’s female socialites, the Nobel Prize-winning Doris Lessing, and the heroines.

So I’m just gonna have to write it all over again, add some new stuffs up, and tranform it into a full personal commentary. There’ve been major revisions and please excuse my limited literary resources on this one, so hold your arguments in your pants.

Okay. On Indonesia’s female socialites. First, take a looksee here. Or here’s a capture:

HOW TO BE A SOCIALITE

1.berpakaian semeriah dan senorak mungkin,contoh=anita simorangkir,sjully dharsono

2.memiliki saham sebuah club/resto/spa,contoh=amelia wirjono,dian purba,olla tian

3.menjadi model kemudian kawin dengan anak pejabat/anak konglomerat/anak pengusaha,contoh=widhi basuki,cynthia jusuf,gaby djorghy

4.kawin dengan anak pejabat/anak konglomerat/anak pengusaha kemudian menjadi model,contoh=vicky supit

5.rajin menghadiri/membuat pesta dengan thema khusus dan terobsesi menjadi the best dress,contoh=imelda pohan,stephanie uun

6.rajin menghadiri acara-acara artis yang diliput wartawan walau tak jelas prestasinya di dunia entertainment,contoh=femmy permata sari,diah permata sari,diana pungky,vena melinda

7.mengenakan busana terbaru from head to toe karya designer kondang dunia di setiap acara dan hanya sekali pakai,contoh=yayang,itta handoko,yvonne santoso

8.selalu mendapat tempat duduk front row dan tidak lupa memberi cinderamata kepada sang designer,contoh=uwak ujang

9.bersahabat dengan designer dan selalu berada di sisi sang designer dengan busana karya kreasi sahabat tercinta,contoh=rama

10.koleksi busana/sepatu/tas-nya sudah menjadi urban legend di kalangan socialite,dan keganasanya dalam ber-shopping selalu diliput para kuli tinta,contoh=hanny polli,claudine jusuf

Feisty heh? The post is quite humane, but the comments! Whoa. Names. People sure have their little gossipy fun in there. Socialite this, socialite that. Let’s be diplomatic about it and have a nice eco-friendly estrogen day, shall we? Before I run and squee to the local Louis Vuitton shops and lead myself into temptation, can you tell which one’s the post-feminist? Yes. Which one’s the post-feminist?

It’s quite imaginable if most of you reading that question is now laughing your genious brains out, or smirking sarcastically knowing this article is definitely going the wrong way. Socialites and post-feminists. It’s quite fictional. It’s like saying Aung San Suu Kyi have been going to the beach on Thursdays, wearing thongs and scratching her crotch in public for lord knows why. Peace to Burma.

Before we carry on, here are my latest answers for a friend’s thesis questionnaire on post-feminism:

Who do you think are enough to be predicated as a post-feminist? And what is her act?

The heroines whose acts will be elaborated below: Dame Anita Roddick, Doris Lessing, and Helen Gurley Brown.

What do you expected from the movements?

I don’t expect anything from it, but maybe my unborn daughters would. Like most theories/practice in humanism, what is mostly expected is a good way of living. Having greater values and purposes in life. Becoming better people for others and ourselves.

What do they have in common then? They’re women. Once you’re a woman, there’s nothing differentiates you from another. You just have different sizes of brain, boobs or balls. Metaphorically speaking.

One woman who knows exactly the different sizes in beauty is Dame Anita Roddick from Britain, Anita Roddick is the founder and owner of Body Shop. Not many “fashionistas” know this but last month, on 10th of September 2007, she died after suffering a fatal brain haemmorhage. Days ago when I replied for a comment on this blog, I stated that heroines are so hard to find; can’t believe I overlooked Anita Roddick. Roddick, wife and mother of two, is being mourned by environmental groups and animal rights activists world wide, as well as by women who were won over by her back-to-basics approach to beauty and her rejection of the fashion industry’s emphasis on perfection.

We practically grew up in her campaigns, for instance, the “Against Animal Testing” campaign from Body Shop. Afterwards, the phenomenal Ruby doll and last time I checked, Body Shop is supporting HIV AIDS organisations by selling red little wallets with condom compartment hidden inside. Okay, you might find that a bit controversial, but it isn’t about the products, really, it’s about the sending out the message that today’s women should be as sensitive to world issues as to her own appearance. Bless her. Bless those nut-scented lipsticks.

One more socialite we should add to the list is Doris Lessing. She isn’t a socialite socialite, she’s actually a novel writer, and she just won the Nobel Prize for literature this year. Lessing is the 11th woman to win literature’s most prestigious prize in its 106-year history, and she’s best known for her 1962 postmodern feminist masterpiece, The Golden Notebook. The book got singled out in the ceremony for the reason that according to Nobel Academy, it “belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship.”.

Fans praised that Doris Lessing’s writings have empowered women but more important than that, it has inspired them as a human being and that she was a catalyst for change. In her Golden Notebooks she allowed hundreds of thousands of woman to see their reflection in the mirror and realise that they were going through the same thing. Not only is she a fantastic and acutely observant writer, but the earth moved for her readers and she had a major impact on feminism and on modern culture. In year 1962, people might be having a hard time finding the right word for her views in writing, not until years later that they could consider it: postmodern feminism. Never read Lessing’s books, but she’s that good.

Another woman that is particularly a maestro in shaping the feminity of women today is Helen Gurley Brown. In my own opinion, this woman is the Coco Chanel of lifestyle journalism; Brown is the chief editor for Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years, she is Cosmopolitan in person. Have you ever heard the phrase “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.”? Yes, this is the “bad girl” who invented the phrase many years ago. However, she also said: “Beauty can’t amuse you, but brainwork — reading, writing, thinking — can.”, which gives us quite an idea what she refers to as “bad girls” in her era.

If you assume yourself a feminist, then you can either love this woman, or hate her – for she is the guru of Big O sensuality in terms of female intimate relationships with in the man world. When asked if she is happy, she answered: “I wouldn’t call myself a happy person. I would call myself a realized person, a very grateful person for all the wonderful things that have happened to me. I have moments of great pleasure. I know how to have fun. I enjoy sensual pleasures. I can think of people who are day-to-day more tranquil than I. Happy is a very strong word.” The remark somehow proves that, unlike the superficial wee joy we often see, she still considers happiness at its most reallistic sense: It takes hard work, and hard love.

Those are the heroines. And we often find it enjoyable to have a heroine on the scene, minding the fact that there’s always a damsel in distress in all of us women. Lisa Simpson, Selina Kyle aka Patience Phillips aka Catwoman, Wendy Testaburger, Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennett, Liutenant Ripley, Holly Golightly, and that lifeguard penguin in Surf’s Up. Taste the bittersweet irony: these characters are created by men, but I won’t analyze that any further.

Here’s the advicing summary:

I think Christian Louboutin shoes are the best ever! Ever.

Oops. Wrong summary.

Here’s the summary. In this fastlane modernity, it would be appropriate to say that in order to face its revolution of choices, a woman should be aware of her identity, presence and her own nurturing influence as her standing ground. To define those terms in her own words and later become her own fairytale storyteller. Confused? Of course we’re confused, we’re women. That’s why men are still wearing the same pants for centuries, and women wear both pants and skirts, and different types of pants and different types of skirts. We’re confused, but we’re finding answers.

Socialite or not, post-feminist or not. We are women.

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