#gendernorm

[tanuki-kimono]

Chiso kimono company new collection, modeled by artist Mirai Moriyama. It’s interesting they chose a man to model a woman kimono line (even if the blue houmongi, styled as a woman would wear it, felt a bit too constricting to Moriyama-san as stressed in the interview).

I’ve touched it before, male artists have been wearing women kimono for a long time in Japan (onnagata for example). That doesn’t mean many men would actually dress like that in the streets (yet), but its always nice to see campains like this choosing to blur stiff traditional kimono fashion. We are heading the right way :)

[erosianexile]

For many years, I believed the rumors that men wanted to chase, and women had to be chased. I knew what I wanted, when and how I wanted it... and in every other aspect of my life, I chased my desires. But where men were concerned, I'd essentially stalk them and trick them into thinking it was their idea to seduce me. While I was fairly successful, I wasted a lot of time and caused a lot of pain - not only for me, but for men. I'm mostly into shy, beautiful, graceful men... not hyper-masculine ones. The shyer dreamier men balance my intense chasing energy better. But I was scaring those types of guys away, by not making a move; and I was attracting the guys who are assertive, but not fully my type. Playing those stupid man-woman games was the dumbest thing I ever did, and easily the thing in my life that I regret most. I'm so honest most of the time, relentless... but I'm terrified of rejection. So I tried to play along with the man-woman model even though in every other way I broke the mold without second thought. My fear choked me. Fear that I was not beautiful enough for the caliber of men that I'm into. That they could find someone healthy, successful, normal... just better. I'm so overconfident in other areas that people didn't realize how much romance fucked me up. In my 30s I dropped the bullshit and just chased men when I wanted to. Told them my feelings, seduced. Oddly enough, knowing I could do exactly what I want made me much more picky, and I CHOSE to spend years waiting for my soulmate. When I found him, I informed him the first week that he's moving here and marrying me. It wasn't a question. And the irony is, when I started doing the things I was told "men" would do, people started perceiving me as more feminine than before. In a good way! I've always been perceived as a masculine energy, but now that I just let myself "act like a man" (or like a man supposedly acts), I was suddenly a real woman. Because I was true to myself. For fuck's sake. Ignore the bullshit and just be you. Squeezing yourself into gender norm crap is just a waste of everyone's time.

[daniellecoleca]

Your place or mine? Super excited to be dropping off this piece with clients today. It’s such a pleasure to meet the people who will be living with my art and know that they ‘get it.’ #collage #vintage #gendernorm #genderstereotype #vintageadvertisjng #communitcarion. (at Toronto C•A•N•A•D•A) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9M12IrBXVt/?igshid=yuoe1f90o82h

[daniellecoleca]

He has a gun. She has a bell. He is the hero. She is maybe noble? But certainly not the winner in this ‘game.’ #genderroles #gendernorm #colonialism #notagame #hero #wedontneedanotherhero #barbarakruger #kentmonkman (at Toronto C•A•N•A•D•A) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2kHUu4hDt5/?igshid=kovjvy5wd346

[crimsoncasket]

I have a thing for crop tops.

[lifestylev]

Help STOP GENDER ROLES

sign this petition pleaseeee https://www.change.org/petitions/axe-not-all-sex-is-good-axe-s-standards-of-what-real-men-want

[maddielange]

Swedish Toys"R"Us Catalogue Challenges Stereotypes

The new Toys "R" Us Catalogue in Sweden works to trouble heteronormative assumptions about sex, gender, and sexuality by picturing boys and girls playing with toys together, regardless of the toys' stereotypical target market. The move is part of a conscious effort to loosen the boundaries of what is acceptable for members of each sex and gender. Instead of limiting young boys to guns are cars and young girls to play-kitchens and doll houses, the catalogue is promoting a world in which sex, gender, sexuality, and performance are not so rigidly dependent on one another. 

[theawkwardphase]

Lilac Gender Norm

My mother and I don't remember why I'm wearing a dress over jeans and a turtleneck in this picture. I'm around 11 or 12, and that lilac gender norm (please note the matching shawl) I'm sporting for the camera is for a family friend's wedding. Must've been a trial run. I should've known back then I'd never get being girly right.

The first thing that comes to mind when seeing my happy face in that goofy faux-pax of an outfit is, oddly, a sense of regret: regret that that carefree attitude didn't last so long. I've always been an unique individual, feeling more comfortable going against the crowd and paving my own route, but I've found that, since around the time this photo was taken, I "gave in" much more to constraints and fears about how I presented myself to others. Middle and high school solidified that practice in my head, as I'm sure the two have done for many free spirits over the course of existence. After entering adulthood, I've found that most days I have to actively remember to be unique - to turn off any self-doubt or societal pressures that might filter out my happiness.

As a gay woman riding the progressive wave of 2013, it’s a lot easier now to be proud of my individual point of view. My androgynous clothing, my hair cut, my opinions, and the way I present myself make up who I am, and at 24, I'm just finally starting to get back to feeling like me on the outside as well as on the inside. I guess if I could, I'd tell my younger self to relax, to calm down about how I'm perceived, in order to fully enjoy being a dumb teenager. A lot of my time from middle-school on could've been much more fun had I kept the youthful, carefree attitude of this picture, or at least realized how little my image in high school would ever matter after graduating.

Whatever route I took to get here, I'm very happy with my current self, I'm working on my freedom of expression (without the aid of turtlenecks), and I still know how to rock a dress to a wedding.