Voice and Body

Man, sometimes Tavi just really hits home. This little video she made is awesome. Sometimes girls can get so held up by the fact that they're going to sound awkward or knowing that they'll be so much more educated or experienced on a topic in a few years - and these things add up to just not saying anything. I love that in this video she confronts both those facts and yet still decides to speak up and to value what she has to say. I love her blog but its also great to hear her voice!

TAVI RULES from RIOT GRRL VIDEOS on Vimeo.

In addition to conquering those two media formats Tavi is also teaming up with Jane and Sassy magazines' founder, Jane Pratt, to create a new magazine that is going to be like Sassy but updated for now. I am so so thrilled about this.


Tavi's video was also making me think about one of my favorite feminist books of all time: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. If you haven't read it I really recommend it, it doesn't get too lost in academic speak but manages to convey some of the clearest messages I've read in regard to the way culture, religion, sex, work, hunger, and violence make the possiblity of flourishing an uphill battle for both girls and grown women. Honestly, this is my pick if you only read one book on feminism.
One of my favorite parts of the book is when she sets aside the journalistic facts and the harsh realities and takes a different tone to paint a picture of what a girl who actually owns her body might look like.

"What if she doesn't have to worry about her body and eats enough for all the growing she has to do? She might rip her stockings and slam-dance on a forged ID to the Pogues, and walk home barefoot, holding her shoes alone at dawn; she might babysit in a battered women's shelter one night a month; she might skateboard down Lombard Street with its seven hairpin turns, or fall in love with her best friend and do something about it, or lose herself for hours gazing into test tubes with her hair a mess, or climb a promontory with the girls and get drunk on top, or sit down when the Pledge of Allegiance says stand, or hop a freight train, or take lovers without telling her name, or run away to sea. She might revel in all the freedoms that seem so trivial to those who take them for granted; she might dream seriously the dreams that seem so obvious to those who grew up with them really available. Who knows what she would do? Who knows what it would feel like?"