Oops! (photo retry)

Sorry, rotated that photo on cell phone & thought it would stay that way… but uploaded sideways. Here is a try again… perhaps the crop & save will send it up right. (Blogging from an LG phone)

Advertisement

Object de Humiliation

Another postcard from the edge of reason, an imaginary place where I seem to spend too much time. I think a lot while drawing, put what I am feeling into the art and sometimes, it expresses thoughts that are hard to put into words.

Have you ever sat so still and quiet that wild birds land on the porch rail by your chair, as if you are not even there?

A small herd of humans forgot I was there. Young stags, like proud and prancing deer showing off their racks, rah-rah men in their twenties all pompous and full of gin. Or should have been full of gin, as that would have helped to explain but not excuse their behavior.

Their object de humiliation had done absolutely nothing to provoke or encourage these men, other the fact that she breathes on this planet.

Straight up, from a woman’s point of view, there is a huge difference between the “feel good” of men looking at you with admiring eyes and the “feel bad” of being oogled by men while they discuss your physical attributes and flaws with their buddies in a crudely sexual context. It is like the difference between adorable tail wagging puppies happy to see you with please pet me eyes and a pack of mangy droul dripping dogs looking at you as if you were the last piece of meat on earth and growling at each other ready to fight for the bone.

In stark contrast – as the woman being oogled was a beautiful woman in an average young mother kind of way, even without makeup and dressed in loose, comfy clothes, her hair in a pony tail – are the photos of not so beautiful women circulating facebook with a “would you hit this” caption and instructions to tag a friend who would. So, damned if you are beautiful and damned if you are not. Any woman is fair game.

How do women deal with that? It’s not flattering. It is downright humiliating. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Disfiguring your face or your body to avoid unwanted attention doesn’t work either.

Today’s 4×6 postcard size art reflects the sad reality of a shallow society, or rather how one woman feels like hiding to avoid the nonsense.