I ran across this video while doing some serious academic reading on the Huffington Post (sarcasm intended!).  I've been home bound as it's snowed here in RVA and school has been cancelled.  This culture (and I am guilty of participating in it!) is too celebrity and model obsessed.  While the fashion and marketing industry have always preyed on our fears to compel sales, the difference between 60 years ago and now, is the creeping of technological devices and advertising into every aspect of our lives.  I love vintage ads, particularly those which reveal things about the role of a woman in a particular time era.  I was looking at a post on vintage ads when I began thinking about how much times haven't changed.  The delivery is different but the message is still the same--"you are not good enough without my product".

I discovered the following artist, Boggie whose video shows her own transformation via Photoshop.  In the song, she says "I am not their product".  I hope to see more and more artists speaking up against Photoshopping their images so that they are hardly recognizable.  It is bad for all people.  If people compare themselves to something that the artist isn't even, than what hope is there for a healthy body image?  Boggie helps explore the media's distortion of beauty.

Who am I?  The ubiquitous question driving me to chase my family roots. Is there a Formula to me?  Why do I like to sew, to make soap, to write?  How do my genes versus my nurture, affect who I am?  With the exception of sewing, I was never shown to do these things-- I sought them out. I think it is silly to dismiss our ancestry- we care more about the lineage and breeding of our pets than ourselves, I sometimes believe.

My full name is Jamie Elizabeth Kerr Weinstein.  I've always been told that the Kerr name is Scottish (and there's a huge and diverse amount of people in the Kerr clan history) and that the Henderson's (my mom's side) were Irish and Scottish.  I never really thought about the rest of the family, my grandmothers' sides.  On one side I have the Waltons and on the other side the Forresters.  I'd heard family rumors that one of my great-great grandmothers was an "Indian Princess" and that I was related to the Walton family featured on a tv show in the 1970s.

I decided to look for my answers to "Who is my family?", by starting at Ancestry.com (free 2 week trial available, you have to cancel within 10 days!)  I could easily trace the Kerr's but I started focusing on the Forrester Family.  My grandmother Robbie Forster (last name changed during faulty census taking, as the family was very poor and many couldn't read - Forrester became Forster) was the last child born to her mother in the early 1900s.  Medical attention was near obsolete, especially at home births, and my great- grandmother died during childbirth to my grandmother.

I started telling my mother about my search for my ancestors and lo and behold, after 33 years, I was given some facts about my family that allowed me to confirm the facts that I was finding online.  The "Indian princess" great-grandmother?   American Indians didn't have "princesses" but I am thrilled to find some truth in the legend!  It was family rumor that she was a physically beautiful woman and my gg-grandfather met her in Virginia where she was part of the Chickahominy tribe.  Her name was "Nancy" Mahalie Many Trees, according to family documentation I have found.  Her tombstone simply reads, "Wife of Francis, Chickahominy tribe" in Miller Cemetery, Georgia.  This is the same cemetery my grandmother, grandfather and aunt are buried, a fact I find somewhat curious as this is a maternal lineage but explained by the fact that my grandfather passed away first, giving my grandmother the choice of burial arrangements.  

My gg- grandfather was a founding member of Rising Fawn, a small trading town in Georgia and they settled on Lookout Mountain, Georgia.  I did a quick search on google maps to find Miller Cemetery.  I was astounded to find a small plot of land with all of the relatives I had been researching.  In my mind, the cemetery was huge, based on all of the people I had researched.  It is just a small plot of land and I must have looked at every tombstone there online, believing I was searching a plot with numerous families. 

The cemetery is just this tiny piece of land with most of my Forester relatives, including "Nancy" Chickahominy Indian woman".   I feel such a deep connection to this side of the family I barely know.  I believe our genes do dictate who we are.  We accept this on a physical level (i.e. gene deficiencies and diseases) but we don't accept this on a spiritual level.  I believe in both.  

I'm not a scientist or a religious figure but my opinions are just as valid.  I cannot explain my innate ways of being.  I have an extreme imagination.  I have a connection to plants and animals that most people don't.  I listen to the wind and I feel a kinship to nature that is grander than that of which I have with humans.  My mom brought me some of my packed boxes from childhood and I found a bag of shells and a little American Indian doll from my grandmother that I used to carry around as a child.  I was a collector of objects as I child (I still am!) and I'd often carry around items for good luck or comfort.   I barely knew my grandmother but there is a connection between us.  She felt so strongly about her family's (my family's) heritage that it was her chosen place of burial as well.

The legend of my "Indian Princess" great, great grandmother may have been skewed but the facts support the folklore.  I am so intrigued by this part of the country now that I am planning a family vacation there (as funding will permit in the future! -- Positive projection! ). I didn't have the best family growing up, so I've found comfort in the adage, "You can't choose your family but you can choose your friends".  Through this journey though, I am beginning to find comfort in the complexity of heritage and our natures.

I can't remember much about my grandma Kerr (Forrester surname).  I remember she was quiet, opinionated, set in her ways, had lots of perfumes, inexpensive jewelry and trinkets and always had "Chicken in a Biskit" crackers for me in her cupboard.  My grandmother died when I was a pre-teen.  Maybe I can't go back in time to talk with her but I can learn more about her by researching her choices and seeing the same locations in nature that were so important to her, like Rising Fawn, Georgia.

And so this "Nancy" Chickahominy woman, generations removed from me, is still affecting her (my) family because it is my curiosity in her that led me to finding someone a little closer to me, my grandmother.  

What makes us, nature or nurture?  I can't answer that as I'm still resolving the answers for myself but I'm happily resolving the nature in me.

What is your reaction to the above quote?  Most men probably think it's pretty funny.  I bet a little over 30% of women would also think that's funny.  What an incredible shame.  

According to a quick internet search, Christopher Hitchens is known for his scathing "wit".  This is wit?  This is what we've come to as a country for humor?  So fueled into anti Puritanism, that we've succumbed to classlessness?  Would it make any difference if you knew he made this comment about Sarah Palin?  Now, I'm no fan of Palin's and I claim no political affiliation but this was said purely because of her gender, her sex and nothing more.  I'm no dummy but I've certainly not attained the ranks of being elected as the United States Vice-President running mate.  It is incredulous to claim that the only job suitable to this human being, this woman, is to lie on her back (or otherwise!) objectified and/or ridiculed for the mastubatory purposes of males.

The new backlash for any woman that claims objection to the objectification of women is that somehow we're not "cool".  The new "cool", the new women's rights, seems to be a disconnection between our femininity and pride.  Somehow, to be "cool" we have to prove ourselves as one of the guys, be open to objectifying ourselves and our female peers.  We are either "haters" or "prudes" if we dissent from the common opinion that women are objects and can begun being seen as so, as soon as we enter puberty.  After all, it is ingrained in our DNA, it is natural, isn't it?  

No!  It is not.  As a matter of fact, I know because I am a female!  It is not natural for a man to look or covet a female as soon as she hits puberty.  It is unnatural and can make a young female feel this way as well, making her believe she is unnatural.  With the amount of hormones in our food and the lack of natural light and air that our ancestors experienced, it is even more unnatural to claim some sort of sanctuary in the "fact" that our ancestors did it.  

I recently did a genealogy search on my family.  My great-grandmother grew up in an abusive household and married my 29 year old great-grandmother at 13 years old. I'm told this seemed like a blessing to my great-great grandmother, who bore my great grandmother as the product of an affair during a failed attempt to leave my step-great-great grandfather. After going through census records of the late 1800s and early 1900s, I see this was not normal.  This did not characterize the times.  There were "normal" age differences of 2 - 6 years but by no means was marrying 13 year olds commonplace.

What brings this up?  I've excitedly waited for the premiere of "Hell on Wheels" for weeks now.  I get into the second hour of the show and Buchanan (the lead character), visits a Mormon's house to gain additional land for the railroad (the show is about pushing the Railroad West in a post-Civil War America).  As Buchanan eats dinner, the camera focuses on a young girl, maybe 13-15 years old.  I could tell the director was getting ready to sexualize her by the lighting and the low shy gaze on her face (because you know, that's hot- quiet, underage and ready to be victimized) and I thought, "No, really?  I want to enjoy this show and keep my dinner down".  No sooner than I thought that than the next scene cuts to him having sex with her in a barn while her brother watches.  With that I turned off the show and according to the feed on their website, so did a lot of other women.

Hyper-sensitive?  Don't I know this is a historical show?  I call BULLSHIT>  Yep!  I cursed.  I use it for emphasis because there is nothing else to describe the pervasive attitude that has crept into us as a common humanity since the influx of internet media.  As a 33 year old, I've grown up with the internet and Facebook was part of my college years.  I would never post photos of me naked online or such.  I'm just too private.  I value my body and its privacy.

I first noticed the pervasive attitude of misogyny toward women, as a waitress at a national restaurant chain in college.  As I brought a group of white males their food and drinks, they were loudly bragging to one another about how they "raped" a video game, yeah dude they like totally racked up in points and "raped" this video game.  Do you get it?  Do you see the problem of this?  When we lessen the meaning of words, when we lessen the hate they bring and belittle this real occurrence to women; we take away their power.  The word "rape" needs to be a horrible word that is rarely uttered. We need to be shocked over the amount of rapes that happen in this country and not wait to be horrified at the actions that take place in other countries, unaware of what happens in our own figurative backyard.   The problem is us, the problem is here, we are responsible.

We are responsible.  We are responsible every time we are not offended by images such as those from Cadeaux.  Here is a 6 year old posed "seductively"  ???  with a toothbrush wearing a blue satin bra and Harry Winston jewels.  For anyone who once again might think I'm overreacting.... google it.  Photos are by Sharif Hamza and are disturbing at best.

(Even though this image was placed in Vogue magazine, I edited the photo.  The real photo is here:  sharifhamza.com  It should be obvious I do not endorse this.) 


When we allow these images to sell to us, we are as much to blame-  there is no market if there is no demand.   Recently, someone said to me, "Well, the photos already exist.  If someone uses them, how is that providing more demand?".  My answer, "Because you are providing documentation for the need for a product.  Your actions are part of a bigger piece of society that promotes  the victimization of others. "

I seriously do not think men would feel the same if women did the same to them.  Ugghhhh!  I could go on about this forever but I think I'm going to put some of this anger into a letter to AMC.  I'd really hate to have to permanently boycott the show and miss my Elam and Eva fix (Common and Robin McLeavy).  Think about what I've said though, public, it is the small day-to-day decisions that we make that make the bigger differences in others' lives.