Good news!  According to this 1948 pop quiz, “You can be a real he-man and still like to make a cheese soufflé.”

The article also says, “It’s no reflection on your masculinity if you are a man and sometimes prefer feminine things.  Nor should you feel dismayed if you are a woman and have some masculine tastes.”  Well that’s a relief, because I scored a 7 which supposedly means I have masculine interests.

This stuff kills me!  So funny.  What’s your score?

via Retronaut

I didn’t think twice about the color pink when I was little.  I never was the doll-playing girly type, but I actually wore pink quite a bit as it didn’t mean anything to me. It wasn’t until I got a little older that I really started to dislike it. What disturbs me about it is the way it’s mass marketed in the U.S. as strictly a female color.

The clearest example of this is how toys and clothes are marketed to kids. You can’t walk into a major department store without seeing pink dominating the girls section. Have you seen the new pink Legos “for girls”?  There’s a lot of gender stereotyping controversy going around about the new product (here and here) since it has a beauty shop, a cafe, and a pool.  Things you don’t see in a typical set of Legos which are marketed toward boys. I think Riley sums it up best in this video, “Some girls like superheroes, and some girls like princesses!  So why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff and the boys have to buy different color stuff?”

But pink hasn’t always been seen as a girl’s color.  Get this, did you know that pink used to be considered a boy’s color and blue a girl’s color?!  A June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”  Time magazine even published this color chart that was displayed in department stores to show people what color to buy for babies (mostly pink for boys and blue for girls).  The color switch was made by retailers in the early 40′s but the pink and blue fad didn’t kick in with full force until the early 80′s.  The big reason was due to prenatal testing.  When expectant parents found out the sex of their baby, they could then shop for “girl” or “boy” merchandise.  “The more you individualize clothing, the more you can sell,” says author and professor Jo B. Paoletti who has been studying the color pink for over 30 years. Why pink vs. blue? “It’s really a story of what happened to neutral clothing,” says Paoletti. For centuries, both boy and girl babies wore white dresses. “What was once a matter of practicality—you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached—became a matter of ‘Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they’ll grow up perverted,’ ” Paoletti says.

The thing that irks me is that it’s often perceived as a dainty delicate color and many people tend to automatically assume that pink = female. Remember this TED talk I posted with New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly? She mentions how we’re being conditioned at a young age to believe that all girls should like the color pink and are supposed to play with dolls. This assumption sticks with us as we get older because I see the unnecessary use of pink all the time in things that are women specific. For example, I found this ad for a women’s mountain biking clinic on a local race blog and was completely turned off by it for number of reasons:

First, did they have to slap pink all over it just because it’s geared toward women?  Secondly, am I supposed to get behind the slogan, Courageous Women of Dirt?!  So lame. Last but not least is the registration url shown at the bottom: www.rocknroadcyclery.net/DIVAS. Really?? Divas?! That’s just an insult. So essentially what this poster is saying is that I’m considered to be a “Courageous Pink Diva of Dirt” just because I’m a girl who likes to mountain bike. WTF.

Fact is we’re all different…some girls like pink and some don’t. You simply can’t define an entire gender by a color. Pink ≠ female.

Sources: Pinkisforboys.org, Smithsonian Magazine

All I can say is, WOW. If you haven’t seen this video yet, you might want to stop whatever you’re doing and watch. I’ve seen lots of amazing photos of Holi – the festival of colors in India – but this video takes it to another level. It was shot on the Phantom Flex camera which can shoot up to 2,570 frames per second in order to capture action in extreme slow motion.

From the filmmakers:
“The world is fascinating. People and cultures inspire us. Sadly, the fast paced lifestyles of our generation result in many not taking the necessary step back to soak in the existing world around us. Our goal with this film is to help viewers further appreciate and take notice of the beauty in life & culture that lies within our world…”

Directors/Cinematographers: Jonathan Bregel & Khalid Mohtaseb
Production Company: Variable – WeAreVariable

Kanyadaan III, Oil on linen, 10″x10″, 2012

Kanyadaan II, Oil on panel, 10″x8″, 2012

Kanyadaan I, Oil on panel, 10″x10″, 2011

Wow.  I was instantly drawn to these paintings by Kimia Kline when I saw them on her blog the other day.  She’s an incredibly talented artist who left San Francisco to live in Chennai, India for eight months with her husband.  Her latest series is gorgeous, but the story behind it is alarming.

During her stay in Chennai, she interviewed women from a village about their experiences with marriages and the controversial dowry system.  A dowry is paid by the bride’s family to the groom’s family when people marry in India.  She says, “What’s haunting about this practice is not only that marriages are often decided based on material items, but rather that thousands of women are burned every year due to insufficient dowries. If the groom’s family decides they want more money after the wedding has taken place, the bride is doused in kerosene and burned in the kitchen, making it look like a kitchen accident. After her death, the groom is then free to remarry and collect a second dowry.”

Her paintings were inspired by an unusual ad she saw in a newspaper.  She says, “The advertisement was for a bride, but instead of showing her picture or sharing a bio, it was a list of dowry items she came with, should you want to marry her. The items ranged from a TV set, an air conditioner, a chicken, a goat, and a scooter.”

“I wanted these paintings to look and feel like pseudo-ads with bright flashy colors and slick surfaces. But I also wanted them to feel ghostly, referencing the barbaric way women are still treated in India. The series is entitled “Kanyadaan”, which is the term used for the most emotional ritual in the Hindu marriage ceremony, when the father hands over his rights and duties towards his daughter to her prospective groom.”

This recent article ranks India as the fourth most dangerous country in the world for women.  Kimia says, “In many ways, dealing with the condition of the status of women in India was the most challenging part of my experience during our 8 months in Chennai.”

Source and Photos:  Art by Kimia Kline, alkeemi.blogspot.com

Retrovelo – Clara

Abici – GranTurismo Donna (photo via Adeline Adeline)

Adriatica – Vintage R Extra

Linus – Dutchi 1

Bella Ciao – Norealista

Let’s grab a classy bike and cruise around Copenhagen… who’s in??

On another note, I love what the bicycle consulting group, Copenhagenize, is doing.  They’re launching the Kickstand sessions in Spring 2012 to consult North America on the integration of bicycle cultures into it’s cities.  Would be great to see less cars and more bikes in southern California… and with wheels this dope out there, who needs an engine?

Female Samurai Tamoe Gozen by Fujiwara – paintingsilove.com

Empress Jingu in Korea

Left-Nakano Takeko, Right-Yamakawa Futaba

Onna Bugeisha (onna – woman, bugeisha – samurai)

My dreams have come true.  Female samurai.  I didn’t know they existed.  They weren’t as prevalent as their male counterparts, but they fought right alongside them winning wars and even leading their own clans.  So dope.

Of the upper class, Onna Bugeisha were trained to protect their family, honor, and home.  They could slice you into pieces with their signature weapon, the naginata.  With a curved blade at the end of a long wooden pole, it was the perfect weapon for women since it kept them at a good distance from their beefy male foes that had the advantage of strength.

The ancient discipline using the naginata teaches all types of great self improvement skills like patience, self-confidence, and etiquette.  I found a “dojo” (practice hall) here in LA that practices the art form.  It’s taught by a woman that has been practicing for over 40 years and even studied under a master in Japan.  Sign me up!

Notable Onna Bugeisha:

Tamoe Gozen – lead many men into battle with her impressive sword and archery skills.  Or maybe she just killed them softly with her signature long luscious locks and beauty (see photo 1).

Nakano Takeko – took a bullet straight to the chest while leading a charge against the Imperial Japanese Army.  Refusing to let the enemy take her head as a trophy, she asked her sister to cut it off and had it buried near a temple.  No words…

Empress Jingu – led and won a 3 year long invasion of Korea and was the first woman to be printed on a Japanese banknote.

Yamakawa Futaba – fought in the Boshin War and later went on to improve education for girls in Japan.

As female warriors, they certainly destroy all those little pink fluffy female stereotypes of weakness… and they’ll destroy you too.

Sources: oldphotosofjapan.com, wikipedia, koryu.com, naginata.culturalnews.net