To the hot summer breeze and to letting go.

Feminism in translations

This will be a series in which I translate well known feminists works or parts of their writings from Swedish to English and talk a little about my point of view. Let us begin.

Written by Fanny Åström:

Top 10 horrible things men have done

  

No 3 - Emotionally exploited us

Because I didn't ask my partner to do all the emotional labour I also have no responsibility for it becoming that way.

Men exploit women emotionally in relationships and that means we have no strength left for ourselves or each other. This practice lays the groundwork for the patriarchy and is thereby one of mens worst crimes. And not only that, they make us do it voluntarily. Because we are dependent on his validation of us to become whole (or as whole as possible) human beings in this society we then bow to his superiority. We even desire oppression.

 No 8 - Not being able to handle feelings

Because I have no contact with my emotional life I will lie and say everything is fine. Instead it becomes up to you to interpret my signals and adjust your self. That's handy because then I don't have to take any responsibility.

 To say that things are fine when they are not. To not comfort you when you cry because you are "too old for that". To make his own shortcomings into that of the woman by telling her not to "cry like a baby". Or just all the other ways men refuse to handle his own and other peoples feelings. That fucking sucks. I am tired of curling men who  DOESN'T GET IT or doesn't want to get it! Luckily I don't have to do that anymore and that is something that fills me with joy every day. It's such a relief to not have to take care of mens retarded and shit-boring emotional life. It's like there is never any movement? Just an endless ranting.

 No 9 - Make us doubt our selves and eachother

She went into a relationship where she got less relationship VOLUNTARILY. And because it was voluntary it's automatically right.

They instil a feeling of that we can's trust our selves, our relationships with eachother or thoughts. Simply: we are forced to internalise their hatred of us into our selves. It's awful because it makes us hate our selves and eachother. This internalised hate of women is so difficult to stop and it's constantly topped up because we have men surrounding us.

I chose these 3 points because I want to talk about the thing that underpins our society: Mens lack of emotional labour. I will probably come back to this because it is so fundamentally saturating. Not teaching our boys to do emotional labour is by far the most damage one can do individually to our society. Not only does it leave the boys them selves to grow up into some sort of deluded half humans, distant from them selves and everyone around them, unable to express their own emotions or form lasting connections. We also create an army of emotional abusers. 

The patriarchy will never fall unless we stop living under the pressure of mens emotional control. There are two choices really. Either keep talking and hope that the men around you will one day understand what we are saying and be there when they are needed and not suck us dry of all energy. Or cut out these emotional vampires entirely from your life.

Stop living in the illusion that men are somehow easier than us, that we just complicate things, the reality is the most simple explanation. They just don't give a shit. They don't! not on the same level. They don't see you, they don't see them selves. Don't doubt your self, when he sais things like "I only give compliments when you least expect it", it means "I enjoy my superiority over you".  When he sais "What do you expect me to do?" in that tone of voice that we all know, hear "Don't expect me to be there for you as I expect you to be there for me". Don't doubt that hollow feeling, the feeling that if you could just do the right thing or feel the right way, it would all be so wonderful. You are not the only one who should be making it wonderful. And not in a way that can be bought or silenced. If you ask to be seen he has a responsibility to see you, you do not have a responsibility to want less! He isn't going to want less. Why are you not "this way" and accepted for that but he is? You should not be expected to trust someone who isn't there, who outright refuses to reassure you, or who would use your vulnerability against you to protect their own feelings of inadequacy. The message is always the same. Settle or lose. 

Now, I'm still in the category of the ones who still try to save my relationships with men. But studies show that women's mental health improves after divorces and that women with strong female relationships do far better than women surrounded by men and that is no coincidence. Make no mistake, I have never felt as terrible as since the day I decided to approach men as whole human beings. They are not. Not because they couldn't be, we are all born the same..but because we all made them that way. And we need to stop so it isn't too late for the next generation as well. I need all men in my life to step up and do their emotional labour right now! 

The only time I give you emotional validation is when I feel the relationship is threatened. Why should I make you feel safe and loved unnessecarily?

As a last point I just want to add this one:

 No 6 - Do not appreciate us

Despite claiming our whole world they have no appreciation for what they get. This is so incredibly ignorant and disgusting. Can't you at least appreciate the patriarchy if you're going to insist on keeping half the population in oppression? Isn't that the least one can ask? God, if I had been a man I would have damn well enjoyed it, but instead they walk around in a cloud of nothingness. Such a fucking waste.

Read the whole blogpost here.

If you read Swedish, go in and check her out, she is amazing.

Tea stands for Tudor

 

 So I finished the Tudor era shirt. It's made out of 5 squares really, just like any pre-industrial shirt, plus cuffs and collar. I felt like it needed something though. It's cotton even though that would probably not have been the case in actual Tudor times but I can't really fix that.. but I can fix the colour! So I did what I do with most things and dipped it in tea. It was a tea flavoured "berries and biscuits" so it smells nice as well. My fingers now hurt from all the hand sewing but it is totally worth it for the relative accuracy! And the child didn't mind wearing it, that's always a small victory.

Next up is the trousers and doublet.

Nightmares in June

Sometimes I come across this illness..PTSD. Much like being a psychopath it's one of the mental illnesses that leave physical scars on the brain, in this case it affects short term memory and emotion control the worst which often leads to confusion, exhaustion and difficulties communicating or recognising ones feelings. Nightmares and insomnia is common. It also makes you hyper aware of your surroundings, like subtle changes in peoples faces and tones of voices.

 Or so I hear.

 Ironically I frequently forget that I have PTSD and it's like a new discovery every time. Every day perks there.. 

For anyone who doesn't know, PTSD stands for post traumatic stress syndrome and comes from living through traumatic events without properly healing. It feels a lot like I imagine it would feel if you one day woke up covered in a full body tattoo that someone else designed and you had to work on removing that for the rest of your life while people ask you why you got the tattoo if you hate it so much. Once you are done you might not even look like the same person. And no, not everyday is a battle. Having a terrible memory has saved me from so much pain and while I can't remember my past I feel truly happy. Until I remember. Until something happens. Because it is never from the inside, this is not an inside disease, it comes from the outside and works its way in. When the trigger happens the world stops and I fall back into the rabbit hole..and the clearest thought in my head is how much who ever I ask for help is going to hate me for presuming to ruin their day with my trauma. So I try. I try to climb up, try to forget again, try to see the light. But I can't say it doesn't create a deep hate for the ones looking down in the hole while I climb. Their backbound hands and encouraging words mock my struggle, I never asked to be strong on my own. The worst thing I find is not that I'm broken. It's that most people are fine.

The thing I find have helped the most is having people around who will reassure me I'm not insane (well..figuratively) and to put responsibility where it really lies, not focus so much on my guilt and shame. 

June is PTSD awareness month (apparently) so if I can give one advice if you know someone with an unwanted full body tattoo.. Don't fix, just love. And love as obvious as you can. We can fix our selves.

"Divorced, beheaded and died.."

 

In a little over a week my son is having a Historical class trip back to Tudor times (16th century) so I'm now hand-stitching until my fingers bleed,as you do, for the most authentic looking costume of all. I'm making the shirt first. I made it out of an oversized pillowcase from a charity shop and it's supposed to be a peasants costume so there are really not much details, just plain white with strings to tie at the neck and the wrists. I couldn't resist making a simple ruff collar though, it just looks so much more Tudor. I've made it according to a pattern of a Tudor shirt and sewn the seems that show by hand. As a last thing I will dye it with tea to make it a darker more worn in shade but for now I will let my fingers rest. 

Good night.

It's a new world.

As the old chapter closes a new one begins and with that comes a new era of Victorian pictures. 

So far I've started out photographing the people who were there in the very beginning, trying to create a perspective on time passing, but I wont end it there. In the past I was so focused on it looking authentic, to achieve that serious and passive look that was all the rage in the olden days, that I lost some of what had lured me in in the first place. The human aspect of it all. How, despite being a hundred years apart, we are all people with lives and thoughts and feelings. I want to bring some of that back now. I want to create odd pictures. Pictures that communicate silently. 

A while ago I found a book about the works of Toulouse Lautrec. I've always liked his style but in there is something specific.. Aside from the music hall paintings and those of known people of the day he also did a few of his paintings while living inside a brothel. They may not be photographs, but they could be ground for some very interesting inspirations.. 

A little later some one gave me a book of Toulouse Lautrec posters to put on my walls and it has now affected me so much that I've dyed my hair ginger, the most popular hair colour in the paintings. So to the sounds of Erik Satie..It is so on..!

Welcome to the new chapter.

Photographing the 1880's. Life inbetween

It had been over a decade since the first and the latest off my Victorian pictures. A lot of things have happened in between those days. I'm glad to have captured the people that has passed through my life. 

In 2007 and 2008 I was pretty busy creating a baby so the pictures were left behind. I did persuade a few people to let me capture them though. Most memorable of these I think is the first appearance of my son in the 2008 art nouveau style one. I remember dressing up my 4 month old in a vintage baby cap and a white shirt and photographing him in a box. Part of me thinks his early start may have contributed to him being such an excellent model now, over 8 years later.

In 2010 I made an attempt to simplify my photos. I focused more on creating the right environment and be a little more..casual. By now I had some photographic help from my Victorian partner in crime and one of my favourite creative collaborator, Amanda. I had the fortune at this point to be living in one of my favourite houses in the town where I grew up, a turn of the century wooden house and much of the inspiration came from the house it self.

 Before I packed up and immigrated I wanted to have some recollection of my last time in Scandinavia. My mother in law asked me to make her a costume and I got to take some pictures as well. But mostly it was me, my son and Amanda playing around in the sunny April afternoons. Little did we know it would be the last ones.

During these 10 years one person was born and another person has died. In 2016 when I picked up my camera again it was in her memory I decided to continue. She died in early February from aggressive leukaemia and with that she closed this 10 year chapter of mine. I felt like the least I could do was to finish what I started so when I found the empty second hand album I had always put it off for I decided it was time. By the end of August 2016 I once again moved away and the album ended with the people who had been there with me while I cried over her last words. 

The very last picture was, of course, of her. 

For my beloved soul-sister Amanda. Until we meet again.