Do Black Women Shop at Zara?

I didn’t get into clothing and fashion until a few years ago. I hated the stereotype that all women love to shop because shopping only made me impatient, frustrated, or bored. Most of my college days were spent in jeans and comfy sweaters. It wasn’t until I needed to start building a professional wardrobe that I became interested in trying out new styles. I needed to figure out what types of clothes I liked, and most importantly, on a budget, so I began researching fashion blogs to figure out which stores to start with. One store that jumped out immediately was Zara. I noticed many bloggers with an affinity for the brand, yet I had never stepped into one of its stores despite there being several in New York City. “I probably thought it was more expensive than it is,” I thought to myself, and then proceeded to check the store out one Saturday afternoon. I found a red blazer with silver buttons – pretty, but I had nothing to go with it, and I could probably find something similar at Macys. As I perused, I noted the styles: a bunch of plain dresses I found boring, and boxy midriff shirts made for no one with curves or boobs. I did find a few skirts I liked, but at this point I began paying more attention to the women shopping throughout the store than to the clothes on the racks. A young Asian woman with a Prada handbag was looking at a white blouse. A group of blondes in their early thirties went back and forth over how much they liked a navy dress.  But there wasn’t a single African-American in the store: I was the only one. I left the store empty-handed.

via Flickr under Creative Commons.

Trips back to Zara have often been similar – I might spot one other black woman browsing, or waiting on line for the fitting room to try on a piece. Friends – white and non-white – pointed out that while Zara might be affordable for a woman with an established career, it’s not as affordable, as, say, Forever 21 or H&M. For women making less money (the average black woman earns $120 less a week than white women do), these options are more budget-friendly. But the particular reason why I don’t often find black women shopping at Zara might be because of its sizing. I’m a size 12 or 14 depending on the brand, which according to some definitions, is right on the border of plus-size. In many brands, I’m a size large – but at Zara, which uses measurements from Spain, a size large fits closer to a U.S. medium. That means I can only fit an XL at Zara, and many of their styles don’t even come in the size. And unlike Forever 21 and H&M, which carry plus sizes, Zara does not. Black women disproportionately are overweight – 82 percent compared to 63 percent of white women, while over half of black women are obese, compared to 32 percent of white women. So any time a brand offers just a few pieces from their catalogue in plus sizes or stores cease carrying plus size options, black women are the ones most affected. And when you combine that with the fact that black women are more likely to be on a tighter budget, it really does seem like there are few options.

I still don’t own any pieces from Zara. I might browse the store from time to time, and find a piece that catches my eye. I check its label, to see if it comes in my size. The moment of truth. “Crap,” I think, “it doesn’t come in anything bigger than a size large.” A wave of disappointment floods me as I leave the store. But it won’t last long. I won’t let it, because I’m heading to Macys.

My guide to the perfect subway ride

If you are a halfway decent New Yorker, you've probably taken the subway (unlike those skanks from Sex and the City who take cabs everywhere). So I've compiled some of the best tips to have a stress-free subway ride. These are all based off my own experiences, and the experiences of my family and friends. Enjoy!

1) Try to keep busy when you're on the train, whether by reading a book or listening to music. Because even if you're innocently staring into space, you probably look as though you're staring at the ballsac of the guy standing in front of you.
2) If you drop your phone/iPod/bag/miniature oven into the tracks, think carefully about jumping in after it. If you're on the R train, you're probably good to go for the next fifteen minutes, but if you're on the 1 line, you may want to consider just buying a new one.
3) Don't stare at people. And if you see someone staring at you, simply tell them 'Don't you know it's rude to stare at people you dumb bitch!' (the bitch is for emphasis). My mom recently used this method and it worked wonders.
4) Don't sit in front of the map, because even if you're only on for two stops, someone will hover over you with very bad breath. Oh, and as an aside, why don't people just Google Map where they're going ahead of time? Seriously.
5) If someone decides to rudely sit their fat-ass between you and another person when there's clearly no room for them, you have the right to nudge them as hard as you can. And if there are other seats, just move to another one. If they follow you, however, that is beyond the scope of this guide, and you may want to consult the police or karate 101.
6) If an announcement starts with 'This is an important announcement from the New York City Transit Authority,' it's not important. But if it starts with 'this train will be...,' take your earplugs off and listen before you end up in the Bronx and get your shoes jacked.
7) If you go on the train at four in the morning, bring a fork with you and start talking to it. After all, the best way to avoid crazies is to act crazy yourself.
8) Even if you are three hours early, a true New Yorker runs for the train unless you have a broken leg or six inch stillettos. Five inch stillettos don't count.
9) If you plan to use the train as your mode of transportation, always leave 15 minutes early. Because you will miss your train, and watch three trains pass on the other side while you're stuck waiting. It's the law.
10) Although the law says not to eat on the train (and is backed up by a fine), feel free to ignore this. I'd prefer a few crumbs on the seat than for you to pass out and now we have to pull the emergency break.
11) Never pull the emergency break. Ever. Especially not as a prank.
12) If you've been on the train for more than five minutes, you've probably seen at least four panhandlers. Listen to their stories - not because they're emotionally moving (which they can be), but because some of them are funny. I've seen a man begging for food, and someone kindly gave him yogurt. But instead of being grateful, he got mad that she didn't give him a spoon. I've also heard people steal stories from different panhandlers  - they should really copyright them shits. And while it's not always easy to tell who is telling the truth and who isn't, if they say they aren't selling drugs, they are.
13) It's always good to know where exactly to stand on the platform so you can be the first one through the doors. You'll get the best seats, and it'll give you the chance to push people coming off of the train. Go ahead, I give you my permission.
14) If you missed your chance at a seat, and you're on the D train, stand by an Asian. You'll probably get a seat by Grand Street. Oh, but be careful which Asian you stand by - make sure you choose one with a fisherman's shirt carrying red bags and not one in a suit.
15) If you see a crowded train with one empty car DON'T GO IN THERE. There is a reason it's empty, and that reason is probably a homeless person.
16) The poles are not meant for dancing. But don't let that stop you.
17) Try not to fall asleep unless you know you're travelling with someone dependable who will wake you up. Otherwise, you may end up in the Bronx and get your shoes jacked. Again.
18) When you get home, it would probably do you well to wash your hands. Between homeless people and the freaks who lived out their fantasies of having sex on the train, you probably have such a scary number of germs on you that you don't even want to know. Oh, and the dirtiest place in subways? It's not even on the trains, it's the handrails on the station staircases.

So, there you have it! With these tips, navigating the trains should be a lot less stressful. May you have many pleasent train rides! :)

(Results not guareented).

Representations of Black Women in the Media

For awhile now, I’ve wanted to write about depictions of black women in the mainstream media. I've been looking for a currently-running popular TV show I could closely analyze or use as an example and couldn’t think of any. And that’s the problem. I remember when I was growing up there were plenty of black shows on primetime television. Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Living Single – I have fond memories of watching these shows because they were funny, well-made and more relatable to me on a personal level than the shows we see today. Long gone are the times when networks threw in a black show to cater to African-American audiences – that role is now being fulfilled by black networks like BET and TVOne. BET started airing Reed Between the Lines this past fall, while TVOne just started airing the third season of Love That Girl, staring Tatiyana Ali (of Fresh Prince fame) as the leading character Tyana Jones. The show is produced by Martin Lawrence, and includes several writers from The Jamie Foxx Show. I’ve watched season two of the series, and I have to say it’s pretty terrible. It’s not very funny, the characters are all stereotypes (the gay best friend, the cheap father), and the show never caught my attention.

But of all the clichéd characters in Love That Girl, the most bothersome is definitely Imunique. Imunique works as a secretary to Tyana’s father, and was hired through a rehabilitation program. She wears garish clothing and weaves, has long fake nails and a bad attitude to go along with her ghetto fabulous name. Her ghetto persona is accompanied by neck rolls, finger snaps and references to other shows featuring similarly ghetto women like Basketball Wives that are supposed to be funny. Really? Are we still seeing the ‘sassy black woman’ cliché after all these years? It’s sad that the most persistent images we see of black women are violent, angry women or single mothers closer to the Mammy stereotype. And to the chagrin of aspiring black actresses, some of the most famous depictions of black women have been played by men, such as Tyler Perry's Madea. Unfortunately, these images trickle down into the way people perceive blacks in real life: I’ve been told many times that I don’t ‘act black’ because I’m well spoken and don’t (usually) have an attitude. So the message people receive from the media about blacks is that they are all rude and unintelligent – and any black who doesn’t fit into these categories is an exception at best or a sellout at worst. What this means is that when we see the images of stereotypical blacks in the media like Imunique is that we aren't supposed to be laughing with them but at them.

While conditions of poverty or imprisonment may be true for a portion of the black population, the media rarely addresses the politics of the issue: why is it that more blacks are struggling with poverty or are in jail? The media are quick to offer statistics showing that more black women are single than any other group – but they don’t take any responsibility for the negative images of black women they create, or for defining and judging beauty by Eurocentric standards. Many people would argue that there are black women out there who are 'ghetto' or Mammy-types. And of course, I know that most people take these stereotypes with a grain of salt and judge people on an individual basis. But when the cultural perception of a group is so consistently negative (if that group is lucky enough to get included at all), then what does that say about us? The answer to that isn't so simple - and neither is the solution.

 

 

 

I'm Still Waiting for 'Ballerina Husbands...'

The cast of Baseball Wives (VH1).

On Wednesday Nov. 30., VH1 will premiere the reality show Baseball Wives. The series is one of many spinoffs of the successful Basketball Wives franchise, which includes series such as Basketball Wives LA and Football Wives. Upon seeing the trailer for the show, I realized how many reality shows there are about ‘wives.’ Some examples include The Real Housewives franchise, Mob Wives, and Love & Hip Hop, a series following the wives of famous rappers. National Geographic is even jumping on the trend, with the series Wild Wives of Africa, which is about female animals in wild habitats. No, really. Even though all of these series have different casts of women who presumably come from different backgrounds, all of the ‘wives’ shows have one common feature: drama. These shows exploit the women, showcasing their jealousy, pettiness and plenty of weave-pulling cat fights. VH1’s blog for Baseball Wives shows the women in skimpy outfits while they attempt their best pinup poses. What does this have to do with baseball again?

             But my real problem with all of these ‘wives’ series is that the only reason these women are being featured is because they have prominent husbands. The trend of shows revolved around wives displays the double standards that are common in our society. There is still much more pressure for women to get married than there is for men, and women are often defined by whether they have a man in their lives. The pervasiveness of these shows suggest that the most women can seek is to be attached to a successful man instead of achieving such success themselves. But at the same time, even when these women do ‘achieve’ marrying a rich man, the media makes it seem as though these women deserve to be ridiculed for doing so. Many people dismiss the women on these shows as being golddiggers, and claim they don’t deserve to be on television. I’ve watched Basketball Wives as a guilty pleasure, and the women always make it a point to mention that there’s more to them than just being the wife of a famous athlete. Several of the women have their own businesses, went to college and are mothers. Basketball Wives itself is the business venture of Shaunie O'Neal, ex-wife of basketball star Shaquille O'Neal. Yet the titles of these shows undermine the importance of these women – because what matters most is that they are wives.

Would we be as quick to attack men if they were in the positions as these women, dismissing them as ‘jumpoffs’ of their more successful wives? It’s hard to imagine, since we are rarely presented with such a scenario in our society. The media only heightens the gender inequality – after all, there isn’t a chain of shows about men who are married to famous women. Most people would be hardpressed to even imagine what type of show that would be, since the most attractive, high paying jobs in our society have traditionally been coded ‘masculine,’ and the few career choices that we automatically think of as ‘feminine’ would probably make ridiculous television (‘Ballerina Husbands,’ anyone?).  But even if there were television shows following the husbands of famous women, I don’t think they would be throwing Smirnoff on one another.

Controversy over Rihanna's Video "We Found Love"

Rihanna’s latest video, “We Found Love,” has recently garnered controversy for its frank depiction of drug usage and abuse. The video stars Rihanna and Chris Brown-look-alike Calvin Harris in a chaotic, dysfunctional relationship. Eileen Kelly of the Rape Crisis Center said "Rihanna's new video is a disgrace. It sends the message that she is an object to be possessed by men, which is disturbingly what we see in real violence cases." Critics were particularly bothered by a scene where her boyfriend tattoos the word ‘Mine’ on her backside while she’s screaming in pain. The video also intercuts between scenes of the couple arguing and having sex, although they aren’t physically violent as the heated scenes between Meagan Fox and Lost star Dominic Monaghan in “Love the Way You Lie” are. But I have to say that the video doesn’t bother me much: “Love the Way You Lie” is far more disturbing to me, because the lyrics express that the abuser is lying about being sorry for hurting her, the female says she ‘likes the way it hurts,’ not to mention during the actual video we only see her being violent towards him. Even more important than the fact that there are other, far more controversial music videos, “We Found Love” is just one of the many images in our society that works to ‘normalize’ hypersexuality. Thus, we can’t blame just Rihanna, because she is simply a product of our larger, image-centered society.

As one blogger pointed out, the central problem with many of these criticisms is that they give different expectations for prominent women in the media than for men. Why is it that female celebrities, especially pop stars, have to be ‘role models’ when males are not expected to meet such high expectations? And critics seem to be forgetting that double-standards work both ways: although many feminists fight against oppressive images of women, only showcasing positive images of women won’t help us achieve equality either. And besides, I do believe Rihanna has the right to write about her own experiences. I actually appreciate Rihanna’s candid lyricism – even if the message that she wants to get back all of the bad stuff just to get back the good stuff isn’t politically correct, it reflects what many women experience in real life. And in the end, Rihanna’s character does walk out on her boyfriend, suggesting that the video may instead be trying to show how unhealthy dysfunctional relationships are. So maybe the video really isn’t sending such a controversial message – or at least not one that’s so black-and-white.

Ashley Madison: Fat Women are Scary

The day after Halloween, I noticed this ad on the back page of New York Metro. The ad features an obese woman posing in lingerie. While the image disturbed me, the ad’s tagline actually bothered me more, asking: “Did your wife scare you last night?” Then I noticed the bottom of the ad: it was an ad for Ashley Madison, a company that caters to married people who want to have affairs. I’ll push the moral problems I have with this homewrecking business to the side, and instead focus on the ad’s not-so subtle implication that fat women are ‘scary.’ And of course, if a woman is fat, she deserves for her husband to cheat on her. After all, it’s her fault for not realizing those marriage vows came with a weight clause.

What doesn’t make sense is that the business may be risking offending customers who are big women, which according to the company is a growing sector of their consumer base. But it’s not like Ashley Madison ever acknowledges female consumers in their advertisements – most of their ads contain half naked women to lure in potential male customers. I guess it’s not shocking that Ashley Madison’s ads reflect gender stereotypes - that only men have affairs and no man wants a heavy woman – because this is true of almost all media. Other bloggers were bothered by the ad's reinforcement of the myth that fat women don’t get laid. I can’t say the ad is doing something horrible that’s never been done before – after all, it’s nothing new to see women being valued by their physical attributes over all else. But this ad attacks so many groups and values at the same time - women, bigger people and the institution of marriage itself - that it's offensiveness is impossible to ignore. I think what’s truly scary about this ad is that it was ever allowed to run in the first place.

Women and Power: Miss Representation

This past Thursday, Jennifer Seibel Newsom’s film Miss Representation made its television debut on Oprah’s OWN network. The documentary discusses the pervasive sexism in media, and was praised at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The objectified images we see of women in magazines and on television harmfully affect the ways women see themselves in real life, as women who possess youth, beauty and passivity dominate the media landscape. As girls learn to judge themselves and other women primarily by physical attractiveness instead of their intelligence, boys are also learning to judge women by the impossible standards of beauty set by the media. Even on the news, gender inequalities are reproduced, as the reporters often look like “someone’s grandfather and his much younger second wife.” The idea that media is made for men, who are a more desirable and evasive audience, is ‘justified’ by the myth that men won’t watch stories for and about women, Twilight be damned. And what’s worse is that we’re numb to it all.

The film also addresses the critical issue of the lack of women who produce media. The documentary provides dismal statistics, which show that merely 16% of film directors and 7% of scriptwriters are women. Only 3% of positions of clout in the media industry belong to women. The lack of diversity behind the scenes is one of the main reasons we still see such stereotyped images in media; the other reason discussed at length in the film is the emergence of female political figures. The most fascinating subject discussed in the film is the realization that as women are becoming more powerful in the real world, they’ve become more hypersexualized and objectified in the media, as if to take away that power. This phenomenon ripples over into the ways media judge female politicians primarily by their looks, from saying Nancy Pelosi needs a facelift to photographs of Sarah Palin at the podium angled between her legs. The film’s tagline, “We cannot be what we cannot see,” eloquently captures why as girls become older, they stop wishing to become future presidents. In order to take back that power, Miss Representation encourages women to show their discontent – with their pockets, as women make up 86% of the consumer power in our society. In this way, the media can be used to change the ways women are shown.

Of course, Miss Representation is not without its flaws. I found Jennifer Seibel Newsom’s personal story to be unnecessary, and her narration is extremely monotonous. Several critics mentioned that the film gives too much credit to the media as the cause of sexism in our society. But what really bothered me is that the film misses a great opportunity to discuss how women from ethnic minorities are depicted in the media. Even though Miss Representation includes commentary from Condoleezza Rice, Rosario Dawson and Margaret Cho, nearly all of the images dissected in the film are of white women, and the topic about the ‘angry black woman’ stereotype is only mentioned in passing. It’s a shame that the film meant to critique the media industry’s narrow depictions of women also leaves these marginalized groups invisible.