Gender Fuck Thursday

I don’t know why, perhaps it was researching the great Greta last week, but I’ve been in a retro mood lately. Last Thursday we had The Original Gender Fuck Fatale, Marlene Dietrich. But Marlene wasn’t the only lady back in the day who could mess with what is masculine. Let’s face it, women in suits and menswear are hot now, then and forever. Another look back, in wonder.

Josephine BakerAmelia Earhart(Young) Joan CrawfordClara BowCarole LombardLauren BacallKatharine HepburnGreta Garbo

My Weekend Crush

This week, in between my Tina Fey fanaticism, I was watching PBS and caught an “American Masters” on Amelia Earhart. So much about Amelia is wrapped in myth. The mysterious disappearance of one of the world’s greatest adventurers is the stuff legends are made of. But Amelia is more than just a legend, a cautionary tale about those who follow Icarus’ fateful flight. Amelia was a woman, an extraordinary woman, who made her mark on a decidedly man’s world. She was a woman who dared to not only take to, but own the skies with her simple assertion that “a pilot is a pilot.” She wore pants. She wore ties. She was married but was opposed to its “medieval code” and saw it instead more as a partnership with dual control. Oh, and she kept her own name. In 1931. Aviatrix. Author. Lecturer. Celebrity. Feminist. That she vanished into thin air in 1937 is the story everyone knows. That she helped to change how we think about what a woman is and can do is the story everyone should know. As she said herself:

“One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren’t routine, often don’t get a fair break... It has come down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs which produced the corollary that women are bred to timidity.”

There was nothing timid about Amelia Earhart. Even though no one expected it from a woman, everyone -- men, women and children -- couldn’t help but be in awe of her accomplishments. Happy weekend, all.