Felicity Huffman as Bree in ‘Transamerica’ (Women Onscreen)
In 2005’s “Transamerica,” Felicity Huffman plays Bree, a transgender woman who learns she has a son Toby (Kevin Zegers). She bails Toby out of jail, and they take a cross-country road trip where Toby learns of Bree’s true relation to him.
Huffman won the Best Actress in a Drama Golden Globe Award, and received a nomination for the Best Actress Oscar.
Estradiol estrogen pill (Open Minded Health)
As the transgender community continues to gain visibility in mainstream culture, the issues they face will become more common. Receiving proper medical care is one such issue that will continue to gain prominence.
Last week, Oregon became the latest state to cover transgender care under Medicaid. According to NPR, services include hormone therapy (for example, giving a transwoman estrogen pills), puberty suppression and gender reassignment surgery. Other states with health coverage that cover transgender care include California, Colorado, Connecticut, New York and Vermont. (New York made the decision to cover gender reassignment surgery just last month.)
Only 14% of the United States covers transgender medical care by state. Let’s hope the population’s new visibility helps other states make the right decision to include medical care for transpeople.
TLC’s ‘My Husband’s Not Gay’ (Salon)
With TLC’s special “My Husband’s Not Gay” premiering recently, same-sex attraction (SSA) has come to the forefront of discussion in sexuality. SSA is just what it sounds like: a person is attracted to someone of the same gender, or sex. However, someone with SSA may or may not act on the attraction, and may or may not identify as homosexual, gay or lesbian.
“My Husband’s Not Gay” follows three (hetero) married couples and one single man. All the men featured admit to struggling with SSA. The couples and man reside in Salt Lake City, Utah, and cite their strong Mormon faiths as to why they have a traditional male-female marriage (or, in the case of the single man, why he wants one). Since conservative Christianity, and Mormonism in particular, has traditionally frowned upon homosexuality, these men have made a decision to honor their faith and not their attractions.
I wanted to find some stats on SSA, but couldn’t find any information that weren’t connected to any religious sites (of the “pray the gay away” stripe). Apparently, no university has done a study with people who experience SSA but who do not identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. (Kinsey Institute, get on this.)
o.b. Tampons (Jezebel)
“The Cut” recently reported that Argentina is currently experiencing a woman’s worst nightmare: a tampon shortage.
According to the Associated Press, the shortage has been going on for over two weeks. The problem stems from an impasse between importers and the government. Businesses think the Argentinean government has been slow in issuing permits for imports (Argentina imports most of its tampons from nearby Brazil), while the government feels that businesses are driving up the prices to increase profits.
A spokesman for Johnson & Johnson claims that only the most popular tampon brands and quantities are affected by the shortage.
The situation isn’t uncommon for the country. Argentina periodically has experienced shortages of medical supplies such as needles and latex gloves.
The U.S. experienced a similar situation form 2009 to 2011. Johnson & Johnson took o.b. tampons off shelves in 2009, citing a “temporary supply interruption.” The tampons are beloved for not having an applicator and for being environmentally-friendly. The supply shortage emptied drugstore shelves and drove demand up to $99 a box on eBay. The o.b. black market ended when stores began to restock the popular tampon.
No explanation was ever given for the shortage.
High heels (Quora)
Happy Friday! Ladies, here’s something consider when you go out this weekend: A recent study finds that women wearing high heels had a significant effect on men. We know you’ve suspected it for awhile, but now we have hard proof (empirically speaking, of course).
French researcher Nicolas Geughan used a set of four experiments using young women. He controlled for other sartorial factors by dressing them in the same outfit: black skirt and blazer with white shirt. He also used three different heel heights: flat, medium (5 cm.) and tall (9 cm.).
First, the women were sent to ask pedestrians (both men and women) to participate in surveying and for restaurant suggestions. The higher the heel, the more willing a male pedestrian was willing to help: The women wearing the high heels garnered an 82-83% response rate, while the women wearing flats received only a 42-47% response rate.
Next, pedestrians were asked to respond to a dropped glove by women wearing various heel heights. Men responded to women wearing high heels 93% of the time, compared to responding 62% of the time to women wearing flats.
It’s interesting to note that within both these experiments, female pedestrians weren’t affected by the height of another woman’s heels. They actually responded less than the men in both situations: 30-36% for the surveys, and 43-52% for the dropped glove.
Geughan also measured the effect high heels had on men when approaching women in a bar. Women wearing high heels were approached by men eight minutes after entering. By contrast, women wearing flats got approached 14 minutes after entering the bar.
Ladies, with great power comes great responsibility. Use it wisely this weekend–and your whole lives.
Joan Didion’s Celine ad (AdWeek)
Ladies of “un certain age” (as the French say) are currently having a moment. High-fashion houses are looking to elderly women to represent their wares to a wider market.
Last week, French fashion house Céline unveiled its newest cover girl: 80-year-old acclaimed essayist Joan Didion. Didion is best known for her collections of essays, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” (published in 1968) and “The White Album” (published in 1979). The writer, who replaced model Daria Werbowy, already has casual experience in modeling: An old photo of Didion lounging in her Corvette Stingray adorns the cover of “The White Album” paperback copy.
Two days later, Saint Laurent revealed their latest model to be 71-year-old singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. And the elderly-woman-as-fashion-model concept went from an outlier to a trend.
These are just the latest in a larger trend of older women becoming more visible within the fashion industry. Céline’s new campaign follows on the heels of Dolce & Gabbana’s spring 2015 promotions, which feature elderly ladies decked out in black dresses, red carnations and gold tiaras.
Dolce & Gabbana Spring 2015 Campaign still (Daily Mail UK)
The trend has been picking up steam over the past couple of years. In 2013, eyewear designer Karen Walker used models between the ages of 65 and 92 to model her “Forever” collection. (Within that campaign, Walker juxtaposed the elderly ladies with young girls for maximum effect.) Designer Marc Jacobs used 64-year-old actress Jessica Lange for his beauty line in 2014. Sixty-two-year-old Jacky O’Shaughnessy modeled for American Apparel in 2014, and 93-year-old Iris Apfel is modeling this year for jewelry designer Alexis Bittar.
French women seem to have this one lock: Jacobs cast a then-70-year-old Catherine Deneuve in his final campaign for Louis Vuitton in 2013, and 68-year-old French actress Charlotte Rampling modeled for Nars in 2014.
We’ve also been seeing more older women appear in street style photography. Photographer Ari Seth Cohen runs Advanced Style, where he documents the unique ensembles of elderly ladies. He’s parlayed the blog into a book and a recent documentary.
Hopefully, we’re starting to respect, and revere, the elderly population more than we’ve been worshipping at the fountain of youth. There’s certain historical precedent for young women taking sartorial cues from previous generations: Women in 17th- and 18th-century France used to powder their hair and wear white wigs to emulate their esteemed elders.
Carmen Dell’orefice for Rouge, Fall/Winter 2012
At 83 years old, Carmen Dell’orefice is the world’s oldest supermodel.
She began her career at age 15 in 1946, when she signed a modeling contract for “Vogue.” Dell’orefice posed her first solo cover the next year, becoming one of the youngest cover models in the magazine’s history. In her youth, Dell’orefice worked with Condé Nast’s stable of fashion photographers: Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn and Horst P. Horst. After befriending Surrealist painter Salvador Dali, she became his muse.
After retiring in the later 1950s, Dell’orefice returned to modeling in 1978, and has been working ever since. Within the last five years, she’s modeled in advertising campaigns for Missoni for Lindex, Rouge and Rolex. Her last magazine cover was for “Harper’s Bazaar Thailand” in September 2014.
Indian hijras (Deviant Didg/Nikki Rixon)
An Indian transgender woman has made history: She is the first trans woman to be elected as mayor within the country.
Madhu Bai Kinnar will represent Raigarh in the state of Chhattisgarh. She beat her rival by 4.5K+ votes.
It’s estimated that India has around 2M transgender people. India’s population in 2013 was 1.252B, so transgender people would comprise around .15% of the total.
It’s not only a victory for trans people, but also for those in the lower classes. Kinnar was a member of the Dalit lowest caste, sometimes termed “the untouchables.”
India has made great strides in trans issues recently. Last year, the Indian Supreme Court ruled to recognize transgender persons as “third-gender,” termed “hijra.” The ruling came five years after the country introduced the “other” option for gender on ballot forms.
Baby (Santa Banta)
Abortion rates have been falling over the years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) completed a study last year that analyzed long-term abortion trends, spanning from 1969 to 2011.
The Declining Abortion Rate (The Atlantic)
The CDC counted 730K+ abortions in 2011, which works out to 16.9 abortions per 1K women ages 15-44. This is the lowest ratio for abortions since 1973, where 16.3 abortions were recorded for every 1K women within the aforementioned age range. The study’s abstract notes that abortions were highest among adolescents and lowest among women ages 30-39 for the duration of the study. Women in their 20s had the majority of abortions.
Researchers speculate that the decrease in abortions is linked to changing social attitudes about the practice, as well as marriage. When marriage was the socially-acceptable default setting for relationships, abortions were much more rare. But now that marriage rates have decreased, many women are choosing to terminate an unplanned pregnancy rather than have a shotgun wedding with the father.
An article on “The Atlantic” also notes that American attitudes toward abortion have shifted in recent years. While only 20% of the surveyed population would like to see the practice outlawed, 38% surveyed believe it’s “morally objectionable.” This prevailing idea is likely preventing some women from having abortions, and so carrying the fetus the term. It’s very possible that the numbers on abortion are higher than reported, due to any lingering shame or stigma (either internal or external) women who’ve gone through it may face.
Christiane Lecocq (Noticia Al Dia)
Renowned French naturist Christiane Lecocq passed away this past Christmas Eve at age 103.
Lecocq became a naturist when she was 22 in 1933, when she joined a sports club in Lille and discovered that it was a nude sports club. She then became dedicated to the movement’s health and social benefits.
Lecocq is credited as being a leader in the naturist movement. She and her husband founded the first naturist vacation spot in France, and the first naturist magazine “Life in the Sun.”
In 1950, Lecocq and her husband Albert founded the French Naturist Federation (FFN). Three years later, they founded the International Naturist Federation, of which 38 countries are members.
One stat suggests that there are 14M+ naturists worldwide. FFN president Armand Jamier claims that France is a top destination for naturists, with 3.5M participants, 1.5M of whom are French.
Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang 