Cutting through memories, pinning down facts, stitching fabrications, unpicking the past - an interactive, animated memoir, created in Flash, exploring aspects of my relationship with my dressmaking mother.
Life’s mysteries are rarely uncovered by a logical, linear process of deduction. You arrive at answers, ideas, suspicions, intuitions… haphazardly, in fragments. Over time you build the picture, piece by piece, shuffling and rearranging, until you start to see a pattern emerging. Fitting the Pattern attempts to replicate this experience, hence it’s a memoir in pieces for you to explore…
From the Virgin Mary, to Marilyn Monroe, to Madonna, a select group of women have been canonized, mythologized and elevated to the status of icon.
Whether idolized or vilified, they reveal something about the social underpinnings of the feminine in all its clichés, perversities and conventions.
There’s a wonderful wealth of material on the site and many ways to contribute. One of my favourite elements of the project is the Female Icons Impersonator. Go to the Flickr page and add your own. I found it such fun, I also animated mine: used to be big
I came away from this hugely enjoyable gathering of blogging women (and a few men), hosted by De Montfort University, brimming with enthusiasm for blog writing - determined to do more of it, as well as posting my creative media. So here goes…
I gained so many useful insights during the day, but one of the things that sticks in my mind is the issue of how to deal with aggressive comments. It’s not something I’ve experienced on my own blog, but I have while contributing to other blogs. Personally it doesn’t bother me too much, in fact I often enjoy the rough and tumble of a heated debate, but I know many women are uncomfortable with it. The keynote speakers (or one of them, at least) pointed out that, generally speaking, men and women tend to have different commenting styles: men like to challenge more, women tend to be more consensual. No one’s denying that there are trolls out there, but it’s important for women to remember that a challenging comment is not necessarily an attack.
I enjoy peaceful discussion and consensus can be good - but I like variety and it’s exciting to get a shake up once in a while too. If women become overly concerned about online aggression, the danger is they abdicate from the discussion, they lose their voice, they silence themselves. It’s important to remember that online men have no real advantage, they are no bigger nor louder than any woman wants to be - and as Jory Des Jardins from BlogHer pointed out, collectively women are a powerful and influential online presence.
There’s nothing to stop individual women making their mark too. If a woman wants to carve out a space for herself, she’s got to be prepared to defend it. In a virtual web 2.0 world the balance of power is different… and still evolving… Don’t take your old assumptions into battle - and don’t assume it’s always a brawl.
