| Author | |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 9:26am | IP Logged
|
 |
|
One last thought before we really do have to start school -- we're slow getting going after the long weekend, and with our March for Lifers hanging around until the afternoon when they leave:
I am finding this whole thing a useful tool in my fight against envy, because it helps me to stop saying that I "should" look a certain way, like certain things, have a certain kind of taste, if I want to be a cool and admirable person (which, let's face it . . . ).
For example, I have this one friend who's very tall, angular, bold, striking, and vibrant. She can wear all kinds of things I can't by virtue of her body type and look fabulous in them. She has this very cool, funky little house with bright turquoise walls in the living room. Everything about her says, "Unique! Bold! Creative! Original! I am who I am!"
So, part of me would dearly love to project that, too. It's too easy to say to myself, "I should really want turquoise walls in my house, because how cool is that?" And in her house, it really is. But in truth, the same walls would drive me crazy if I had to live with them. Realizing that my walls also say, "I am who I am," and not just, "I am boring and in desperate need of remediation," helps me mentally to close that gap between "I should" and "I am."
And that really is an antidote to envy.
Also, in keeping with the idea of these types through history, it would be interesting to look at what women thought they *should* be in a given era, and what it meant for them to be, in truth, something other than that "should." Our own era certainly has its "shoulds," but that's not unique to us now.
All right, really, it's not the holiday weekend any more. I'm going to stop thinking that I should go do school, and actually go and do it.
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CrunchyMom
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 03 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6385
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 11:19am | IP Logged
|
|
|
The day between e-mails things is really annoying. AND I haven't even gotten today's yet. Very frustrating.
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JennGM
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 17702
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 11:28am | IP Logged
|
|
|
CrunchyMom wrote:
| The day between e-mails things is really annoying. AND I haven't even gotten today's yet. Very frustrating. |
|
|
I hear you!!! The emails come exactly 24 hours later. I signed up around 8:00 pm, and they would come right around then. And inevitably I would try to watch and dh would come in to do something together. 
__________________
Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 11:41am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Sorry, I keep forgetting that you're watching the series one day at a time. I let mine pile up in my inbox and forgot about them, then watched them one after another. Sorry to keep referring to things that you might not have gotten to yet!
Sally (whose children are currently "taking a break" after a spell of unpleasant behavior . . . love these days when Tuesday is like Monday . . . )
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 11:46am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Well, remember that the further back you go in historical dress the less prevalent full length mirrors would be. Much easier to not obsess so much over what you look like when you're only guessing 
Also, when doing reenactments, it's weird, a lot of the time it's much less about how you look in the garments than how the garments look. Oh sure like in any era women are going to want to copy the model of the day and lace down that corset to look like the petite Queen who only had a 15 inch waist or some such.
But it feels like there's a lot less judging of the person under the clothes and more if the clothes are appropriate. For instance if you look at Renaissance dress, the corsets weren't to cinch you in as tight as possible like in the Victorian era but rather to create a certain silhouette which could be larger or smaller as long as the right effect (a flat front basically) was created.
So yes, there were certainly time periods that weren't friendly for some body types/shapes but it seems it was more about the clothing style than how thin the body was underneath. And now it's like nothing is thin enough to look good unless you're a photo-shopped model.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 11:11pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
To a great extent I think you're right. I've been thinking, though, about the Little House books, and how from the beginning, Laura is always comparing herself with Mary and seeing that she falls short in *both* looks and character. When they're little, Mary is the right kind of little girl, and Laura is, in her own mind, the wrong kind (and she always has to wear brown, too). When they're older, she notices Mary's golden beauty and slender figure (and the fact that Mary sleeps in her corset, but she herself can't stand it), as compared to her own "stocky and strong as a little French horse" build.
When Nellie Olsen comes to De Smet and walks into the schoolhouse for the first time, almost before Laura notices that the new girl is Nellie, she notices that she's tall and willowy and blonde and feels her own plainness by comparison And it's not just her looks -- it's her roughness (because she likes to be outside, playing or working, not protecting herself from the sun) and her provinciality (what are name cards?) that she feels keenly. I think she was very aware of how *she* looked in her clothes -- though she also had a keen sense of how the clothes looked, and how they could be correct even if the girl inside them wasn't. Dressing well would make up for a lot of her self-perceived lacks.
It is true that farther back in history, the clothes were much more about creating a particular shape than about flattering a body. I don't know that the French ladies of the Ancien Regime considered whether their enormous powdered wigs were actually flattering to them as individuals -- that doesn't seem to have been the point, unless birdcages flatter certain facial features or express certain personality types, and I just haven't twigged to that yet. And Roman women didn't consider whether their clothes flattered their body types -- there doesn't seem to have been that much choice. "What shall I wear today, Drusilla, the tunic or the tunic?"
The closer you get to us in history, the more you have the sense of the autonomous individual, who can choose or not choose to follow whatever the current fashion trend is, so that now the field seems almost totally wide open in a way that it wasn't even in the 70s, when I was growing up. I still remember being in the sixth grade and longing, more than anything in the world, for a pair of "stacks" sandals, which I was not allowed to have. By seventh grade I could have had them, and I still wanted them, but one day a friend of mine commented on how someone else was wearing "those 'out' stacks!" Oh well, I thought. Can't be wearing the "out" stacks. But then that's probably still true of seventh graders now. Can't be wearing whatever was the must-have thing last year . . .
We also no longer really have "old lady clothes." I think of my grandmother looking regal in her sheath dress, at her fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration in 1982. For all I know, she bought the dress in 1962 -- it was just one of those timeless straight dresses that old ladies, especially larger old ladies, were inclined to wear, with girdle, but she really looked beautiful in it. I wonder what she'd be choosing to wear if she were alive now . . . that same dress? Which I think of as perfect for her, mostly because it was the kind of thing she always wore? Or would she totally surprise me by her choices? I wonder if she'd still wear the girdle . . . Again, the concept of the correct clothing compensating for whatever shortcomings you personally might have!
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 11:26pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Though the Little house books were written from reflection so might be being seen through a later period as well.
But yes, the more modern we get the more it's about sculpting the body to conform to the ideal.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CrunchyMom
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 03 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6385
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 5:54am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I think Sally's point about different women being "the beauties" in different eras is significant. Women likely felt very plain who, if born at a different time, would have been admired because the style of the day flattered them.
I finally watched the second video, and I agree the nature images were enlightening. I could sort of relate to 1 and 2, knew for certain I was not 3, but then when 4 came about, it felt just right. She does say you have a secondary, so I think it would be normal to feel at home in two categories.
I agree, Sally, too, that it is interesting to think of it in terms of taste in decor as well. I'd like to have dh watch it with me to see which category he falls in, though I highly suspect it is 4 as well. It could really help nail down tastes in other areas. When I saw my type expressed in nature, it occurred to me why certain garden designs appeal to me even as I fight the idea thinking perhaps it is boring or some such.
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 7:20am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Another literary example that occurred to me as I was (finally!) going to bed last night is the English writer Barbara Pym's novel Excellent Women, which is set in postwar London -- and was actually written in 1952, so not a looking-back at something at all.
Barbara Pym herself loved clothes and made many of her own; her novels are all full of details about what people, especially women, are wearing, and a theme of the appropriateness, or not, of people's clothing (and how that expresses something "suitable," or not about the person) runs through them.
So, Excellent Women is a really fun read overall, but this conversation makes me think of the heroine/narrator, Mildred Lathbury, who is a clergyman's daughter in her early 30s, living on her own in a flat in London and working part-time for a Society for the Aid of Distressed Gentlewomen. She views herself as a lifelong spinster who has nothing particularly interesting to offer: "Platitudes flowed easily from me, perhaps because with my parochial experience, I knew myself to be capable of dealing with most of the stock situations or even the great moments of life -- birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sale, the garden fete spoilt by bad weather."
So, the catalyst for all the action of the book is that a new couple moves into the flat beneath her. The wife, Helena, is an anthropologist, and from their first meeting, Mildred is struck by her elegance and finds herself lacking: Helena wears bright corduroy trousers and has long blonde hair, while Mildred wears tasteful, "appropriate" dull clothes, mostly in brown. In a little scene where she does some washing and hangs it up in the kitchen, she describes her underwear as "Just the sort of underwear a person like myself would wear, so there is no need to describe it here."
Helena's husband Rocky is handsome and flirtatious and for all his failings has a good eye for beauty. He notes that Mildred's new brown hat "brings out the colour of her eyes, which are like a good sherry" -- or something like that, I'm quoting from memory, but that's the idea. Meanwhile, all Mildred can notice is that Helena looks chic in black, and she feels drab beside her.
Various things happen, which I won't give away, except to say that it's a lot like Jane Austen updated for a world with bombed-out churches and ration books. But toward the end -- and here at last I'm getting to my point -- Mildred decides that she's tired of being "drab" and buys a black dress which, she is convinced, will make her, too, look more chic and up-to-date. Going out to dinner in it, with her hair combed back severely, she keeps meeting people who ask her if she's all right and what's wrong with her hair. Fortunately the person she's going to dinner with seems not to notice that she's changed anything at all, and the novel ends in modest happiness.
There's also a scene in which she goes to a department store and buys a tube of "Hawaiian Fire" lipstick in a moment of rebellion against her own supposedly boring persona. On her way out of the store, she's already aware that it's a stupid purchase, but she's tired of feeling, as she does feel, invisible.
So, that's a literary example, not a true-life one, but I think Pym's insight into Mildred's character and the role that clothing and appearance play is really interesting in light of this conversation.
My mother still hates hats and won't wear one, because growing up in the 30s, 40s, and 50s (she was born in 1936), in the South, the rule was that "a lady always wears a hat and gloves." And she always felt stupid in a hat. If she were going to write a novelized version of her life story, I think she'd probably come off sounding a LOT like Laura Ingalls Wilder: perfect feminine older sister, rebellious second sister who feels stultified by convention. However accurate that would be, it's certainly a theme in her life, and it's as vivid for her now, at the age of 77, as it was when she was a child. Which is frankly problematic in real life in all kinds of ways, but I don't doubt the vividness of her memory. Still, there are people who theorize that Laura's daughter Rose actually had a heavy hand in the writing of the Little House books, so there is perhaps a sense in which a 20th-century sensibility is superimposed on the 19th-century one.
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CrunchyMom
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 03 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6385
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 7:49am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I haven't read that novel, but I can see clearly how in the Pym novel I did ad, the descriptions of clothing were quite insightful. The women described as frumpy are very often dressing as they feel their station dictates. I know that so often, the problem isn't finding clothes I look good in but rather finding clothes appropriate to "my station" that are also flattering. Few dresses work while nursing, and dry clean only or light colors are impractical to wear while at home mothering 5 boys.
I am also reminded of this opening passage from The
Making of a Marchioness. I quoted it in another thread on clothing quality, but I think it fits here as well. It was published in 1901.
Quote:
hen Miss Fox-Seton descended from the twopenny bus as it drew up, she gathered her trim tailor-made skirt about her with neatness and decorum, being well used to getting in and out of twopenny buses and to making her way across muddy London streets. A woman whose tailor-made suit must last two or three years soon learns how to protect it from splashes, and how to aid it to retain the freshness of its folds. During her trudging about this morning in the wet, Emily Fox-Seton had been very careful, and, in fact, was returning to Mortimer Street as unspotted as she had left it. She had been thinking a good deal about her dress—this particular faithful one which she had already worn through a twelvemonth. Skirts had made one of their appalling changes, and as she walked down Regent Street and Bond Street she had stopped at the windows of more than one shop bearing the sign "Ladies' Tailor and Habit-Maker," and had looked at the tautly attired, preternaturally slim models, her large, honest hazel eyes wearing an anxious expression. She was trying to discover where seams were to be placed and how gathers were to be hung; or if there were to be gathers at all; or if one had to be bereft of every seam in a style so unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of the honest and semi-penniless struggling with the problem of remodelling last season's skirt at all. "As it is only quite an ordinary brown," she had murmured to herself, "I might be able to buy a yard or so to match it, and I might be able to join the gore near the pleats at the back so that it would not be seen."
She quite beamed as she reached the happy conclusion. She was such a simple, normal-minded creature that it took but little to brighten the aspect of life for her and to cause her to break into her good-natured, childlike smile. A little kindness from any one, a little pleasure or a little comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered enjoyment. As she got out of the bus, and picked up her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street to her lodgings, she was positively radiant |
|
|
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 8:26am | IP Logged
|
|
|
That passage could just as easily have been written in 1962!
I think for a lot of us at home, the struggle is simply to bother at all, because who's seeing us but our children? I don't have littles any more, but today, for example, I'm not going anywhere until Confession time at 5, so . . . why bother? It's so easy to think that, but so subtly corrosive to think that, day after day, because then I don't even look in my closet to see what might work for me -- I just keep my yoga pants on.
And for now I am keeping the yoga pants on, because it's time to start school. But I plan to make some effort later on. Better late than never!
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JennGM
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 17702
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 9:36am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I'm enjoying the conversation! Last night I was playing around with the eras and the Types on Pinterest. It's actually hard to do. I find there is a bit of cross-over in the types. And I don't know what category fits the classic tailored look? Are there some fashions that do not suit anyone?
I made the boards secret for now...I'll share if I get a little courage. I need feedback.
Interesting thoughts on literature and history. I think females are always insecure about their body image. The Greeks were very body conscious, and the point of their fashions was to show off their fit bodies.
Anne of Green Gables comes to mind, where Anne is constantly feeling frumpy next to Diana. I can't place now, but I remember some literature where the emphasis was laid on having clean, simple lines, without all the extra frills and accessories...
The movie "Stella Dallas" comes to mind, where Stella has no fashion sense. She likes gaudy, and even with money she looks ridiculous.
I found another way to view the videos without waiting for the emails, as my sisters were getting frustrated with the waiting, too.
Summary Video 1
Summary Video 2
Summary Video 3
Summary Video 4
Summary Video 5
Summary Video 6
On each page at the bottom is the link to view the whole video:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Interesting thoughts about gardening. I am always attracted to either very symmetrical gardens or cottage gardens -- very different types, isn't it?
__________________
Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 10:01am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Yes, the attraction to certain kinds of garden is really interesting. I could drive myself crazy trying to determine what I *do* like versus what I think I *should* like and therefore tell myself I like . . . not sure anyone has that much time for that much mental hair-splitting! But I know that when we're presented with images, as in magazines, over time many of our minds do sort of yield to what's given to us as beautiful or desirable: fashion, home-decor trends (do I *really* like the Pottery Barn house? Or have I not just seen enough alternatives that really resonate with me??), and kinds of gardens. I see a lot of garden designs which I like and think I *should* be able to make happen, but somehow I just can't. Maybe it's that I can't mentally overcome the details of my particular space to see a big picture in which that kind of garden could happen. Not sure . . . but I know that I'm drawn to sometimes opposing things.
For example, like you, Jenn, I love the look of symmetrical formal gardens as well as cottage gardens. But which one would I rather live with? Maybe you'd say, "Both!" I might say, "Some of one . . . but definitely more of the other." I love Colonial gardens that are laid out on a pattern, but have softness within that pattern -- an herb garden in a distinct wheel or a grid, but with herbs in their natural shape, rather than pruned boxwood accentuating the formal pattern.
And I am TOTALLY incapable of making clean, clear, symmetrical patterns happen in my garden. When I'm outside looking at the actual space, I just go completely symmetry-blind. The best I can do, I've found, is to group containers in a space, which more and more is becoming the kind of gardening I do, especially since I scored a bunch of galvanized tubs, buckets, and large pots in my mother's move last year. I can do a pattern like that -- but I cannot plant plants in a way that looks at all stylized, even if I have the stylized look in my head. My husband recently met a woman with face-blindness -- she can see your feet clearly, and drive, and all that, but your face is a blur, and she'd never recognize you on the street. That's how I feel when it comes to trying to replicate even the suggestion of a formal pattern in my own garden. I think I have at least some of that Type 1 randomness in my nature, though it seems to be that it's a far second, at best, to other things. And it may just be that I'm kind of ADD.
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JennGM
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 17702
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 10:30am | IP Logged
|
|
|
You're right, Sally. I would say that you can do both! And I do. I love the Square Foot Gardening with its grids, but I want the splashes of color so the garden isn't so utilitarian, so I add flower seeds.
I don't know what type this would exactly be, because it seems to be a cross between 2,3 and 4. I am always making connections, but also trying to have order and categorize things. My brain is constantly putting things in order. Maybe it's just Type 2 with the stacks. But I am always putting things in categories, like my clothes and books.
__________________
Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JennGM
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 17702
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 10:57am | IP Logged
|
|
|
SallyT wrote:
One last thought before we really do have to start school -- we're slow getting going after the long weekend, and with our March for Lifers hanging around until the afternoon when they leave:
I am finding this whole thing a useful tool in my fight against envy, because it helps me to stop saying that I "should" look a certain way, like certain things, have a certain kind of taste, if I want to be a cool and admirable person (which, let's face it . . . ).
For example, I have this one friend who's very tall, angular, bold, striking, and vibrant. She can wear all kinds of things I can't by virtue of her body type and look fabulous in them. She has this very cool, funky little house with bright turquoise walls in the living room. Everything about her says, "Unique! Bold! Creative! Original! I am who I am!"
So, part of me would dearly love to project that, too. It's too easy to say to myself, "I should really want turquoise walls in my house, because how cool is that?" And in her house, it really is. But in truth, the same walls would drive me crazy if I had to live with them. Realizing that my walls also say, "I am who I am," and not just, "I am boring and in desperate need of remediation," helps me mentally to close that gap between "I should" and "I am."
And that really is an antidote to envy.
Also, in keeping with the idea of these types through history, it would be interesting to look at what women thought they *should* be in a given era, and what it meant for them to be, in truth, something other than that "should." Our own era certainly has its "shoulds," but that's not unique to us now.
All right, really, it's not the holiday weekend any more. I'm going to stop thinking that I should go do school, and actually go and do it.
Sally |
|
|
Sally, when shared the colors of your kitchen cabinets, I just loved them. While I love bold colors in certain things like my clothes, I do not like them on my walls. I crave calm and peaceful and comfortable settings. Color really affects me, so bold colors on the wall makes the room close in on me and I'm very restless.
The colors I consistently choose are pale, soft colors. Yellow, greens and blues, but hues that are more gray-green-blue or gray blue. The yellow is soft, not bright or strong, but happy and light.
This is an area I have been so consistent -- I don't believe in trends in furniture or paint colors. When I decorate it feels like it's final, and should never change....which explains why I haven't hung up my pictures because I'm afraid of that permanent decision.
I don't like change. My mother's mom was a Type 3, with a lot of type 1 thrown in. She had constant movement, didn't worry about the details (never read instructions) and just got the jobs done. But she was also always ready to change. My mother, who is a strong melancholic who abhors change, just felt very out of place when she would come home from school and find everything changed--which happened every few months. And it was not just furniture rearranged, but Grandma would rearrange kitchen cabinets and drawers. My mother couldn't find anything, and felt very displaced.
When Grandma cooked she never followed a recipe, or the same way twice. And her clothing was a bit more flamboyant or over the edge than I would choose. She did sew, but didn't follow pattern instructions, and would leave unsnipped threads all over.
I always contrasted her with my father's mom, who just reveled in the domestic arts. I could always go to her house and find structure--very rare changes. She found beauty in the little things, finding bargains of Hummel statues because there were little chips and cracks, but they still looked beautiful. She loved reading cookbooks, as do I, and tested recipes, but she also had her rotation and perfected traditional foods that were the comfort foods of the family. She loved handicrafts, and made many crocheted afghans and embroidery and knitting. I was always impressed with the way she dressed. She set and curled her own hair to save money, and her clothes were on sale, but very clean, classic and stylish.
But that's just external comparisons. My maternal grandmother was closer to use and more endearing than my dad's mom.
__________________
Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 11:57am | IP Logged
|
|
|
CrunchyMom wrote:
I think Sally's point about different women being "the beauties" in different eras is significant. Women likely felt very plain who, if born at a different time, would have been admired because the style of the day flattered them.
|
|
|
Yes! My point was that is was more blamed on externals. Rather than as personal as it seems now. Now you can't be pretty unless you're at least as thin as you can be (and preferably as thin as the photoshopped models on the magazine covers)
Like in your quote Lindsay, she was trying to fix her skirt to be the right style, not her body shape or even how to fix the skirt to make her body look thinner.
Once upon a time (when I was in my late teens and 20's) I had very much an hour glass shape..when being thin was the thing.. I always consoled myself with Marilyn Monroe. Here she was acclaimed for her beauty and oh my goodness.. she had a bust and hips and even a bit of tummy.. a soft and round figure, not painfully thin with a totally flat stomach. Even the beauties in the 20's with the slim styled dresses when a slimmer boyish figure was the style.. was still soft and womanly.
I think there's always been ideals that women find impossible for themselves. But it seems like it's moved from externals that you can't live up to, to hating your very self rather than the external expectations.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CrunchyMom
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 03 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6385
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 11:57am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I agree Sally. I think what I like about this exercise is learning what makes me comfortable in the long term since I can "like" almost anything.
I can see how determing your dominant type is important (if any of this could be described as "important"  ). For instance, I, too am drawn to very symmetrical gardens and cottage gardens. So far, I am pretty sure I am 4/1. My own approach is similar to Jen's, structured beds with some leeway inside. I love looking at pictures of cottage gardens, but I don't think I could enjoy maintaining it. The structured beds make planning so much easier, and that is one of my favorite things, which makes sense given my perfecting tendencies as a 4. But if I'd gone with pure "cottage" I think I would be drained. I like a cottage element, but my 4 dominates.
I love how these videos are geared to helping you see the best in others. When she was describing type 3, I realized that my BIL's wife is totally that. I'd often envied how she always kept her house declittered and asked recently what her technique was, and she admitted that there was no method, just the fact that clutter makes her crazy. She's also a beautiful person, and I would study her clothes and decor to see just what she chose, and I would think how I could never choose those things, but now I totally see it is just her and she knows what she likes. I really like her and want her to like me, but at family events, I would sometimes feel she was a little abrupt, and after watching the videos, I see how it is that abruptness that keeps her house uncluttered
As a perfectionist, I wish I could get things done like SIL, but the way I want them, and yet, the whole reason she can get things done like she does is because she is not a perfectionist!
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JennGM
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 17702
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 12:09pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Last night I came across this blog, http://expressingyourtruth.blogspot.com/p/types-tones.html. This blog takes apart DYT because she doesn’t give credit to her sources. While I don't agree in the negativity, I found knowing of other reading and supporting books/views on this area was interesting. It will be interesting to see if my library carries any of these.
__________________
Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CrunchyMom
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 03 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6385
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 12:21pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
I couldn't see your link, but I saw a review on Amazon that said this and referenced other books...which were all long out of print and cost $300-500!
I agree she should would have done well to cite her sources better, but I felt the review I read was a bit harsh, especially since her method was original in its combining of sources and was the only thing available on the topics in print!
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JennGM
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 17702
|
| Posted: Jan 22 2014 at 12:37pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Sorry, fixed the link!
__________________
Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
4Real Forums : Our Lady of Good Remedy and Care
Topic: For Fun! Dress Your Truth
