The first female jockey

In the Lady and the Cowboy, set in Texas circa 1882, I use a female jockey. I can say much more without spoiling parts of the book but I wanted to share my research with you. 

First of all I wondered if women might be banned from the sport, after all, women were banned from many professions in the Victorian era. I could find nothing prohibiting it at that time, then I hit upon Eliza Carpenter, who was extraordinary for many reasons, not least of which is that she was a former slave turned racehorse owner, and she would ride her own horses when she was unhappy with her jockeys performance! 

Sadly details of her life are few and far between, with everything online basically being copied from or to her brief Wikipedia entry. 

I did however, find her obituary from the The Baltimore Afro-American (below the cut). Sadly she was thrown from wagon in 1924 and hit her head. She never recovered from the in injury and died a few months later.

She lived a long life however, being 73 at the time of her death and I think you will agree, she was a truly remarkable woman. 

To reach chapter one of the Lady and the Cowboy, click here. 

The Feminist Tightrope

Natural large breasts

We feminists all walk a tightrope between our feminism and our desires.

Damn it, I want to be pretty, even while knowing that the image of beauty that we are presented with applies only to 5% of the population, and I shall NEVER achieve it! Beauty is something that we have been taught to want however, rather that comes naturally to everyone, and as I come to terms with this fact, there are times that I am willing to bite the bullet and go against the herd mentality.

I have big breasts and bra's hurt me, so on Sunday I finally made the decision that it didn't matter if my breasts weren't perky and perfect, I wasn't going to keep strapping a bra on and off just to walk the dogs, so that I can fool the world into believing that my bosoms are perfect and perky. They are my breasts, their look and appearance was decided by my DNA, and there is nothing wrong with them, damn it, except that they don't live up to this foolish 21st century ideal.

Real vs Photoshopped Maria.

And let's face it, many of the perfect breasts that we are supposed to live up to aren't even real, having been enhanced by either surgery or photoshop! These are the breasts I was born with, and damn it, big (natural) boobs tend to sag! 

Two days later I see a female friend (who shall remain nameless) tweeting about how, thanks to the warm weather, there were so many awful, bra-less women about with, well I'll let you read it

My god you see some sights in [redacted]! Bra-less boobs hanging round the waist! #notagoodlook

Needless to say my new found feeling of freedom disappeared, and I simply feel self-conscious and awkward again. Now I am back to hiding under a bulky coat (despite the temperature), rather that strapping the painful, perky-breast-maker back on again.

We are our own worse enemies, and that is an important realisation to come by. Just because we are women, doesn't mean that we haven't been indoctrinated by the patriarchal society that we live in. At least once we understand that, we can begin to start making informed decisions about what rules we want to follow, and why we want to follow them.

Which is more frightening, the ever increasing hair or bust?

In a few weeks I will probably manage to once again convince myself that there is nothing wrong with my perfectly natural breasts, but I cant help but wonder how long it will be until another "harmless" (and thoughtless) remark sends me running back for the bulky coat/camouflage.

While we're on this subject, Can I just ask why there are no posts about men and their exposed moobs, beer bellies and white chicken legs? Personally I don't find those things attractive but then again, I accept that men not only can be more than just a physical presence (attractive or otherwise) but that they should be more than that, as well rounded human beings. I expect them to have goals and aspirations that have nothing to do with looking good so that they might be appreciated by the opposite sex. As such, it doesn't really bother me if men are imperfect.

I apply that same standard to women. I wish more of us did.

Where does a writers responsibility begin and end?

Following my post on Fifty Shades of Grey, and the white hot rage it and it's message inspired within me, not to mention arguments such as racefail (which still has cause to rear it's ugly head from time to time) and this recent article in the Guardian, I've been thinking a lot recently about a writers responsibilities.

There isn't a lot of fiction out there that elevates any minority to positions of equality. Those that do exist are most often found within the realm of science fiction and fantasy, though there are equally as many fantastic universes created which still seek to oppress minorities, seeming to long for the good old days, when women were little more than princess in ivory towers and slavery was normal.

Any media can be a force for change, putting forward points of view that make us stop and questions ourselves and our preconceptions. Star Trek having a black woman on the bridge, for example, was unthinkable in the 60's. Of course the majority of telephone operators in a telephone exchange were women, so perhaps making her the communications officer was not that ground breaking after all. It made a bold leap, no doubt, but was that leap bold enough? Why couldn't Spock, the second in command, have been a woman, or heaven forbid, even the captain! Even just making a woman the navigation officer would have been better, and at least then the Enterprise would stop and ask for directions when needed!

The Trouble With Twilight?

I've heard a lot of people groan and complain about the feminist aspects of the Twilight Saga but honestly, the first time I read them I was too caught up in the plot to pay much attention to the sexism. After the furore surrounding 50 Shades of Grey, a story inspired by Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, I decided to go back and read the Twilight Saga to see what exactly inspired a story about a sado-masochistic relationship. It didn't sound anything like the Twilight I remembered.

I'm only going to comment on this from a feminists perspective, I'll leave the quality of the writing and the Mary-Sue aspects to people more qualified to comment.

So, let me start by saying that as a feminist, on the whole, the books don't offend me or my feminist ideals, though there are a few gripes.

I'll start with the biggest, Bella going to pieces when Edward leaves her in New Moon. I'm not saying women don't go to pieces, I have a friend whose sister, a high-powered executive, was hospitalised for depression when her husband left her. So it does happen, some people do fall apart when they're left. In this book, even Edward is portrayed as being a broken man after leaving Bella, so I cant even argue that this is a sexist representation of women.