Personal “failures” (e.g. unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, singlehood/widowhood/divorce, non-chosen childlessness, physical pain/illness, emotional/mental issues, being overweight, undereducated etc.) are supposed to be held in secrecy and not be publicly revealed. There is a certain amount of shame that airs through our defeats/failures/failings, so we become social media-trained to withhold those embarrassing life facts about us.

To create this imagined, shame-free existence on social media, there are buttons that can correct our momentarily honesty that accidentally spilled into our status updates/photos/links: delete, unlike, undo and unfriend. Every status update/link/photo is thoroughly premediated as social media, but Facebook in particular, has this ultra-tailored vibe of what to disclose and what not. This is specifically evident when it comes to relationship status. If we are to believe that FB was initially created as some sort of a hook-up platform – according to The Social Network – then this could be the reasoning why some relationship statuses are left out of the newsfeed. FB gently ignores our intimacy failures, so when we change our relationship status to “single”, “separated”, “divorced” and ”widowed”, those “changes will not appear in News Feed”. We are punished with social media invisibility if we fail. This is a soft disciplinary tactic that teaches us to hide our failures.

This is why we never see the formal “negative” side of relationships in our FB newsfeed. One has to deliberately put it in the status update to make others know about her/his/their divorce/separation/breakup (or DSB) because DSBs are not events to socialize or brag about unlike engagements, weddings, pregnancies and childbirths. If people (i.e. mostly women) disclose their intimate failure, it is usually in an embellished or encrypted manner (e.g. “a journey”, “a spiritual awake” or “conscious uncoupling”) that hides the rawness of DSB and keeps the social façade intact. But to address it in a matter-of-fact honesty (e.g. “I’m divorced/separated/break up with xy”), it reduces the potential brewing of shame and anxiety in that person, but – sociologically speaking – also acts as a subversive feminist move.

To disclose DSB on social media that “forces” us to be personal, but not fully honest and caters the artificial positivity is an act an abandonment of the internalized social guidelines about proper and improper behaviour on social media. Most importantly, it is a feminist step. When a relationship/marriage is about to dissolve, it is culturally and subconsciously expected for a woman to do all the emotional work to keep it alive or to be selfless enough to stay in it anyway and shifts the responsibility, alongside with the blame to women instead of all parties involved. This is a sexist mind-set that understands the role of women as being merely part of a couple/marriage/family with no autonomy or credibility to decide about their intimate dissatisfaction. Not to forget that divorce has become part of human rights not so far ago.

However, failure of any kind is not a part of Western thought, that cherish and reward success/winning and deliberately avoids any loss/defeat. To disclose something that is constructed as failure (DSB on social media in our case) is to reject the old dichotomous framework where success is everything and failure is nothing. As we know, only nothing grows out of nothing or no shit, no flowers.

Ne glede na materino češko poreklo, je Ivanka polnokrvna Američanka (ergo: ni priseljenka za razliko od njene matere in mačehe). Kot hči milijonarja je bila izpostavljena neizprosni poslovni klimi očeta, zato se je bolj ali manj sama “naštimala”, da bi postala več kot le trofejska žena nekega poslovneža in s tem na nek način presegla svoj spol (vseeno ima dva brata, ki sta pravilnejšega spola) ter se dokazala očetu. Nekaj malega manekenske kariere (tj. prvi poslovni pristop k unovčenju videza), ustrezna poslovna izobrazba, zaposlitev v enem izmed podjetij očetove korporacije, sodelovanje pri očetovem resničnostnem šovu  in kasneje znamčenje svoje top poslovne ženskosti (tj. oblačila, nakit, knjige/priročniki, skrbno izbrano projiciranje svojega življenjskega stila preko socialnih omrežij, predvsem vizualnega Instagrama). Ob tem je zadostila tudi kriterijem tradicionalne ženskosti, saj je mati treh otrok, žena in občasno verjetno tudi kdaj kaj skuha/pospravi.

Ivanka je fantazma post-feminizma oz. neoliberalne spolno slepe smeri, ki trdi, da so spol in ostali družbeni faktorji (razred ali barva kože recimo) preseženi in da sta trdo delo in žrtvovanje dovolj za kakršenkoli uspeh. Ivanka zagovarja zaposlene ženske, a ni feministka, saj je za to preveč … poslovno usmerjena, ker vé, da je včasih treba zamižati na eno oko, ko se gre za biznis. Feminizem zna bit’ poslu škodljiv. A kot pripadnica ameriške kulture pozna feministični besednjak (npr. spol, plačna vrzel, seksizem, spolno nadlegovanje itd.) in je politično pismena, če ne že politično lačna, saj je zanimanje za politiko prav tako zelo ameriško. Vé, kako se mora vesti in odreagirati na twitterske neslanosti, kampanjski sovražni govor in nagle politične odločitve svojega očeta (tudi zato je njen mož svetovalec njenemu očetu-predsedniku).

Ivanka oddaja avro politične zmernosti in skorajda materinskega razumevanja oz. slepega zaupanja, ki se ga a priori pripisuje materam. To, da se Ivanka tu in tam “znajde” v kabinetu očeta-predsednika in govorice, da naj bi prevzela mesto prve dame, je le dokaz, da politične ambicije z njene strani obstajajo (Ivanka za preDCednico nekoč?) in da trenutna ameriška vlada ne (pri)pozna “navzkrižja interesov”. Kot prava Američanka je elokvetna, kar je posledica ameriške medijske kulture, kjer je javno nastopanje in debatiranje nujno pridobljena veščina iz osnovne šole, kjer je medijska pismenost in spinanje medijev nuja in kjer imajo Hollywood, tisto močno industrijo, ki trosi vrednote ameriške kulture širom sveta. Je tudi družabna, saj njen socialni kapital seže celo do Chelsea Clinton. Da je vajena kamer in nastopanja, je jasno iz njene manekenske kariere in sodelovanja pri očetovem resničnostnem šovu.

Melanija pa je – po drugi strani – vse to, kar Ivanka ni in kar njena ameriška pastorka ne bo nikoli razumela. Zato pa jo bolj razume slovenski narod. Melanija je primer ultra tradicionalne ženskosti: rada je tipi top urejena (lasje, obleka, nohti, make-up), predana je zasebni sferi (tj. domu in prebijanju časa z otrokom) in je v zvezi, kjer je plačna vrzel med zakoncema enormna (tj. ekonomsko je ultra šibkejša od svojega moža).

Izhaja iz nižjega srednjega razreda iz mesteca z manj kot 5000 prebivalci/-kami, ki ji je uspel preboj med elito, a se tam zdaj ne znajde najbolje. Nihče je ni leta in leta pripravljal na vlogo politične žene, zato ne vé najbolje, kako se obrniti pri protokolih, niti ji njen mož ne koristi kaj prida, ker še sam ne vé. Tako kot večino slovenske populacije, je politika ne zanima kaj dosti, zato sta njen odpor do preselitve v Washington, D.C. in opravljanja nalog prve dame morda zgolj odraz njene politične nepismenosti in tujosti, ki jo čuti. Za razliko od Ivanke, politične pismenosti ni pridobila ne v matični družini, zakonski zvezi ali samoiniciativno niti ni to samouveni del slovenske kulture. To, da nima visoke izobrazbe, da je za njo kratka kariera manekenke (zdaj se pojavlja le še kot predsednikova žena), nekaj golih fotografij in govorice, da naj bi bila spremljevalka za plačilo, je irelevantno za strast, ki jo oseba lahko čuti do politike. Tudi javno nastopanje ni zanjo, medijske nastope opravlja z dolžnostjo dobre žene, a jih je težko gledati, saj izhaja iz slovenskega okolja, kjer medijsko pojavljanje in pismenost nista niti običajna niti pomembna.

Tudi digitalno je nevidna, je brez Instagram profila, njen Twitter račun in Facebook stran sta bolj ali manj neaktivna. Deluje kot introvertirana Slovenka, ki ne govori dosti, nekaj malega si misli, a je preveč potrpežljiva in podrejena ponotranjenim spolnim normam, da bi povzdignila glas. Raje se kaže v senci svojega nastopaškega moža, kot da bi jo poslušali/slišali. Ne vé se, kdo tvori njen družabni krog (kdo so njeni/-e prijatelj/-ice, ali ima kaj lastnega socialnega kapitala, ki bi si ga napaberkovala skozi svoje dvajsetletno bivanje v ZDA), liberalna ženska populacija jo vidi kot žrtev intimnega nasilja (po medmrežju kroži #Free Melania) oz. vase zaprto samotarko, kar je za glasne in super družabne Američan/-ke nepojmljivo.

Lahko bi jo slabšalno označili za “trofejko”, tj. oportunistično lepotico, ki omoži bogatega starejšega moškega, a koristoljubje je slovenska lastnost – okoristiti se (na račun nekoga, če je treba) je prej plus kot minus v slovenski skupni zavesti. Je dovolj pismena glede intelektualne lastnine in lastnega potencialnega znamčenja, da ne dovoli, da bi kdorkoli v Sloveniji profitiral na njen račun kot prve dame (ne glede na to, da teh nalog še ne opravlja v popolnosti), saj se njeno ime obravnava kot blagovna znamka. Tu ni sentimentalnosti za rodno grudo, četudi bi jo njena materinska požrtvovalnost lahko označila za arhetip slovenske matere; táko, na katero je sin tesno navezan in ona nanj, táko, ki ves svoj čas preživi s sinom in pri tem resnično uživa. Melanija je slovenska mati, ki bi ji Nace Junkar ali Franjo Bobinac z veseljem zapela.

Zato se je hčeri Ivanki nekaj časa pripisovala vloga prve dame, kar je ob ženi Melaniji, ki je to zmožna in dolžna opravljati, nelogično. Ivanka pač razume ameriški red (in vse podsisteme, ki ga tvorijo), ker je zrasla v in z njim. Melanija ga ne more.

Historically, high-heeled shoes were men’s footwear, worn by men in horseback-riding cultures, where heels helped them stay in the stirrup (e.g. Persian shoes in 9^th century, vaquero boots in 16^th century or cowboy boots in 19^th century). High-heeled shoes were important for their functionality and practicality, two of the most traditional masculine traits when it comes to footwear.

However, in the 17^th century up until the 19^th century, high-heeled shoes became the symbol of upper class or aristocracy, where the height of the heel signified the height of the social class. The high heel indicated the luxury of the wearer and the inability to walk indicated the unnecessity to work. Only lower classes worked (and wore flats or no shoes). But with the rise of capitalism, a system that cherishes also sartorial modesty, men’s flamboyance (including wigs and heels) was suppressed. The lavishness of clothing was now associated with frivolity … and femininity.

Louis XIV [credits: Wikipedia]

Men did toy with feminized looks and high heels in popular music, a realm of “queers” (i.e. odd, strange people), because anything goes in popular music. For example, David Bowie, Lux Interior from The Cramps, Yugoslavian 80s pop singer Oliver Mandić or Kazaky, all of them incorporated high heels as a part of their on-stage persona, but this performative behavior of gender bending did not make much of fuss. They are celebrities, not “real” people. However, casual (i.e. unquestioned or taken-for-granted) masculinity does not consist of wearing high heels, but there is one public person who sports women’s clothing in his private life.

Eddie Izzard, an English comedian, wears women’s clothing. He is a straight, cis gender male, who enjoys high heels, red lipstick, painted nails and fishnet stockings. Of course, his celebrity status is one of the extenuating circumstances – he is famous, maybe his “dress-up” is part of his comedy act – so his enjoyment in women’s attire is not taken seriously or is viewed as being eccentric. Eddie Izzard’s personal style is categorized as “cross-dressing”. When clothing carries so much gendered meaning that when a person of a different gender wears them and this behavior is defined as “transvestism” or “cross-dressing”, all these just subtly reaffirm that women’s clothes and femininity in general are Other/ed. No woman, who sports a two-piece suit, is viewed as a “cross-dresser” (although in not so recent past, they were). When Eddie Izzard was asked why he wears women’s clothing, he responded: “They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.” In his answer, gender of the owner becomes irrelevant, only the capability or male entitlement to own things (i.e. his property rights – “my clothes”) is important.

Eddie Izzard [credits: Daily Mail/Wenn.com]

To conclude: when straight men cave into their sartorial choices without being ridiculed with homophobic or ableist comments (gender ≠ sexuality, wardrobe ≠ deviation) and if those choices will consist of what is now regarded as “feminine attire”, a progress towards more gender-free or at least genderfuck society can happen.

The term “Smurfette principle” was coined by an American journalist Katha Pollitt in 1991, when she was analysing children’s programmes on television which led to the conclusion of children’s shows being highly gendered (“Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys”, she stated). The Smurfette principle, named after The Smurfs and their living arrangement (one woman – plenty of men), describes a situation where “a group of male buddies are accompanied by a lone female, (usually) stereotypically defined.” However, a “Smurfette” can also be an exceptional (and only) woman in a man’s world, for example, the only woman in a company’s boardroom or the only credible female character among men in a film. When just one person of an underrepresented group is included in the otherwise gender-homogeneous environment, that one person is a token. Tokenism as a practice of how minorities should be included only imitates equality, because it usually accepts only one outstanding individual and not a group of average ones.

The Smurfette principle, used in the cinematic surrounding, is not a monolithic trope; it is an adaptable one, depended on its context. In the television or film storyline, the “chosen” woman can be either (1) a part of the all-male team; (2) a lonely antagonist against the male team or (3) a decorative and unessential-to-the-story sidekick, created to dilute the possible homoerotic subtext of the narrative.

The “one of the guys” version appears in films, such are Gone in Sixty Seconds (Angelina Jolie/Sway), Inception (Ellen Page/Ariadne), Ocean’s 11 (Julia Roberts/Tess Ocean), The Imitation Game (Keira Knightley/Joan Clarke), Flatliners (Julia Roberts/Rachel Manus) and Michael Clayton (Tilda Swinton/Karen Crowder). Sway, Ariadne, Tess Ocean, Joan Clarke, Rachel Manus and Karen Crowder are the only women, allowed to be in the all-male ensemble and they function as antisexist tokens. The TV sitcom Seinfeld had this syndrome, too – Elaine Baines (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) was the only woman in the cast.

Seinfeld cast (Credits: NBC)

The reversed type of the Smurfette principle is a lonely female antagonist, set against the male team, which treats her as a threat. This trope can be found in film characters; such are Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3), Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises), Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter in Fight Club), Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone in Casino), Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams in Sherlock Holmes) and The Lady (Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead). Jodie Foster was quite often cast as a proponent of this cinematic trope; she was dr. Eleanor Arroway in Contact, Annabelle Bransford in Maverick and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. All those characters were outsiders for not fitting into the masculine concept of good (or domesticated) femininity; they were lone warriors for justice or truth (Ripley, The Lady, Eleanor and Clarice) or self-reliant grifters (Selina, Marla, Irene, Ginger and Annabelle).

Jodie Foster in Contact (Credits: Warner Bros.)

The last version of the Smurfette trope is an unessential sidekick, who is introduced into the homosocial storyline only to remove any potential homoerotic subtexts. These are some of the examples: Skylar (Minnie Driver in Good Will Hunting), Miss Piggy in The Muppet Show and Penny (Kaley Cuoco in The Big Bang Theory).

However, the image of the only woman among men was predominantly present in the 90s alternative and rock music (pop music is considered to be too “feminine”), where she would usually be a front(wo)man (i.e. singer), but less often a band founder or a leader. The “one-woman-in-all-men-band” trope is also a variable principle of femininity that must be aligned with the band’s masculine vision of how to represent themselves as unique artists, but also how to be appealing to the public (media, consumers and record labels). The visual appearance of the only woman in a man band still upholds the common signifiers of femininity (e.g. beautiful face, thin body, young/ish, embellished clothing, creative fashion choices), but it is done with an alternative twist to fit into the masculine conception of rock performance. Here are some illustrations of alternative femininities within one-woman-in-all-male-band contexts.

Garbage’s Shirley Manson sported an edgy alternative beauty, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani was a blonde, stylish femme-tomboy and Skunk Anansie’s Skin was presented as a black androgynous handsomeness, while The Cardigan’s Nina Persson embodied a blonde fragile femininity. Sonic Youth’s bassist/singer Kim Gordon shared the same blond coolness with Smashing Pumpkin’s bassist D’arcy Wretzky, while The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan and Texas’ Sharleen Spiteri were symbols of casual androgyny. Katrina and the Waves’ Katrina Leskanich exhibited the queer femininity, Joan Jett and the Black Hearts’ Joan Jett toyed herself with the femme-masculine brashness, while Sade’s Sade Adu exuded the modelesque beauty. Blondie’s Debbie Harry was synonymous for what a sensual and daring blonde should behave and look like, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O radiates an artistic aloofness and Scissor Sisters’ Ana Matronic campy seductiveness is hidden in her stage persona, while The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde was just all about her ambivalent coolness.

The Pretenders (Credits: Rolling Stone)

Regardless of its location (entertainment, politics or every-day life), the main problem with the Smurfette principle  is that it reinforces the idea that there is only enough room for one (exceptional) woman to be engaging and profiting from male (or female) professions which leads to the misguided belief of who the enemy is. Well, it is not anOther woman.

The western understanding of a woman’s body is – alongside with its reproductive power – also built around its aesthetic (decorative) and mobile (inactive) nature. It is expected for a girl to be pretty and a woman to be attractive, so to stay pretty/beautiful, a girl/woman should not engage in activities (sports mostly) that could ‘ruin’ her appearances. Bruises ruin skin to a degree of transforming skin colour from natural to ‘unnatural’ – blue, green, violet, yellowish. But most of all, they bluntly expose the fragility and mortality of the human body.

To gain a bruise is a positive message about body vitality and reaffirmation of the corporeal toughness for boys and men only; girls can be covered with bruises until they reach puberty. Puberty is a gender game-changer for girls, because it is assumed that a girl should abandon her free-spirit roaming and willingly submit herself to the docile young femininity – to be looked at as a ‘beautiful object’ instead of being primarily a looking subject. Bruises, scars or pimples on the body can be compared with cracks on the porcelain – they are a sign of imperfection or failure, something that is not well received in the western neoliberal society that strives for permanent success and cannot or will not see ‘defeat’ as a time to recess, recuperate or grow.

The societal imperative to be beautiful and perfect (although disguised as a woman’s choice and not an obligation) is a heavy burden in every woman’s life. Despite the fact that beauty standards vary in society, every culture and subculture has the ideal upon other members are measured and valued (e.g. too butch or too femme for a lesbian, too dark or too light for a black person, too masculine for a straight woman …). Women’s bodies should aim to be beautiful – impeccable and “bruiseless” to conform to the arbitrarily established standard(s).

Philosopher Iris Marion Young claims that adult women are caught between states of immanence (i.e. being an ‘object’ or immobile) and transcendence (i.e. being a subject or motile). Every time women are predominantly defined as immanence, their autonomy, creativity and subjectivity (e.g. voice, mind and body) are being destroyed or rejected. The model of conventional femininity does exactly that; it gently forbids any opportunity for a woman to be ‘outside’ of her inactive role if she wants to remain a feminine and beautiful insider.

When a woman engages in sports, she is expanding her spatial, motile, behavioural and physical limits and by not squeamishly avoiding the potential injuries, she is experiencing and embracing physical pain, produced by her own actions. Culturally, there is only one type of physical pain all women are allowed to participate in – childbirth, so by exploring her own pain thresholds besides the imposed one, she transgresses her gender role of a beautiful object and positions herself as an active agent of her own body, possibly covered with bruises, scars and dirt.

Not only does an adult woman, who is getting bruised, transgress her gender role of a delicate flower, she also deconstructs the dominant belief that when a woman’s body is bruised, it must be the case of domestic violence (e.g. intimate, family or elderly abuse). Bruise as an age-specific injury is quite unproblematic with pre-pubescent girls, but over time that fleshy symbol of an active life becomes an undisputable marker of an abuse. When a woman is abused, she is ultimately objectified yet her objectification is intensified with random people’s glances at her bruises and assumptions about getting them.

Bruises are and should only be “kisses” between the flesh and inanimate objects, never between two human bodies – an objectified subject and an abusive subject. But the naming of bruises as kisses is not mine. Finnish photographer Riikka Hyvönen has beautifully documented bruises of roller derby players, a now revived all-female (and feminist) sport, whose global recognisability can also be contributed to Drew Barrymore’s Whip it (USA, 2009), a film that celebrates independence, companionship, wit and women.

Babe Ruthless (Credits: Mandate Pictures)

With portraying bruises as “kisses”, the discourse of what is producing women’s bruises is changing. Instead of being exclusively embedded into a paradigm of an abuse, women’s bruises can arise from pleasurable fun.