Hello there and Happy IWD 2022!
We are so proud of this all women collaboration to celebrate IWD 2022. We came up with the idea when Kara from Firemark PhotoMedia reached out and wanted to do a collaboration with The Lindy Charm School.. My Mum was front and centre of my mind when the words “Stoic and Feminine” spoke loudest in my head so I asked my Sister Veronica to write a piece around that (See below)
We needed it to relate to our Vintage & Pin Up Community as well (after all, we live int at world!) We all understand bias by some of the general public about our own culture and chosen lifestyle who don’t understand. Speaking with Ruby and Sim who both said that being a Tattooed Pin Up Model drew its fair share of negative attention by those who do not get it. You know the common references, I don’t need to repeat but they also recounted the numerous positives as well mind you. These women, and in fact every woman I know in this Vintage/Pin Up Scene, is not only kind, talented and individual gems but they are also god damn smart and sassy! You can’t judge a book by its cover nor can we every underestimate the power and strength of a woman, especially when backed into a corner.
As I sit and write this post, I am surrounded by the imagery and stories of so many brave women in our South East Qld and Northern Rivers Community who have been faced with un-imaginable devastation with these floods. The heroic acts and community kindness, although completely overwhelmingly sad, has flooded our channels with good news stories of resilience and courage and community spirit which has been such a nice change from the divisive Covid news of the past 3 years. Monique said it best last night when she said, Covid divided community and this tragic event has reunited community.
I hope you enjoy our version of representing the diversity of women and celebrating them for International Women’s Day 2022.
The Stoically Feminine: Oxymoron or Tautology
I recently read that Judith Love Cohen, an American aerospace engineer, went into labour whilst trying to problem solve the safe return of the crippled Apollo 13 using the Abort-Guidance System that she helped create. She took a print out of what she was working on to the hospital, called her boss to tell him she had solved it, then gave birth to her son, the Hollywood actor Jack Black.
The fact that a woman is capable of growing and birthing an entire human being has to be one of our most feminine superpowers. It has always fascinated me that this most quintessential female ability is also the most physically brutal experience, one which only women have the capacity to endure. The softness of a mother’s love juxtaposed with the stoicism required to face childbirth is a snapshot of the essence of what it is to be female: stoically feminine.
We are experts at it, whether we become mothers or not. Our bodies are naturally more delicate than a man’s but we have a ferocity within that belies that soft exterior, we have an indefatigable aptitude for endurance, emotional and psychological endurance. This aptitude for stoicism is both natural and “man-made” it grows stronger the more we are repressed and underestimated.
I am fortunate to be born in a time where the stoicism of my fore-mothers has paved a sturdy path towards an unbiased future. The path was forged in both stilettos and boots and in 2022 it really does feel like the world is starting to make room for the wonderful contradiction that a woman is both soft and strong, that we can wear pants with a delicate silk blouse, that our breasts can be a visual treat and a nourishing food sack.
We must continue to move away from the bias that to be female is to only be soft and fragile, there is nothing fragile about pushing a human being out through a very small birth canal, because to think of women as only soft predisposes us to the patriarchal abuses that come from the notion that we are pliable, needing to be protected, able to be broken.
I love my true feminine nature that I know to be at once loving and nurturing, and ruthless and unrelenting. We can’t all be Judith Love Cohen and simultaneous give birth whist saving the world but we can be beautifully stoically feminine.
Veronica Neave.
Words: Veronica Neave @veronica_neave
Photographer: – Kara – @firemarkphotomedia
Head Stylist & MUAH & Wardrobe – Chrissy Keepence @lindycharmschool
MUAH Assistant – Monique Galvin
Milliner: @Belle.Follie.Lifestyle
Models:
Ruby Alabaster – @Ruby.alabaster
Sim Lovett – @bunnyboulevard
