TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE: August 2008

Monday, August 25, 2008

Code Pink

I'm going to preface this post with a disclaimer just stating that I'm writing as just one half of the Teesquare team. I'd rather not be responsible for putting words in the other half's mouth... and so, with that said:

Reading about Code Pink for Peace this morning in the news, creating havoc on the Democratic National Convention, I can't help but think this is possibly not the best use of these women's talents. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink is an activist and writer, widely known for her explosive public displays and involvement in organizations that use scare tactics to bully people into taking their side. I've always wondered what Rachel Carson and Susan B. Anthony have that I look up to that so many activist women in the news today don't have. I think it's tact. Or class. I'm not sure, exactly, how to put it into words, but there's definitely something a little unrefined about the movement Benjamin and team are trying to create with their blood-on-our-hands aggressive campaign. I could be way off base, but I'm not sure it's working for them. How come all these talented, well educated women are sneaking into events to flash homemade signs in hopes of getting 2 seconds on the local news? If these people are so talented, why can't they think of a more effective way to spread the word of Peace? I'd love nothing more than our troops to come home, having friends and relatives involved in both foot and air combat from Desert Storm through today. And I'm thrilled that women are educating themselves on the war, political efforts (or non-efforts) to stop it and how they can get involved. Where does effective anti-war marketing begin and where does anti-war marketing begin to make a group of intelligent women look foolish?

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Women Dominate A-School, but...

Where do they go when they graduate? Interesting article a few weeks ago in The National (an English newspaper produced in the UAE) about the odd fact that women dominate architecture schools, but the professional field remains a man's world. Read it here. My general understanding is that this is an epidemic across the globe.

The Good Fight

Now, more than ever, there are fewer rules to being female. Fewer guidelines that make clear what is feminine, what is acceptable and what is successful. We at TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE believe that there is liberation in that ambiguity. We believe that beauty and innovation come out of contradiction. We believe that as designers, we can be, all at once, feminists, daddy's girls, mothers and activists. We believe that if the world which we want to inhabit doesn't exist, then it is up to us to create it, to design it, to figure out a better way.We are of a generation that was raised on optimism, dot com promises, trickle down economics and the belief that we can and will do anything. We were raised to believe that we are men's equals. That the women who came before us - our mothers, our aunts, our grandmothers - fought the good fight for us and passed down to their daughters the promise of a better life. We were molded to believe in a dream - to believe that we were born into a world where women can "have it all." That if we choose to put our minds to it, at our fingertips are: groundbreaking careers, stable marriages, a houseful of children and the ability to carry it all off with a Martha Stewartian air of perfect dinner parties and coordinated towels. However, the burden of being female in the 21st century hasn't been lessened; it was expanded by this progress and by our entrance into professional society. We are now just as likely to be judged for the degrees listed after our last names as for the cleanliness of our bathroom floors. And so, the mantle of responsibility that our predecessors have passed down to us is choice. Seemingly limitless opportunities for advancement, diversification and progress have been handed to us. We are "Generation Y-ers." We are team oriented, naturally collaborative, more likely to take initiative, less sensitive to organizational constructs and often compelled to reach out across boundaries. So here we are: reaching out. We are a generation of intelligent, beautiful, open-minded young women who have been asked to navigate a complex, unclear and sometimes discouraging world. There is nothing to be gained from shifting the responsibility of the uncertainty of our position to our brothers, financees, husbands, fathers and friends. There is nothing to be gained from demonizing men. It is up to us, in the face of what is sometimes an oppressive amount of choice, to stand together and unravel what is chivalrous and what is chauvinistic. We are designers committed to achieving in our work a balance and beauty, which we find difficult at best, to design into our own lives. TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE supports women who are living the duality of hard-ass creative genius and the reality of being everything else that is typically female.

TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE

Monday, August 25, 2008

Code Pink

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Women Dominate A-School, but...

The Good Fight

Some Nice Links

Blog Archive

Contributors