This morning I settled down with a cup of tea and a couple of chocolate digestives to watch New Girl. Unfortunately the episode I wanted was not online. This is a minor tragedy in a day that I wish to spend doing very little. Instead I had to content myself with Girls and then a weird BBC4 programme about Ladies: An Elegant History.
Just slightly different portraits of women...the first involved STD's, an abortion and babysitting in a transparent dress. And that was just one character: the British one who at least sounds the most like a Lady.
The second was presented by a woman who used to be editor of The Lady Magazine (I didn't even know there was such a thing) who, after learning from many sources that Ladyhood is coming back into fashion now we have more or less acheived equality, decided that she wasn't a Lady and wasn't sure she likes the idea. She was definitely a Lady. In denial.
So what am I? Lady or not?
One one hand, the life of the Girls was not a million miles away (mainly just the stuggling to pay rent on a job you don't really care about front really) It does, at least, seem a little more like real life than the assumption that walking out of a room in a certain way can advance you in life...open doors for you.
But I must say, I'm kind of a sucker for that kind of stuff. I would like to be able to glide around a room as if balancing a book on my head. Mainly as a party trick really, and because I suspect lazy posture is to blame for the fact that, at 24, my back hurts if I walk around with a bag for too long. I will of course maintain that I don't like to carry a bag because I feel so free without one. And it's true...free from pain. Oh dear.
Anyway, I also love a floral print, cupcakes and pearls. One doesn't indulge in these loves all the time of course..I'm currently wearing hippy India trousers and sitting with my feet up, eating the above mentioned biscuits. Can Ladies do that?
Or maybe it's nothing to do with fashion. Maybe it is an attitude. Like self-respect. Something that some of the characters in Girls are missing...hence, they are not Ladies.
"You're a lady. I'm a lady. We're the LADIES!" A remark smartly rebuffed by the British one (another Jess). "I'm not the Ladies... I hate women who tell other women a certain way to be."
Maybe that's a good point. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy loves that Elizabeth braved a muddy hemline to see her sick sister. It was his sister (or something), the "Lady" that was bitchy about it. Jane Austen knew her shiz, and don't tell me anything different.
In conclusion, this is a rather confused musing on whether I am/want to be a Lady. Is it an old-fashioned and out-of-date set of restrictions that allow us to be mean about each other; or is it a new and improved way to be elegant and self-assured whilst indulging in a mutual love of all things feminine. Things that we are allowed to reclaim now Kate Middleton is here, and (apparently) economic difficulties make knitting and cooking trendy.
Whatever. I kind of like the way I am so maybe it doesn't matter what that is. "A rose by any other word..." and all that.
Just slightly different portraits of women...the first involved STD's, an abortion and babysitting in a transparent dress. And that was just one character: the British one who at least sounds the most like a Lady.
The second was presented by a woman who used to be editor of The Lady Magazine (I didn't even know there was such a thing) who, after learning from many sources that Ladyhood is coming back into fashion now we have more or less acheived equality, decided that she wasn't a Lady and wasn't sure she likes the idea. She was definitely a Lady. In denial.
So what am I? Lady or not?
One one hand, the life of the Girls was not a million miles away (mainly just the stuggling to pay rent on a job you don't really care about front really) It does, at least, seem a little more like real life than the assumption that walking out of a room in a certain way can advance you in life...open doors for you.
But I must say, I'm kind of a sucker for that kind of stuff. I would like to be able to glide around a room as if balancing a book on my head. Mainly as a party trick really, and because I suspect lazy posture is to blame for the fact that, at 24, my back hurts if I walk around with a bag for too long. I will of course maintain that I don't like to carry a bag because I feel so free without one. And it's true...free from pain. Oh dear.
Anyway, I also love a floral print, cupcakes and pearls. One doesn't indulge in these loves all the time of course..I'm currently wearing hippy India trousers and sitting with my feet up, eating the above mentioned biscuits. Can Ladies do that?
Or maybe it's nothing to do with fashion. Maybe it is an attitude. Like self-respect. Something that some of the characters in Girls are missing...hence, they are not Ladies.
"You're a lady. I'm a lady. We're the LADIES!" A remark smartly rebuffed by the British one (another Jess). "I'm not the Ladies... I hate women who tell other women a certain way to be."
Maybe that's a good point. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy loves that Elizabeth braved a muddy hemline to see her sick sister. It was his sister (or something), the "Lady" that was bitchy about it. Jane Austen knew her shiz, and don't tell me anything different.
In conclusion, this is a rather confused musing on whether I am/want to be a Lady. Is it an old-fashioned and out-of-date set of restrictions that allow us to be mean about each other; or is it a new and improved way to be elegant and self-assured whilst indulging in a mutual love of all things feminine. Things that we are allowed to reclaim now Kate Middleton is here, and (apparently) economic difficulties make knitting and cooking trendy.
Whatever. I kind of like the way I am so maybe it doesn't matter what that is. "A rose by any other word..." and all that.
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