LGBTQ Female Role Models: Chavela Vargas

Question: Who is one of the most (internationally) famous living lesbians?

Answer: Chavela Vargas! Born in 1919 in Costa Rica, she moved to México at the age of 14 and lived there thereafter, adopting Mexican nationality. She is considered one of the most famous "Ranchera" singers, a genre of Mexican music with one singer and a guitar.

The Ranchera genre is known for being traditionally dominated by men-most of the songs are long and ballad-like poems directed towards women. Yet the male domination of the genre didn't stop her, and when Chavela Vargas began singing in the 1940s, she sang traditional Ranchera songs, using the same lyrics

that expressed strong desire for women and the Ranchera clothing [see picture, left] and persona, which included pistol carring. She stopped her lengthy career in the 1970s for the next 15 years to battle alcoholism, but returned to her work and is still singing (to women) today at the age of 91.

In 2000, at the age of 81, she came out openly as a lesbian woman to the Madrid newspaper El País; "I was born this way, since I opened my eyes to the world. I've had to fight to be myself and to be respected. I'm proud to carry this stigma. I'm proud to call myself a lesbian." Her most famous relationship was with Frida Kahlo: "When I saw Frida's face, her eyes, it seemed like she was from another world...I sensed I could love that being with the most pure love in the world." She was also friends with many other famous Mexican artists of the time, including Diego Rivera, José Alfredo Jimenéz (who helped her produce much of her work), and Juan Rulfo.

[Note: The below video is actually a scene from the movie Frida, but since Chavela Vargas plays herself (and sitting across from one of her then-lovers) I thought it was pretty powerful! She has other videos online but for some reason it was hard to find one with good sound quality.]

Her vivacious personality and defiance to accept traditional norms seem fascinating to me; today Chavela walks with a limp , which she claims is from "jumping out of a window for a woman". Her most recent work involves her soundtrack and performances for the movie Frida, as well as for various films by Spainish director Pedro Almódovar (La Flor del Secreto, Tecanos Lejanos). Almódovar, who is also openly gay, characterizes Chavela as "la voz áspera de la ternura", or "the rough voice of tenderness".

WLW hosts "Saving Face" MOVIE NIGHT next Thursday@8pm!

Women Loving Women (WLW) is Duke's group for undergraduate and graduate women with an attraction (or questioning an attraction) to women. we are excited to be hosting our first MOVIE NIGHT of this Spring semester next Thursday in the LGBT Center at 8pm! (Note the later time change-we're trying to accommodate folks with classes and practice.) We will be showing "Saving Face" (rom.com!-Watch the YouTube trailer here.)

Event recap:
WLW hosts "Saving Face" Movie Night
When: Next Thursday, Feb 9th, @8pm
Where: LGBT Center (popcorn/drinks provided!)

*Open to all grad and undergrad women at Duke with an attracation (or questioning an attraction) to women.

See you next Thursday!
-Megan

WLW hosts "Set it Off" MOVIE NIGHT this Saturday @6pm!

Hi Duke LGBTQ/questioning women's community! Have you heard of Women Loving Women (WLW) at Duke? We are a dinner and discussion group for graduate and undergraduate LGBTQ-identified and questioning women at Duke.

WLW is excited to be hosting its third and last MOVIE NIGHT of the semester this Saturday night at 6pm in the LGBT Center! We will be showing "Set it Off", a film about four women who band together to fight the system in a radical, kick-ass, (and hilarious) way.

*All LGBTQ and questioning identified women who are graduate or undergradute students at Duke are welcome to attend.* (We respect varying levels of "outness" with both our dinner discussion meetings, listserv, and informal events like these, and members of the group are not discussed beyond the event.)

Also, WLW is going to be having it's next and last monthly dinner/discussion meeting of the semester Sunday, December 11th from 6-8pm in the LGBT Center, so mark your calendar and RSVP to colleen.warner@duke.edu! This month's meeting and every meeting is open to all LGBTQ and questioning Duke undergraduate and graduate women-identified students. (If you're not on our WLW listserv but would like to be, please email myself, meganweinand@gmail.com or Janie (janie.long@duke.edu) and we'll be happy to add you to the private listserv.)

See you there!
-Megan

Event recaps:

1. WLW hosts "Set if Off" Movie Night
When: This Saturday, December 3rd ; 6-8pm
Where: LGBT Center

2. December's WLW meeting
When: Sunday, December 11th, 6-8pm
Where: LGBT Center
Note: please RSVP to Colleen at colleen.warner@duke.edu with your meal
preference (vegetarian or non-veg.)
Also: TOPIC-Most likely an end-of-the-semester party! [Send us your other ideas to meganweinand@gmail.com!]

MOVIE NIGHT - "Frida" - Hosted by Women Loving Women (WLW)

Hi Duke LGBTQ/questioning women's community!

Have you heard of Women Loving Women (WLW) at Duke? We are a dinner and discussion group for graduate and undergraduate LGBTQ-identified and questioning women at Duke.

WLW is excited to be hosting a MOVIE NIGHT this Wednesday, October 12th at 7pm in the LGBT Center! All LGBTQ and questioning identified women who are graduate or undergradute students are welcome to attend. (We respect varying levels of "outness" with both our dinner discussion meetings, listserv, and informal events like these, and members of the group are not discussed beyond the event.) Wednesday's movie is planned to be "Frida" [Read about it here at Afterellen.com], which tells the story of the bisexual civil rights and women's rights activist and Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo.

Also, WLW is going to be having it's next monthly dinner/discussion meeting October 17th from 6-8pm in the LGBT Center. This month's topic is "Sexual Fluidity and Questioning", and if you'd like us to ask specific questions for dialogue, email myself (meganweinand@gmail.com) or Janie (janie.long@duke.edu) with your ideas for discussion questions for our meeting. Please RSVP to colleen.warner@duke.edu. This month's meeting and every meeting is open to all LGBTQ and questioning Duke undergraduate and graduate women-identified students. (If you're not on our WLW listserv but would like to be, please email myself or Janie and we'll be happy to add you to the private listserv.)

Event recaps:

1. MOVIE NIGHT - "Frida" hosted by WLW

When: This Wednesday, October 12th, 7pm

Where: The Center for LGBT Life

Note: There will be popcorn & beverages!!

2. Next WLW Meeting: "Sexual Fluidity and Questioning".

When: Monday, October 17th

Where: The Center for LGBT Life

RSVP to: colleen.warner@duke.edu

(please specifiy "vegetarian" meal if desired!)

Note: If you have a specific question that you'd like us to add to the list of discussion questions, please email Janie or myself (meganweinand@gmail.com; janie.long@duke.edu).

-Megan

LGBTQ Female Role Models - Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Hey! So I've been wanting to write on the blog

about this woman for a really long time, but up until this point I've been trying to only focus on living LGBTQ female role models. But I think I'm going to break my own rule and write about Frida, simply because she's SUCH an awesome queer female role model and she was absolutely the woman I wanted to write about this week on the blog.

I have to start this post off with a confession. I actually have an enormous poster of Frida Kahlo in my dorm room, but I keep it on the back door of the closet (ironic) because it's really intense [See photo to the left, below-"Pensando en la muerte (Thinking of Death)"-that's the one I have!]. But I love her! Also, if you haven't seen the movie Frida, I would really recommend it! I had been introduced to Frida Kahlo in elementary school in Arizona, but that movie really helped me get a clearer picture of who the artist was and why she's such a strong woman.

Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City (D.F.) in 1907, and just a few years later at the age of 6 she contracted polio, which "began a life marked by physical suffering". At the age of 15 she entered Mexico's oldest high school, (which was the first Mexican school to accept women, and had just begun to do so ) La Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, where she met Diego Rivera (her future husband) for the first time.

On September 17th, 1925, there would be an event that would mark Kahlo's for the rest of her life-physically, mentally, and in everyway possible. While riding on a bus, there was a collision with a street trolley, and a metal pole inserted her body, shattering her spine into various pieces, and also breaking her ribs and pelvic. The accident left Kahlo in a full-body cast, infertile, and bed-ridden for months.

During her painful recovery, Frida used painting as a way to pass the time and help cure boredom. In 1926 she painted her first self-portrait; she often painted herself in bed, or to express her emotional states at the time: "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality", she said.

In 1929 she met fellow Mexican painter, Diego Rivera

again and they married within the year. Throughout her life, Frida had affairs with both men (including Leon Trostky) and women (Dolores del Rio, Paulette Goddard, Maria Felix, & Josephine Baker). She identified openly as a bisexual woman, while preferring men, and she sometimes chose to dress in drag. Her painting "Two Nudes in a Forest" clearly depicts a romantic interaction between two women-[right]. (Rivera apparently knew of and accepted her relationships with women during their marriage, but her male partners made him jealous.) Frida later confronted the emotional pain of watching her husband have an affair with her sister, Cristina, after which she divorced Diego Rivera in Nov 1939; they remarried Dec. 1940.

One of the reasons I love Frida Kahlo is because she was an unbashedly confident feminist and queer woman, converting into a national and international icon for the rights of women, those working towards socialism, indigenous communities of Mexico and others. Frida's powerful ability to represent marginalized topics in her artwork I think relates to others because she can empathize with those suffering struggle via own physical and emotional strife throughout her life [Right-"Los dos Fridas" (Both Frida's).]. Frida didn't hesitate to confront difficult topics in her paintings; in one painting she even expressed her pain after a miscarriage.

Today Frida has made an international impact. She is known for being the first Hispanic woman on a U.S. poststamp, her works today are consistently auctioned off at the highest prices of any Mexican artist, and she was the first 20th-century Mexican artist to be displayed in the Louvre.

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Sheryl Swoopes

Hey! So I know we're still trying to keep the blog active this summer (if you want to write, talk to Risa!), so I thought I'd talk about a wonderful LGBTQ female role model who has been in the news a little bit lately!

When legendary basektball player Sheryl Swoopes came out in 2005, she was the second WNBA player to do so in history.

Over the course of her career, Swoopes has won 3 Olympic gold medals, is a 3-time WNBA MVP, 4-time WNBA Champion and a 3-time winner of the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year award. The player who has been referred to as "the female Michael Jordan" (or maybe Michael Jordan is just the "male Sheryl Swoopes"), she is most famous for her 10-year career with the Houston Comets, and has also played for the Seattle Storm (2008). Most recently, in March of 2011, at the age of 40, Swoopes returned to the sport after a hiatus due to injuries, to play with the Tulsa Shock.

In regards to her sexuality, Swoopes says, "it doesn't change who I am. I can't help who I fall in love with. No one can. ... Discovering I'm gay just sort of happened much later in life. Being intimate with [Alisa, her partner] or any other woman never entered my mind. At the same time, I'm a firm believer that when you fall in love with somebody, you can't control that." Nevertheless, Swoopes doesn't want her LGBTQ identity to become her only identity that people acknowledge: "I don't want people to just focus on me coming out and that part of my life, because there are so many other aspects to who I am. As a strong, black, female athlete, and as a single parent, there are so many different parts of my life that could really influence someone else's life."

In a 2006 interview with ESPN, Swoopes explained why she came later on in her career, rather than earlier: "It's not something that I want to throw in people's faces. I'm just at a point in my life where I'm tired of having to pretend to be somebody I'm not. I'm tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about. About the person I love." She also mentions that she didn't always identify as a queer woman: "I didn't always know I was gay. I honestly didn't. Do I think I was born this way? No. And that's probably confusing to some, because I know a lot of people believe that you are. I've been married, and I have an 8-year-old son. Being with a man was what I wanted. When I got divorced in 1999, it wasn't because I'm gay. I'm three years older than my ex-husband, and I matured a lot faster than he did."

When Swoopes went on a cruise with Olivia crusies in 2005, a LGBTQ women's cruise line, she was approached by the CEO, Amy Errett, and asked if she would like to become the face of Olivia cruises, to which she agreed: "Amy came out to L.A. when the Comets were playing the Sparks, and we talked. She asked if I would be the face of Olivia. I was like, 'Wow, that's big.' Martina Navratilova endorses Olivia. Rosie Jones endorses Olivia. But I had to think about it. A few days later, I called Amy back and said yes. It's funny, when I booked the Olivia cruise I didn't even think about people seeing my name on this list full of lesbians. I guess I didn't care. I just felt like, if I'm going to do the cruise and I'm going to be the face of Olivia, why not just come all out? I mean, you have Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell, but you don't have your well-known gay African-American who's come out. Not to my knowledge. I know it's not accepted in the black community. I know I'll probably take a lot of flak. But in all honesty, that's not my biggest concern."

(Swoopes with her partner of 13 years, Alisa Scott)

In addition to being an advocate for LGBTQ individuals in sports, she is also an advocate for changing the face of women in sports leadership positions: "There is definitely a need for good female coaches. In the WNBA and in college, I see teams leaning towards former NBA players — and men in general — as coaches, and that is a slap in the face, because there are so many quality, qualified females out there that should be given the opportunity to coach." She is also an advocate for the American Lung Association and most recently has become a role model for her come-back to the sport at the age of 40, earlier this year: "I may be older, but the competitive fire is still there and I'm excited about the possibilities. The only reason why I'm doing it is because I still love the game. There was the misconception out there that I retired after the 2008 season, but that was never the case. I wasn't done with basketball yet, and I'm still not done."

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Shamim Sarif

Born in 1969 in England, Shamim Sarif is a current writer and filmmaker. She has received numerous awards on her works as both an author and as a screenwriter and film director ("Best Director" at the South African Film Festival, World Cinema Best Director), and more informally she won an AfterEllen.com 2008 Visiblity Award as the "International Lesbian/Bisexual Woman of the Year". Another fun fact: her and her partner, Hannan Kattan, formed their own entertainment production company called "Enlightenment Productions". This is remeniscent of queer women creating their own spaces when the current system just doesn't cut it, such as Joan Jett from two weeks ago, who formed her own recording label-and was the first woman to ever do so.

Sarif's first film and novel, The World Unseen, is a story set in Cape Town, South Africa at the beginning of apartheid in the 1950s. Sarif herself has a personal connection to South Africa, as both her parents and grandparents were born and lived there. The story surronds two Indian South African women who work against the racism, sexism, homophobia and political tensions that they encounter in their lives.

The World Unseen (2008 release)

Sarif has also released I Can't Think Straight, as a film and novel, which is a modern-day story of two women in London who navigate family and cultural prescriptions about sexuality. If you watch the two trailers, you'll notice that Sarif uses the same actresses, Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth in both films, which is sort of an interesting and unique connection between the two films.

I personally really admire Shamim Sarif for making films of substance about LGBTQ women, especially regarding policital/cultural themes. As an openly lesbian herself, Sarif is a role model for visibility in addition to her accomplishments as a filmmaker and author. I've also seen both these movies, and I think I'd definitely rank them both in the top 10 LGBTQ women's films that I've seen, so if you have any free time over break, definitely check them out!

And lastly, if you like these films/novels, Sarif actually has more LGBTQ women's movies in the making: her second novel "Despite the Falling Snow" is being filmed now, and is a lesbian story set in Cold War Stalinist Moscow. I'm personally impressed by the initiative in which Sarif has decided to use her talent as an author and director to advance LGBTQ women's visibility, and I hope other openly LGBTQ women and their allies are motivated by her films and openness.

I Can't Think Straight (2008 Release)

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Alice Wu + [MOVIE NIGHT!]

This is a blog post and an announcement!

Announcement--->THIS Thursday, at 8:30pm in the Center for LGBT Life, we're going to watch Saving Face! There will be blankets, popcorn, and friendly people. All are welcome to attend!

I'm writing about Alice Wu this week, because I personally believe that she has single-handedly wrote and directed the BEST lesbian movie I've ever seen: Saving Face. I haven't seen every LGBTQ-themed movie, that's for sure, but I feel this is one of the funnier, (sexier?), and more realistic movies about LGBTQ women that I've seen.

Wu actually has a really interesting background entering the film industry which I think is part of what makes her a role model. She graduted from Stanford University with a B.S. in Computer Science, and she started working for Microsoft in 1990. While she was at Microsoft, she wrote the story for Saving Face, and eventually enrolled in a screenwriting course on the side. Her screenwriting instructor encouraged her to leave Microsoft and pursue her film-writing career. Five years later, she produced the film and released Saving Face in 2005.

The screenplay won the CAPE award in 2001, (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment), and the film itself was nominated for a GLAAD and Gotham award, and won the "Viewers Choice Award" at the 2005 Golden Horse Film Festival, which is sort of Taiwan's equivalent of the Acadamy Awards. The storyline of Saving Face, according to Wu, is largely autobiographical and focuses on her coming out experience as a Chinese-lesbian woman. Due to it's similarity to her own life, she knew that releasing the movie would out her to her family friends, which she has stated was both rewarding and nerve-wracking:

“It was kind of nerve-wracking to show it to my own mother. My own coming out experience was very similar in some ways to that depicted in the film, but even though my mom was very quiet on the subject of my being gay she’s still always been supportive. It might have taken ten years and a bit of estrangement, but we still love one another and even when she was having trouble understanding mom always only wanted what was best for me. That said, I had to be really clear with her about the subject matter [of the film]. I told her, ‘When this comes out, all your friends will know.’ All she said to me was, ‘This is what I want for you.’ God, that’s love!”

In an interview with New York Magazine about the film, Wu also explains how she made the film a "comedy", despite the relative serious nature of coming out (and the threat of a negative reaction) of the female protagonist:

"I know: A woman gets disowned at 48? Not so funny. There's pain and more pain. But people do weird things and life is funny. The characters don't think its funny-but their situations are just so impossible."

In an AfterEllen interview, Wu also describes the meaning behind the film's title, and its cultural significance:

"Often I think of it as more of an Asian notion, although the concept of it is very universal across many cultures. The way I understood it, growing up is that there is this sense that what you present to the world may not be who you are inside, but there is a responsibility when you come from an immigrant community--even though I was born in the states, my parents were immigrants--so there was this sense of wanting to be the perfect citizen. On some level I’m representing all Chinese people to Americans, even though, technically, I’m an American. So, if you do anything to shame yourself, you’re not just shaming yourself, your shaming an entire community. Also, in terms of the film, Wil is a reconstructive surgeon, who specializes in faces, and her mother works as an aesthetician at a salon, giving facials. There is that double entendre."

As a viewer, all I can say is that I'm so excited to see what Wu decides to do next, considering she's only just begun. Also, if you'd like to watch Saving Face, we'll see you this Thursday at 8:30pm! [all are welcome!] If you can't watch it with us, but would like to see it at a different time, I also know that there is a copy in Lilly Library that circulates outside the building. =) See you soon!

LGBTQ Female Role Models: Alice Walker

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." -The Color Purple

I started to write this blog post on Alice Walker, and then I realized that I had never actually read any of her works; I had only heard of her through feminism that I had read. (Fun feminist fact: Walker was an editor for Ms. magazine in the 70s.) I didn't really feel comfortable with the realization that I hadn't read her actual work; if Alice Walker is one of the most famous LGBTQ female authors alive today, why haven't I read anything of hers? That didn't sit well with me.

So, earlier last week, I picked up Alice Walker's most famous novel at Perkins Library and sat down to read The Color Purple.

The Color Purple was written in 1982, and Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for it in 1983 (she was the first black woman to win this award, as well as the National Book Award in the same year). The story chronicles the life of a young black woman living in an impoverished community of rural Georgia in the 1930s.

As I was researching the book, I learned that it was one of the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books" due to the fact of its explicit mention of violence. But there's no doubt about it, that what Walker describes in her novel is definitely real. Domestic violence and child abuse are a part of Walker's novel because they are a part of life, and that's something I actually found myself very much appreciating about her work; her style of writing is so real and accessible:

[Note on the below quote: "Mr _____" is the husband that Celie has no choice but to marry, and "fixed" refers to Celie's infertility.]

Pa said to Mr_______, She ugly. But she no stranger to hard work. And she clean. And God done fixed her. You can do everything just like you want to and she ain’t gonna make you feed it or clothe it.

I take out the picture of Shug Avery. I look into her eyes. Her eyes say Yeah, it bees that way sometime.

Something else that I appreciated was the way Walker approaches the bisexuality (or perhaps, lesbianism?) of her characters. The theme of same-sex attraction is just so well articulated in The Color Purple. Same-sex attraction isn't gross; it isn't unnatural. It's literally the best thing that happens to her [the protagonist]:

Shug Avery was a woman. The most beautiful woman I ever saw. She more pretty than my mama. She bout ten thousand times more prettier than me....I ast [the woman] to give me the picture. An all night long I stare at it. An now when I dream, I dream of Shug Avery.. She dress to kill, whirling an laughing.

Shug Avery standing upside a piano, elbow crook, hand on her hip. Lord I wants to go [with her] so bad. Not to dance. Not to drink. Not to play card. Not even to hear Shug Avery sing. I just be thankful to lay eyes on her.

I found the book to be beautifully crafted. I'm particularly impressed by the way Walker uses simple, unflowerly language to capture some of the deepest of human expression that I've ever read. She is truly a genius writer:

I feel bad sometimes Nettie done pass me in learnin. But look like nothing she says can git in my brain and stay.

She try to tell me something bout the ground not being flat. I just say, Yeah, like I know it.

I never tell her how flat it look to me.

The strength of Walker's characters would seem to parallel instances from her own life as well. When Walker was a child she had an accident that left her blind in one eye. Later, thanks to medical advances, she was able to gain sight in it again, but it forever impacted the way she viewed the world. She wrote that it "helped her to really see people and things, to notice relationships and to learn to be patient enough to care about how they turned out."

If you're interested in Alice Walker's work, particularly on black feminism, you might also like to check out Tyler Perry's film, For Colored Girls, while it's currently in theaters. (I saw it this past weekend and was glad that I did.) The playwright, Ntozake Shange, is Alice Walker's contemporary, and wrote the play in 1975 around the same time of The Color Purple. (There's also a dialogue with the African and African-American studies department tonight, at 7pm in the Mary Lou.)