Category Archives: Feminist Firsts

First: A Visual Story

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John Walker is a Sarah Lawrence graduate who really likes the internet a lot.

When I heard that this month’s theme was “Firsts,” my mind immediately jumped to this image.
Ah yes, the first staged moon landing. JK, that’s Neil Armstrong, the first person on the moon.
Speaking of men on the moon, here’s Britney Spears winning her first “moonman” at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards.
Is this also the first televised breast self-exam?  Britney Spears, always the trailblazer.
(As an aside, did someone tell BritBrit about Re/Visionist’s “Firsts” theme? She’s schilling for us pretty hard: “I first wanna thank God, first and firrmost firr…“
Speaking of award show firsts, my mind also kept returning to Halle Berry’s historic 2002 Oscar win.  As the first black woman to win the Academy Award for best actress, Berry’s acceptance speech is SO moving; you can really see her trying to process being the first black woman to win the award.
Almost enough to make you forget about Catwoman.
JK, Halle, you know I love you.  Catwoman never happened.
Moving away from these significant, cultural firsts (and also Britney Spears), there are also those more personal firsts that we all experience at some time or another.
There is of course your first time.
Or perhaps more powerful, or at least more scarring, there is also your first sexual humiliation.
“That’s the ticket!” says Jason Biggs.
I think we can all, unfortunately, agree.
Some firsts, like the above, you might forget on purpose. (Support your local therapists – Repress! Repress! Repress!)  Other firsts may be forgotten simply because they occur before you develop consciousness, like your first word.
Apparently Maggie Simpson had already developed a sense of style, however.  BOW LOOKS GOOD, BB!
Soon, you grow up, stop being such a little freeloader, and get your first job.  Hopefully, this first is a little more Almost Famous…
…and a little less A Little Princess.
(Side note: Doesn’t Sara Crewe look positively witchy in the above shot?  I’d drink of that sister! The Craft reference, FTW!)
And of course, you can’t forget about your first kiss.
Ah, if only mine could’ve been this precious.  And not in a basement.  Also, I wish someone had taught me how to properly French kiss.  TMI?  Whatever, I feel like we’ve grown close over the course of this visual essay.
Kiss Kiss.

A Naked First

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Simi Johnston is a student at Sarah Lawrence College who works in mixed media arts and studies gender theory. She grew up in vermont and recently went on birth-control.

A week after my 20th birthday, I had my first naked photo taken of me. At the time, I was in Alaska with my family. With thousands of miles separated us from society, my sister, a professional photographer, asked if she could take photos of me. We wandered deep into the rainforest. Among the trees and my kin, I removed my clothes. I left nothing on; no shoes to elongate my legs, no thong to frame my ass, no bra to erect my breasts. As she photographed, I stood proud of what I had to offer her lense. I felt the woods, my body free from manipulation of society, my sister looking at my shape in awe of my growth. It’s corny as fuck, but I felt liberated. At the time I didn’t care who saw these photos. I was in art in a purest way, untouched by all the labels I had in “real life.” I was not sexy, or beautiful, or even female. I did not bend my shape into the given female form. I did not push out or suck in. I did not think about my angles or mimicking the images I wish I looked like. I was simply a naked creature.

When I returned home, things changed. Two months after we returned home from Alaska my sister asked if my photo could be shown in galleries in Los Angles. Suddenly, I felt nervous. I wondered about the consequences of having a nude photo in public. My female friends were split on the subject; some said it was just art and “they would do it.”  Their nonchalance reminded me of my attitude before I was faced with the issue. Others worried about negative judgment.  One of my male friends told me he would not want a girl he was dating to have public naked pictures, even if it was “just art.”

Eventually, I decided to allow my sister to show the photos. I did not want to devalue my experience by not allowing others to see the photo. I knew audiences might label the photo, but I realized this was not different from labels females receive every day. This experience validated for me what many female artists have expressed in the past: that being female in the art world is a double-edged sword. There is a liberating aspect of art, a liberation that women are not often given the space to feel. Art provides us an outlet to process or escape confining labels or critique. However, as a woman creating art, you subject your work and self to these very labels and critique your art may have attempted to question in the first place.

On Being a Woman: My First Kiss

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{K. Reece is a writer with a BA from Wellesley College and an MFA candidate at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the assistant editor at Sarah Lawrence magazine.}

Chance and I are in the dark room of Jenny’s basement. It’s a skinny rectangular space, framed on both sides with ceramic counters and a stainless steel sink. Red light glows from the ceiling, and Chance’s fingers play with the back hem of my tank top. The dull roar of the stereo thuds through the door. I can hear Jenny and Alison giggling outside.

Jenny’s house has everything you could think of, which my mom refers to without affection as “clutter,” and almost the entire basement is devoted to gym equipment that looks like it belongs with Kevin Kline’s tiny running shorts in “The Big Chill.” Some of the equipment spills over into the game room area, which is more interesting to us, complete with a home theater, foosball table, and dance floor.

But I’ve never been in the dark room, and it seems as good a place as any for my first kiss.

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Tattoos: My Declaration of Feminism

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Caroline Biggs is a graduate student in Women’s History at Sarah Lawrence College, fashion addict, pop cultural junkie, and  girl-about-NYC.

So I want to start by saying I have never really been a “tattoo person.” I quote and marginalize said persons because I always saw those who reveled in permanent body art (and I’m not talking about the occasional small of the back or hip tattoo) as committed to a lifestyle decision: that of being a woman who expresses herself via bodily adornment (that lasts FOREVER mind you). Unlike fashion, which constantly shifts and evolves stylistically, tattoos were more like a piece of statement jewelry—something that doesn’t define the person’s aesthetic but definitely functions as the focal point. And being the fashionista that I am, complete with outfits that are more often than not comparable to that of a costumed figure skater, the last thing I ever needed was to draw more attention to myself.

Then, at 18, after a weekend of heavy drinking and amidst the low-rise jean craze that I fell victim to, I got my first tattoo—a cartoonish flower on the small of my back that did not and will not ever represent anything symbolic other than being 18 and saying I had a tattoo. The entire process took about 4 and a half minutes (all of which I was crying from the pain of the needle) and I left Manhattan, Kansas forever marked with, well, a fuchsia cartoon flower. I was sure that was all of the tattooed symbolism I would ever need.

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