Halloween

Good evening witches, warlocks and werewolves and happy Halloween!!!

Sorry did I say Halloween?? What I meant was THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR. Okay, maybe I love Halloween a bit too much but it seriously is the best. Possibly it's due to my obsession with witches and magically mythical creatures or maybe it's my love of scary movies, unlimited sweets to munch and pumpkin carving but it will always be my favourite. Anyway, today I should have been doing art homework (I did do some....*shifty eyes*) but how could I waste such a brilliant day on homework when there was important pumpkin carving and Halloweeny baking to do?!?! So instead of art I carved both sides of my pumpkin and made a pumpkin pie, well pumpkin and 'seasonal squash' pie as I couldn't find anymore pumpkins in Tesco and so had to settle for a substitute. Nevertheless the pumpkin & other squash pie turned out quite yummy and it's really starting to feel like Autumn yay! Autumn is THE best season and we all know it. Oh also I should mention that I did a trade on Etsy! Sophie, the owner of the adorably cool shop 'Crafty Darling' on Etsy, contacted me and asked if I'd be up to  trading an item from my shop for an item from hers and I'm so glad I agreed because the necklace I received from her is so cool and I love it. I traded my Lydia Deetz strange and unusual patch, my too sassy for you patch and my bittersweet love heart stickers from my shop. I really look froward to doing more trades in the future because there really isn't anything that's as equally exciting as waiting for a cool gift to appear in the post! Oh also also alsooooo,  I watched Ghost World for the first time last night and well just wOW! Such a cool film, I think Enid Coleslaw is my spirit animal?? I think the best parts were the music and the shops in the movie though, the music exposed me to 30s blues and it's really quite something! Stay tuned for Ghost World inspired items in the shop!!! I hope you're all enjoying your Halloween and join me in watching some rad Halloween films and stuffing your face with sweets (screw cavities, tonight we are invincible!).

*read in imitation of a ghost voice* SoOoOo LoOoOoOong BlOoOogEeEeEersssssss,

Cat. X

My pentagram pumpkin!

Pumpkin pie

My necklace, grab yourself one of these babies at craftydarlingdetroit.etsy.com

Docs & Diners

Outfit of The Day: Lavenderlies Feminist Cropped T-shirt

Good evening fellow earthlings,

Today I wore one of my handmade feminist t-shirts!! I've been a bit weary about whether people will still want a cropped t-shirt now that winter's on its way, so I tried to style it for the winter and thought I'd share it! I wore it with my favourite pair of Topshop high waisted jeans, my cherry red docs and my favourite coat. And good news! The feminist top is just as perfect for winter as it was for summer!! You can grab yours at lavenderlies.etsy.com =^.^=

Stay tuned,

Cat. X

Coming Soon to Lavenderlies

Aloha bloggers just a quick shop update to give you radical people an idea of what's coming soon to 'lavenderlies'. Exciting stuff, hope you're all happy as can be. C yaaaaaa,

Cat. X

Did somebody say wild teen?

So it's Saturday night and I'm a month away from my 16th birthday......which can only mean one thing.......PARTY!!!! 

lol no. I got you though right??? Of course I did. Ok I'm fooling nobody I know. (;__;)

Take 2: it's Saturday night and here I am sat in bed in my pyjamas and a woolly jumper, watching The Vampire Diaries and nursing a box of tissues. Ugh,  my head hurts, my nose hurts...is this what death feels like? There's a million things I should be doing right now: art coursework, maths exam revision, making new products for the shop...need I go on? But anyway all I want to do is lay here and drink tea and watch teen dramas so that's about as wild as my Saturday night is going to get. I'm such a tragic excuse for a teenager. Oh I hope this illness or whatever goes away soon, I hope you're all splendid and not suffering the dreaded Autumn cold.

I'm going to eat some cake and procrastinate I suggest you do the same,

Cat. X

Topic of The Week: Hairy Legged Man Haters

We believe whatever 'our husbands believe' when it comes to politics, we care far too much about health and education (as opposed to the economy)  and after all our strives for equality, we still don't get the same treatment as men. Gee, will we ever catch a break? Throughout the years women have fought tooth and nail to be equal to our male counterparts but after all this time, have we really succeeded?

Until the late 1840s women had to put up with a lot of discrimination regarding our rights. Women were made to stay at home, clean, cook and take care of their children while men went out and did all the heavy manual labor, to then be waited on by their doting wives when they arrived home. However by 1848 we had had enough of this stereotypical hoo-ha and fellow feminists Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Molt began the fight for women's rights, resulting in women's suffrage being achieved in the US (and many more countries like here in Britain) by the 19th century.

 Of course, many men were not too happy about their inferior wives having a voice of their own and even today will only know the term 'feminist' as a synonym for 'hairy legged man hater' which begs is to question if equal rights have really been achieved after all.

A point often raised in the argument that women and men are in fact, still not equal is the difference in wages. Recent studies have shown that female graduates earn thousands of pounds less than their male counterparts, despite having the same qualifications. The researchers for the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) analysed this in more detail, comparing the difference in male and female graduates' earnings. Jane Artess, a HECSU researcher, reported that pay distribution was 'strikingly uneven' and the study showed that the pay rate for female graduates ranged between £15,000 and £23,000 whereas men's pay rates were mainly £24,000+. Which helps prove that there is still not complete equality between the genders, despite the laws that have been passed.

Not only do women have to accept lower wages than men but they also manage to juggle looking after a family and their home life as well as a full time job. Of course, this obviously isn't the case for every single full time working female but as stereotypical as it is, women do seem to do most of the juggling between their home and professional life, as opposed to their male counterparts. From going from being in a traditional family with two parents to then living with just a single mother I have witnessed this. I can understand that there are also single fathers out there but when you have seen and admired a mother juggling everything from a full time job, teenage daughters and omnipresent bills, you really can't question that working mothers have it tougher.

Despite the fact that women and men are still not entirely equal, I do think that women are so much better off now than they were in the 1840s, we may still have lower wages but at least women now actually have the right to work!! The stereotypical expectations may not still be so high and the constant 'women belong in the kitchen' stereotype is always going to be there, but personally, I think that's a good enough compromise. I can put up with the occasional stereotypical jab at womanhood every now and again as long as I get to keep my right to vote and independently earn my own money when I'm old enough. And I'm sure a woman from the 1840s would trade their life for mine any day.

Don't let the sexists get you down,

Cat. X