'Male Dominance Comes With a Price'**+

Male dominance, DOES sometimes come with a price -- others may

actually call it female dominance -- you may discuss it in comments,

below. Your comments and critiques are invited and most welcome.

If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

'Male Dominance Sometimes Comes With a Price' -- I can spell. But to withdraw the photo may mean I cannot re-submit it for 24 hours, if my last memory of the rules is correct, all for a typo. Please be forgiving.

 

John (Crosley)

If you question the premise -- male dominance, this photo was taken in a city and a country where males generally dominate everything (even though it is part of a country where women pioneered in the professions, partly out of necessity because so many men were killed in The Great Patriotic War -- World War II to many of you).

 

Women in this city of this country think that it's proper for them on a given day to wear high heels with everything, and they do, generally 'strappy sandals' these summer days, whether with jeans or pedal pushers or even skirts (micro mini) or dresses (airy, white, skimpy are preferred), and they are the delight of the local men who take great pride in the beauty of 'their' women.

 

And the women, far from being 'liberationists' are equally proud of their looks. There are few in this city who couldn't just slip into a bikini and head to the beach, as though they were out of a bikini advertisement . . . no excess pounds to shed among the under-30 crowd. Female pants are made without 'seats' because they'd just be unfilled, because the females have tiny rear ends, and with that, long legs and the appearance of longer legs (high heels), they look somewhat exaggerated to an American (who is NOT complaining).

 

Often the high heels also are built on stacked soles, furthering the exaggeration and the height of high heels often is steeper than any ski jump, but the women walk fast in them (there are no cars, and all walkers in this area are strong, fast walkers, at least in their youths).

 

And the women's faces (besides their almost perfect bodies) also are world famous for beauty.

 

Watch this space.

 

There may be a health spa in town, but probably nobody could afford it. Women just don't eat the fancy things Western Europeans and Americans eat, and consequently stay thin, (until they have babies and let themselves go, which happens late in their 20s and in their mid-30s, and then they age rapidly, unless they move to the West.)

 

John (Crosley)

Apparently not the raters -- but nevertheless, I post what I feel is up to my standard, not the raters. This is a photo I stand by.

 

Maybe some guys are 'protesting' about the use of 'male dominance' or it's females 'protesting' without having a basis for their protest -- not realizing the cultural background in which this photo is set. The guys do all the heavy labor (foreground) and the women prance around looking flirty, (until the men run away with a young flirty thing as the woman gets older and has children). Not always, but it happens too frequently to say it is abnormal.

 

John (Crosley)

 

(Paul's account apparently was deleted and his remark with it)

Well one thing is for sure, 'the media' is now thoroughly feminised.

Your right on about the male dominance thing. Its the exact same thing in Bulgaria, and a cultural part of the country that just won't go away, no matter how much the west influences. I queass it could be delightful, when you step back and look at it, the way that women willingly pander to the tastes of men. They look good, yet it becomes an obsession. Its almost like your viewed as not being worthy of anyones time if you don't meet the physical criteria expected of you. Its damn right annoying actually. Its funny walking the city streets without heels and wearing anything comfortable. Frowns, stares, and rude comments follow everytime. Accusations of being American get spit out, even though you may not be, and its just way too much pressure being placed on looking perfect. I love my country...yet I love how America has a healthier attitude about how one looks. I like how your picture made me think, great photo.

'Your picture made me think' -- Neli, that's the highest compliment you could pay such a photo.

 

And adding a woman's perspective to it, especially about the pressure to wear high heels (in summer -- though they look absolutely great -- I prefer this year's 'strappy sandals' for absolutely good looks on Ukraine's beautifully thin and perfect women) is something to give great consideration to.

 

Much as I do like to look, I never would insist that a woman of mine wear such shoes/when I bought such shoes for a girlfriend (Russian) before they were in style about eight or so years ago, she said they hurt her feet, so they went into the luggage -- enough said.

 

I'm a guy (moschina), but I believe in everybody's right to be comfortable.

 

And much as I DO like to look; if it's at somebody expense, I will do without/ a pretty face is good enough for me. And it's amazing/it's Saturday where I received this/Sunday morning as I write this, and Sunday afternoon's parade of high-heel wearing women will scarcely have such a complaint from Ukraine women -- many just LOVE to be looked at and scarcely give it a second thought -- few women's libberss here -- a few women (tall ones especially) wear short heels/flats and look marvelous in them, even those who are not tall.

 

And American women look pretty good (or did) in their white athletic shoes they wore everywhere for a while -- it's what's in them, not the clothes, unless you're a fetishist (in which case, of course, it's somewhat reversed, for reasons obvious to the cogniscenti).

 

But American women sometimes take great pride in wearing retro chic -- clothes that reveal nothing about what they look like -- especially co-eds in the town near where I live -- so Farmer John's still have some 'chic' as well as hippy style clothes that belong on a '60s commune. (As I recall the hippy chicks looked pretty good in those too, but I didn't convert to hippydom so there I was, left out of things because I didn't tune in, turn on, and tune out (is that Dr. Lear's famous phrase) feel free to correct me.

 

In any case, it's the contast, and I deal in contasts sometimes -- it's there when my imagination for Cartier-Bresson style street photos leaves me, and I have nothing else to do -- and fertile ground in an age of visual graphics, as graphics are almost everywhere in the modern world.

 

And if it's any comfort, these guys (according to a conversation I had with a young married women on the building stoop, whose husband was drinking beer (piver) and/or vodka and needed her to go to the refrigerator while he smoked (she didn't) and he watched television -- die early from neglect and women live to a pretty ripe age in a land where medical care is pretty deficient.

 

That should tell you something, sore feet complaints aside. You probably can expect the same thing in your country/ Are you Russian with a 'va' at the end of your last name?

 

And the guys here don't like 'smart' women . . . which is stupid because this is a university town . . . and they want dominant males . . . but women have brains and education, and in America they make up the majority of university women -- even top scholars and even law school students.

 

Stalin even pushed education for women (and men were decimated in The Great Patriotic War -- WWII to you), and the USSR was a leader in making women professionals . . . but men still pulled the strings (and the politics) -- Julia Timoshenko aside (photomodel beautiful high votegetter at this year's Ukraine by-election, and even she got passed aside for new prime minister in favor of a Putin-backed guy who lost the last Presidential election).

 

I like 'smart' women, (and they like me), and when a woman lets (somewhat overweight and very not young me) near her, (admittedly not too often) (and speaks English or I have an interpreter available (perihotchek), and if she's smart we usually get along famously, age difference or no. In fact, young people of both sexes here seem absolutely to LOVE me, regardless of age, if they identify me with my photography. Many call me out by name, remembering me from earlier trips/earlier photos taken of them (not published) and remind me of the photo/themselves (as though I'd remember them all -- I do remember most).

 

Photography has been a great boon to my life; I try to repay by taking good/interesting photographs and sharing them (with the world).

 

My best wishes, and I hope your feet are not too sore.

 

A recent friend who went to a 'strip club' reminded me that he saw one very generous act - a wife (obviously knowing that men 'cheat' in their hearts -- a la presidential candidate Jimmy Carter who confessed same to Playboy Magazine) - told of finding a pair of husband and wife couples who were in a 'strip club', and as the men obled the strippers and sometimes were fondled by them, the wives gave them massages and kissed them and 'got them in the mood' and then, 'stripper time over' it was home to bed.

 

Both generous and selfish (intelligent acts of self-preservation maybe). Many women should be so smart . . . . instead of so threatened. Men marry almost always for love, but you can't untrain eyeballs 'not to look' I married 'for love' and tried to control my eyeballs, did so, but the personalty needs that were suppressed could not be suppressed forever; it was untenable. Men's essential animal nature cannot be untrained; and women should know that. It's part of why they get married. Men's don't change their very nature with a wedding band/ they just are supposed to be monogamous (I always was if there was a wife acting as a wife and treating me as a husband.)

 

They should revel that their man knows how to look (and has the good sense not to touch). It can almost always only make a marriage better. (and besides, very confidential conversations lately with a large number of women reveal that many, many women have pretty strong but suppressed feelings for 'hot' other women . . . a fact many men do not realize . . . . which may account in part for the phenomenon of the 'girl crush', etc., which I won't recount here.

 

Thanks for the ultimate compliment.

 

John (Crosley)

John,

 

'Turn on, Tune In, Drop out', Dr Timothy Leary - see this wikipedia link:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary

 

PS, I took a leaf out of your book and shot a street photo with a poster in, take a peak if you like (it's my most recent pic on my bio page) - not on a par with your work, but I had a lot of fun. The one photo I did miss which I'm kicking myself for was of a poster saying 'Fully loaded meals' with a photo of a burger and fries - stood right in front was a lout eating a burger. I'll get quicker with practice.

Leary's comment was quoted wrong by me - I just knew it, and I invited correction . . . thanks for stepping in.

 

As for the burger guy . . . just point and shoot the camera first, no matter what the settings, and then take another, better framed later moments later, IF he hasn't moved on. Sometimes the only one you get is the first one. Ya gotta be quick about it.

 

On the 'street' it's 'the quick or nothing' sometimes.

 

; - ))

 

John (Crosley)

Hey John. Good to hear you believe in comfort, but then again you aren't eastern european. I wasen't complaining about sore feet, I've never even worn those damn things before. I was just commenting on how expected it is of a woman to act like women in bulgaria and other parts of the world.

 

No, its not a russian thing with the 'va'. In bulgaria the 'a' is added to the last name if it is a woman.

 

Men are animals eh? I always thought if someone loved you, they wouldn't be thinking of other people, but then again maybe thats why I like women and not animals, heh.