Brooks Brothers 2010 bow blouse

We’ve had a few inquiries about the bow blouse and the bow that’s been such a favorite here at the organization. Not only does it hark back to the classic days of the housewife, it’s actually being revived this year by designers like Louis Vuitton for their Fall ’10 collection.

The bow of yesteryear had pointed ends, as opposed to the more modern squared tips. It’s virtually impossible to come across these, unless one goes to the “Vintage” section in Ebay, dig through Goodwill, or find an old pattern. Carolyn says it’s a snap to make your own, and she’s been gracious enough to show us how. Here it is:

Step 1. Measure
Take a clean silk or cloth ribbon (ones for gift-wrapping and crafts) and wrap it around your neck to tie a bow, making sure the ends are to your liking. Trim the ends (the shape of the ends doesn’t matter, we just want the length) and measure the length.

Step 2. Make a Construction Board (or Cardboard) Template
On a construction board-Poster board, trace a shape of bow you want as it would look, lain out on a flat surface. ADD 1/8 – 1/4 inch on the two short and one long side. The side on the fold – (i.e. the dotted A line – does not need a seam) This is for the seam allowance, depending on the material) Now, Draw that shape side-by-side on the cardboard and cut the cardboard.

Approximate pattern of the bow laid flat, side by side, since you want to fold the cloth together along dotted line A

Step 3. Lay your cloth over the cardboard template, trace onto cloth and cut.

Step 4. Fold the cloth
With the right (outside) sides together- over line A, making the mirrored shape come together into one single shape, wrong side facing out. A few steps later, you will be stitching the cloth together before pulling it inside out to hide the seams.

Step 5. Sew two pull strings, one at each “tip” of the bow.

Sew two pull strings, one at each tip of the bow, connecting both sides of the fabric. Then feed the pull string to stick out the center of the folded cloth. (You will be pulling the tips to invert to the proper side up after you sew the seams)

Step 6. Making sure the two drawstrings are accessible, and sandwiched freely inside the two sides of fabric, sew from point A to point F, leaving a opening in the middle of the long edge.

Sew 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the edge of the fabric, enclosing the short edge, the long edge, and to the end of the other short edge. This would effectively seal the fold from one end to another, With the exception of the opening.

Very important: Make sure the opening is big enough to pull an amount of fabric for half the bow from inside out. You will be using the drawstrings to bring each half of the bow out through the opening.

Step 7. Use the drawstrings and gently pull out the tips of the bow, bringing the correct side of the cloth out through the opening.

Step 8. Once tips and completely pulled through and the bow is correct fabric side facing outwars, flatten the whole piece to correct shape. Cut the drawstring at the tips, and slipstitch the opening.

Voila! Stepford Bow!

We have added a permanent page to this diary / bulletin board involving Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) to be found on the side bar. We will produce it here as today’s entry:

1. Can I join this group

The Organization is made up of a group of women who physically know each other in real life, and live within close proximity of each other. It is NOT a virtual community where online members can join. The Organization is an online bulletin board for us to share our ideas, recipes, etiquette, philosophy, and way of conduct with other Stay-at-Home Mothers and Wives.

2. What is the politics of the organization

We encourage a broad range of views among our organization. There are women who have Women’s Studies B.A. from prestigious schools on the East Coast, to home-schooled ladies, and some with GEDs. Education is not a sign of prestige as we think no amount of intellectual powers can compare to one’s ability to please her husband. We have feminists who were active in the 70s and 80s, to ultra-conservative religious Republicans. At different point in our lives, we realized that staying at home and attending to and pleasing the head of the household was our main calling in life.

3. Where are you located.

Western Connecticut.

4. I’m a member of the transgender / crossdresser / bDsm community. Can we join your organization?

We can’t control who reads our website, or who pretends or fantasizes to live our way. While we think there’s nothing wrong with living your life as long as you’re not hurting anyone, the answer is No.

5. What books do you recommend us to read

1. The Holy Bible
2. Fascinating Womanhood by Helen B. Andelin
3. Fascinating Girl by Helen B. Andelin (which was incorporated into certain editions of FW)
4. Man of Steel and Velvet: A Guide to Masculine Development by Aubrey Andelin
5. Being the Strong Man a Woman Wants: Timeless Wisdom on Being a Man by Elliot Katz
6. Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife by Anne Fogarty and Rosemary Feitelberg
7. Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
8. Complete Book of Etiquette by Amy Vanderbilt
9. A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom
10. Happy Housewives: I Was a Whining, Miserable, Desperate Housewife–But I Finally Snapped Out of It…You Can, Too! by Darla Shine

6. Who are the members of the Organization?

There is Irene (that’s me) who, along with Pree, does most of the admin work and answers emails. My sister Carolyn, Stephanie, Clarissa, Blair, Liz, Sici (because she doesn’t like to be called Muff), Jane, Maddy and Connie.

6. Are you against feminism?

We are not. Feminism fought to gain equality, opportunity, legal rights, and most importantly, freedom for women. Like any idea, it was bound to be misread and appropriated by people who had their personal agenda to advance. In it’s original suffragist and workplace ideals, they succeeded in what they set out to do. As with any idea that seek to obtain opportunity however, freedom means we are equally free to accept feminists ideas as we are to reject them. We thank and applaud the women who have fought for our rights to make our own decisions. Now please allow us to make our own decisions and live by the choices we have made.

If you force us to live by your personal, egalitarian vision of utopia, then wouldn’t you would have repeated the very offense you charged men (and the patriarchal oppression) of committing?

I absolutely adore this line from Ginia Bellafante’s article in the New York Times on June 1 2004 “Dressing the Post-Feminist Stepford Wife”

That the affluent homemaker’s uniform remains so compelling may have something to do with its undercurrent of eroticism, one that stems from a sense that the woman wearing it is a woman owned. ”Inside that presexual-looking girl in her lime-green twin set is that fully grown woman to whom only her husband has access,” said Eric Mendelsohn, a filmmaker, former costumer and professor of film at Columbia. ”When do these women look like fully realized sexual beings? When they are in private with their husbands.”

It should be noted that in Japanese culture, the presence of a prohibitive barrier only adds to the erotic charge. Many outsiders will view the black disk of censorship (currently pixellated screen) which is placed over the private parts in photographs as am unwelcomed nuisance. Not so for the Japanese.

That which is shielded actually adds to the erotic imagination. This makes sense when you look at the history of kimono design. To cover is to add to the sexual mystery.

In these modern times, when people go to the supermarket in Daisy dukes and a wet-t-shirt, that which is available to the imagination is a rare and precious item.

In Season 3, Episode 8′s TV’s Desperate Housewives, Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) returns to a life as a fashion model. After a 10 year hiatus, she is cast in the role of the homemaker and not the hot “IT” girl of the moment. Frustrated, she storms off and throws together her version of the “hot” mom. We girls at the organization happen to think the initial outfit they put her in (below left) is precious, and we feel that is the perfect outfit in which to serve and attend to our husbands in (Girls: Notice that DARLING RIBBON on that blouse!). In contrast, we raised our eyebrows at the “hot” mom version (below right). Frankly, it’s not appropriate, especially if guests or neighbors were to pop in.

Here is a comparison

Eva Longoria in 2 versions of the Good Wife outfit

On the other hand, if our husbands tell us they want us to wear something a little racier, as dutiful wives who’s main duty is to please our men and their expectations, we won’t hesitate to go the route below:

Eva Longoria in the husband-approved version of the Good Wife outfit

There’s breaking news featuring a recorded conversation between actor Mel Gibson and his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. The contents cannot be repeated in polite society, but if you have a strong stomach, you can listen to it here

I can’t say I am a follower of Mel Gibson’s movies. I tried watching Mad Max but that was a bit too violent for my tastes. So this post is not an unconditional support from a fan.

HOWEVER, most of us DO NOT know what led up to this conversation, things that were said when the recorder wasn’t turned on. I personally know many women who boast about their prowess to calmly and systematically provoke men into thunderous rages. Those women know EXACTLY what they are doing and consider it a necessary skill of the weaker sex in getting the upper hand: men rely on force, women use their wits. We have the capacity to plot, plan, and orchestrate the moment a man flies off the handle and present an air-tight vindication. I have even been told more than once, “if you stay calm to the end while he loses control, you have won on an emotional and psychological level.”

Not knowing the complete picture, I’m only going to comment about the recording itself. Being the person who initiates the recording, It is SO obvious that she knows this piece is going to go public and destroy Mel. She is calm, collected, without any fear…almost as if she had it planned all along. Her responses to Gibson’s diatribe is so rehearsed at times, it doesn’t even have any baring to what he just said. She presents herself as an innocent, angelic, ‘who? little helpless me?” mother, protector, victim and she knows it’s going to come off brilliantly against a loud, raging, violent voice. The public will unquestioningly and automatically side with a mother. That is the essence of manipulating public perception: what is stated gets continuously reinforced into fact, and that which is not heard (all the manipulation behind the scene, leading up to this explosion), disappears into nonentity. Justice, from this standpoint, will never balance out on the scale of the judiciary system. Every lawyer knows this. A jury may be barred from outside exposure during a trial, but any juror will have heard of Gibson’s recent bad press. She knows that anyone who listens to the recording will innately superimpose that previous negative press Gibson has gotten, his tendency to colorful slurs (which is toxic in Hollywood PR), and tease it out of him (and the patent response out of a listener) when he’s in the throes of anger management hell.

Having said that, let’s inspect the contents of the recording itself. Dispense the profanity and volume, and what you have is a brilliant, and unrehearsed (on Mel’s part) exposition on all that is deprived of the modern male:

“You should be a woman who supports me instead of a woman who sucks on me and just sucks me dry…get out of this relationship if you are a good woman and you love me…You treat me with no consideration, I love you because I treat you with every kindness and every consideration…but my daughter is important! You just expect s**t, you have no soul….you have no soul, you can’t give a ****…I left my wife because we have no spiritual common ground, you have none. You won’t even try. You don’t care. You need a soul. I need medication? I need someone who treats me like a man, like a human being, with kindness, who understands what gratitude is, because I bend over backwards with my ****s in the ****. You don’t have any friends except me, and you treat me like **** that’s why I’m so angry, because I don’t have any friends. You use me. My career is over, and boy when I set down you lit out of here faster than I ever seen you before. You just shown me what you are. Golddigger, that’s what you are.”

I’m not saying Mel is right in expressing himself this way, or that he doesn’t need help. But at least entertain some doubt in anything you hear or read, and don’t immediately take take sides with an incomplete picture.

Otherwise, you’ve fallen into the trap everyone else has.

Ladies, thank you for reading this bulletin board. At this time, the organization is just composed of a group of wives who live in close proximity to each other (We are no farther then ten blocks from each other).

Thank you for your continued enthusiasm in our group. Many of you have written and expressed interest in joining us. I always encourage participation in the discussions and comments on the entries here (there will be more updates in starting today, and at a greater frequency). We are always delighted to hear from you.

The reason we don’t give out online memberships is because we are essentially a group of wives. We are aware that there are many people online who present themselves as women or wives when they are neither. It’s an internet culture which we are somewhat mystified by. Since we celebrate traditional values and the traditional family configuration, we are not open to the idea of accepting alternate lifestyles and third gender parties. After all, if you are not being honest about who you are online, how honest can you be about your other thoughts. That’s just the way our group of friends have always been.

Nothing against what you chose to do with your life. We just ask that you chose to respect what we have decided to do with ours.

Thanks for your interest in our group.

-I. Snowden

For years, cookbooks have advised innovative ways to use junk food. After all, even bad things in small doses are acceptable. You wouldn”t want to sit down with a bowl, save a bag of crisps, for nourishment. Heavens no! But to take a handful of pita chips, potato chips, or even tortillas, crumble it all up, and throw it over a salad topping, underneath a ham and cheese sandwich, or into a burrito or veggie wrap is a perfect garnish for texture.

EXTRA KITCHEN TIP: Go for Lo-Salt or Salt-Free chips if you want to use the crumbs at the end of the bag. We find the regular chips too salty once you get to the bottom of the bag. With Lo-Salt or Salt Free chips, the mix in the crumbs is just right.

2010 Miss America hopeful Adrielle Churchill

Cringe ladies! Cringe!

Gone are the days of modest dressing, where men”s creativity was called upon to conjure up the sumptuous dreams of all that lies beneath.

Today, nothing is left to the imagination, as Miss America candidates bare all in recent lingerie shots. Is it further irony, perhaps a jeer towards tradition that they are presented in black and white photos? It”s not that we at the Stepfordwives Organization frown upon dressing suggestively. We do. Just in the privacy of our homes and for our husbands only. Why certainly not for the leers of the general public!

Witness, by comparison, 1957”s Miss America Marian McKnight. So delightful, charming, and demure. We should all be modest in public, because those were the days when ladies were ladies, and men were men!

2010 Miss America 1957 Marian McKnight