Mencari Eleanor di Pulau Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

Dua imej Wanita Pertama yang berbeza. Eleanor Roosevelt, ikon Wanita Waja dan Jacqueline Bouvier-Kennedy, ikon Wanita Bergaya, mewakili dua era yang berbeza. Era pasca Depression dengan New Dealnya dan Era Perang Dingin dengan Bay of Pigs Fiasco. Eleanor dikenang sebagai 'A Woman Of Substance' yang mengheret negaranya daripada kancah kemurungan ekonomi, manakala Jackie dirai kerana membawa Style & Elegance - Gaya dan Kecanggihan - ke Rumah Putih era 1960an.

Tiada hadiah untuk tekaan tepat wanita yang menjadi buruan dan pujaan media untuk menghiasi muka depan akhbar dan kulit majalah. Ternyata sifat cermat dan sederhana bukan ciri-ciri yang melariskan jualan majalah dan meningkatkan pendapatan daripada hasil iklan.

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Main Street, Roosevelt Island

Peta menunjukkan kedudukan RI antara Manhattan dan Queens

Dah masuk hari ke empat saya jadi Orang Pulau. Bukan Pulau Bukom atau Pulau Belakang Mati, tapi Pulau Roosevelt di antara Queens dan Manhattan. Dinamakan pada 1971 sempena Presiden Franklin D. Roosevelt, tanah sekangkang kera berukuran hampir dua batu panjang kali 800 kaki lebar ini melalui beberapa pertukaran nama bergantung kepada penghuni dan pemiliknya.

Daripada Minnehanonck kepada Varkens Eylandt (Hog Island), Manning's Island, Blackwell's Island dan Welfare Island (1921-1971), Roosevelt Island (RI) beralih tangan daripada kabilah Orang Asli Lenape/Canarsie kepada Gabenor 'New Netherlanders', Kapten Inggeris, negeri dan bandaraya New York.

Meskipun kecil, tetapi dikenali sejak abad ke19 melalui penjaranya, hospital untuk banduan - Penitentiary Hospital, NYC Mental Asylum dan hospital untuk pengidap cacar - Smallpox Hospital, yang kini hanya tinggal runtuhan sejarah. Pendekatan perawatan sakit mental yang tidak berperi kemanusiaan membuat Nellie Bly, perintis kewartawanan siasatan menyamar sebagai pesakit di Women's Lunatic Asylum. Hasilnya buku yang berjudul Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887).

Namun, stigma lalu tidak menghalang orang kenamaan seperti Kofi Annan, Setiausaha Agung PBB suatu masa dahulu, dan Sarah Jessica Parker (pelakon siri TV Sex and the City) menghuni pulau ini.

Woody Allen, pembikin filem 'art', juga turut merakam kecelaruan cinta dalam filemnya Anything Else yang menampilkan pelakon genit, Christina Ricci.

Di luar kompleks apartment awam yang bergagasan kesamarataan, hasil rekaan arkitek Jerman yang disyaki berfaham Komunis, kami memintas sapaan wanita-wanita separuh umur dengan cocker spaniel dan rokok menthol yang teruja dengan bayi cilik yang dibawa bersiar-siar di pagi indah.

Pada malam harinya di laundromat, pelbagai rupa bersimpang-siur --- Caucasian, Redneck, African dan Asian (mungkin juga dari PRC) Amerika --- berebut mesin-mesin pencuci dan pengering yang berfungsi. Menjalani rutin kehidupan seharian di pulau yang sejarahnya mungkin tidak mereka peduli.

Pun begitu, saya yakin akan temui jua roh Eleanor di pulau ini suatu hari nanti.

Info dipetik dari wikipedia.

The Business Of Beauty Magazines

Beauty sells, brains don't

Moving from news to feature writing was like shifting from a sweatshop to a boutique. I was fortunate to be transferred from the tyranny of the shop floor under an MCP to be part of an intimate team headed by a Benevolent, Emancipated Woman. 

The magazine section was given reign over the whole of the fourth floor. There were clusters of workstations for Jelita, Her World, Fanfare, Penghibur, Jaguh, Puspa Niaga, Malaysian Business. We---the pool of feature writers---had to gather materials for all the publications. I was assigned to cover product launches, press conferences and wives' association meetings; conduct profile interviews with women profesionals, businessmen and entertainers; compile beauty, health and household tips. But there was always the constant reminder at the back of my head---that magazine writers had to look for new and creative angles since their stories will only hit the news stand 90 days later, not the next day or the following Sunday.

But Content was just the Handmaiden. Cover was the Queen. First Women might have inspired and encouraged women and girls to realise their ambitions and improve their stations in life, but uncoiffed, bare-faced, bespectacled women simply didn't shout, 'Buy Me!', from the pegged lines of the Mamak's news stand. Cover girls still had to be 'dolled up' by make-up artists, hair and fashion stylists, and their best angles highlighted by photographers.

Addendum:

Hence, there had to be a mix and a balance in the content featured. Ministers' and high-ranking wives must be featured alongside female ministers and high-ranking females in the army, navy and Air Force. Career tips gave side glances to 'petua-petua rumahtangga'. Home-cooked food jostled for space with fine dining dishes at five-star hotels. Home decor competed with commercialised interiors for readers' attention.

The women magazine's content might have appeared 'realistic' by its attempt to capture both the Professional Women and Housewives' markets but there was also a sense of contradiction and dissonance. Busy, career women then had no time nor interest to keep abreast of the latest trends in fashion and beauty products and were too plain anyway to grace its cover. Not all high-ranking officers' wives were cover-friendly either. Inevitably, the magazine fell back on Pretty Women - beauty queens, models, singers, actresses in professions that were deemed frivolous but integral to the media and fashion industry - to sell its copies.

The more copies sold - to women with disposable incomes and allowances - the more advertising content and revenue filled up the magazine's pages and coffers.

"Consume compulsively, consume conspicuously
Consume, consume ..."

was the beauty magazine's mantra. How else would people know that a woman had arrived, albeit via her husband in most cases, if not through her lavish life style and purchases?