I worshipped Ethel Merman and I worshipped Ethel Merman a lot. It’s incredible – Ethel Merman was a conventional singer. Her naming her child Ethel Merman, Jr., was, to me, one of the coolest feminist things.
BETH DITTOI worshipped Ethel Merman and I worshipped Ethel Merman a lot. It’s incredible – Ethel Merman was a conventional singer. Her naming her child Ethel Merman, Jr., was, to me, one of the coolest feminist things.
BETH DITTOFor my group of friends is Lady Gaga eye-opening? No. She’s a less dangerous version of what was so cool about pop culture in the 80s. Back then it was so gay and so punk in so many ways.
BETH DITTOWhen you get a certain amount of media attention, I think people are like, “Where’s your other album?”
BETH DITTOI love to make people feel like they are taking a part in their own body and evolution.
BETH DITTOJust like my straight friends, I am repeatedly asked when I plan to have kids, and have been told many times, by various branches of my bloodline, that “even lesbians can have babies these days.”
BETH DITTOI don’t have a good attention span and can’t spend long in record stores or video shops or games emporiums without getting grumpy.
BETH DITTOI was given baby doll toys myself, and they proved a stark reminder that my life was expected to revolve around childbearing – just as my mom’s had before me, and her mom’s had before her.
BETH DITTOA few years back, when my style was “punk grandma”, I picked up an amazing pair of sandals – orthopaedic ones, with really thick soles. I’ve given them away to a friend now, because these days my look is more “1980s substitute teacher gone wild.”
BETH DITTOInstagram is a Roman arena of insults. Everyone is a lion, but it is fun.
BETH DITTOWhen I moved out of my mom’s house at 18 I was almost as sad to leave her sewing machine behind as anything else.
BETH DITTOWhen I think about the idea of Rebel Wilson having to go to the Oscars and not having something amazing to wear that’s made for her, it drives me mad.
BETH DITTOWe weren’t idiots, but I didn’t have that access to academic feminism. I had to realize, on my own, that feminism is not just about how far ahead you can get in a job and it isn’t about not wearing makeup. It isn’t about not watching your waistline. I had to recreate the world entirely.
BETH DITTOYou know how people love to glamorize poverty? There’s nothing glamorous about it. But it did make me really creative. Those days, I was literally taking t-shirts in the day and sewing them back together to make dresses for the night.
BETH DITTOBarack Obama was amazing, but he wasn’t perfect. We all know that. He was the closest thing to perfect America’s ever had. We were basking in the glow. We forgot that there’s always going to be a backlash within a movement every time.
BETH DITTOI mean, if I was living to please people, I’d have never been in a band at all. I wouldn’t have anything awesome around. I’d just be bored.
BETH DITTOABBA was a direct influence on me.
BETH DITTO