DECLARATION FOR MISTRESSES : Answering the Question WHAT DO YOU DO?

"I'm prepared to give a brief answer when asked What Do You Do?"

Often, soon after someone asks you what your name is, they ask "What do you DO? They usually mean for work, how you make your living in this world. We are all so involved in what it is we do, that being unemployed even for a short while can be an embarrassment and we are always living for our resumes, where that streak of unemployment can be used against us.

But I, and many other people in today's world, are not at all embarrassed or ashamed of taking time off from employment, and perhaps LOVING WHAT WE DO has benefits, particularly when it comes to our mental, psychological, and physical health, beyond money.

Doing what you love and making money at it is the ideal. 

I suggest that you be prepared to answer the question of "What do you DO?" by giving an answer that covers both what you do for money and what you do for love if the two are not yet the same.  Your answer is a one sentence PR moment!

C 2016-2025 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

TYPECAST AS A TRAGIC MIXED- RACE CONCUBINE OR SEDUCTRESS

Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez ask us not to reduce Isabel to the stereotypes of a tragic mixed-race concubine or seductress. She says this has happened in other books, the books for instance that are part of the YouTube video I posted. To be fair, I think each author tried to envision her and understand her role in General MacArthur's life, as their own gender and time and place and personal limitations allowed. So be it a powerful older man who treats a 'petulant and spoiled' younger woman to tea gowns, kimonos, and black lingerie' or whose existence in his life threatens his career, Gonzalez asks us to look deeper.

(Notes and observations having read pages 2-3)

Did Isabel, lonely and neglected despite being Kept, go out and seduce other men for fun?

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A little time out here:  After so many years reading and researching and writing around the subject of Mistresses here at Mistress Manifesto, the idea that a Mistress is the seductress, the idea that she always ends up in a tragedy, is not new to me. That Isabel Rosario Cooper is portrayed this way is no surprise to me. Implied is that women who have relationships with men who are already married or who do not marry them end up punished in some way, such as being murdered or ending in suicide. You will find several of those women in these pages.

So at this time I want to remind my readers that so much of our perceptions about mistresses come from books and books tend to be about exceptional people and extraordinary situations, of which being a Mistress is one of those. Overall, it's difficult to find information on those mistresses who were not exceptional people in extraordinary situations. That is why I say that the most successful of them may be people we never hear about. There are people who are happy with their station in life, whatever it happens to be, and that includes some wives and mistresses who willingly man share. It is an assumption that every woman wants marriage and a traditional marriage at that. It's also an assumption that a mistress is a kind of prostitute, there for the sex, with a thin veneer of a relationship keeping her and a lover together.

My feeling about Isabel Rosario Cooper so far is that she was likely influenced by coming from the Philippines, which to this day is quite mixed-race and also dominated by Catholic traditionalism. To this day a woman uniting with a much older man is not thought badly of there overall. Some of the women do seek marriage with American men who are older. Rather an older established man who can provide is considered a plus and American men know this. I know of more than one woman of Philippine heritage here in the United States who has, with the approval of her father, been a mistress. One of these women seemed especially servile. I knew that she had also been a mistress to a Hollywood producer previously and that her then-current man had also had mistresses in the past who left the relationship when marriage was not forthcoming. So I hoped this woman was not waiting for him to marry her. By servile I mean that she waited on him, cooking and serving food, and basically acted in-wait to his needs. Consider that if he was not going to marry her, those years she lived her life around him were years in which she was not getting an education or developing a career. 

Missy

MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

 I loved this film, circa 1997, because it's about friendship, something we all need to have a good life. Julia Roberts plays Julianne Potter, a liberated career woman with a long term Platonic Friendship that began as an affair but ripened into Best Friends.  Not much was happening for her or her friend Dermot, played by Michael O'Neal (who you want) so what a shock when he finds himself in love with the younger, innocent but unjaded, sweet but gutsy Kimberly, played by Cameron Diaz. After being a bitch and making a fool of herself, Julia must accept, things are never going to be the same. Luckily she has a friend in George, played by Rupert Everett, as well.  He's what every heterosexual woman needs; a gay man friend who loves her unconditionally and knows men better than she does. There are plenty of LOL moments in this film, and you might even find yourself singing out loud, so it's a treat.

After you watch it, call you Best Friend!

Missy

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot Film Review All Rights Reserved Including Internet and International Rights

GRACE by GRACE CODDINGTON : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

  I listened to this audio book, read by the author Grace Coddington, with her British accent, and thoroughly enjoyed hearing her tell her own tale of leaving home at 18 and giving modeling a try.  Her first assignment was nude, though she didn't understand that was the case when she showed up, but she went with it.  Coddington is well known as Vogue magazine Editor Anna Wintour's sidekick, both included in the documentary called The September Edition. She's the red haired one, if you haven't guessed, the one who actually can speak to Anna candidly. According to Grace, it was the film "The Devil Wears Prada," a fictive account, the human devil said to be based on Anna Wintour, that brought Anna - and then Grace - to infamy.  It was that film and all the commentary, and her true relationship with Anna, that lead the normally publicity shy (OK, we'll try to believe her) Grace to go ahead and speak up for herself, her life, and her profession and write her book.

One of the things I appreciated was that she didn't do much introspection and certainly no apology for her life or rise in fashion but as I also read other audio memoir type books this past year by British women, I'm beginning to think there is something British about it. Certainly this woman must have faced competition and made some enemies along the way, but her own perspective is that she went from event to event, opportunity to opportunity, almost as if it were all fate or a done deal. But believe it: she worked her butt off.

C 2018 Book Review Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

MODELS of INFLUENCE by NIGEL BARKER : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

MODELS OF INFLUENCE - 50 WOMEN WHO RESET THE COURSE OF FASHION by NIGEL BARKER.  (Can you identify the models on the cover photo?)  There are do many good pictures of the models in the book, but it's a wonder the editors could even choose which photos to feature!  Author Nigel Barker features a series of mini bios capturing the essence of each model and her contribution to the evolution of fashion, or perhaps that's fashion photography!

This book names fifty models who as the subtitle says, "reset the course of fashion," and you may be surprised when you read it that you know so many names and faces.  Is beauty a requirement?  Well, no!  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Presence - something that captivates others - is more important!

Some of these woman are of personal fascination to me, so I'll name them! 

DORIAN LEIGH started modeling at the old age of 27 and had already lived a "full" life, married with children unhappily, and some say her whole life was tormented.  She was able to emote so many emotions silently.  She was modeling from about 1944 on and worked nonstop, never shunning lingerie in those days way before Victoria's Secret, when to do so was considered slumming.

BETTINA GRAZIANI, who was our Mistress of the Month in June of 2015, also makes the list and I'm going to do a little "update" on her start page excerpting from this book!  JERRY HALL, who was out Mistress of the Month in April 2011, also makes this list; did you know she was discovered when wearing a hot pink crocheted bikini?

DOVIMA; you must have seen the classic photo of her in a sleek evening gown and long while gloves with the two elephants.

CARMEN DELL 'OREFICE is a woman with almost prenatural beauty because she managed to keep it though into her natural gray hair.  She admits that she worked more in her old age than she did in her 1950's modeling days, and considers herself "still a work in progress," when modeling at age 82!

LINDA EVANGELISTA, who according to this book never wanted to do anything else but model and never has, "no skin care lines, no acting, no television shows, no tell-all books..." (page 27 of 125 on the e-book.)

STEPHANIE SEYMOUR, who went to Europe and where "two auspicious relationships mixing business and pleasure would change the course of her life.  First in Paris, at just 16 years old she started seeing Elite's owner John Casablancas who was tw3ice her age and married... (page 82 of 175 of the e-book.)

CLAUDIA SCHIFFER, who has done over 1000 magazine covers, with a bit of a resemblance to Bridget Bardot.

KATE MOSS, who is credited for "taking the snobbishness out of fashion," and is known for keeping her own counsel - despite her high living.

I could go on, because this book does include some of the latest, youngest models who are making their careers hot right now...


C 2018 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

DECLARATION FOR MISTRESSES : Answering the Question WHAT DO YOU DO?

"I'm prepared to give a brief answer when asked What Do You Do?"

Often, soon after someone asks you what your name is, they ask "What do you DO? They usually mean for work, how you make your living in this world. We are all so involved in what it is we do, that being unemployed even for a short while can be an embarrassment and we are always living for our resumes, where that streak of unemployment can be used against us.

But I, and many other people in today's world, are not at all embarrassed or ashamed of taking time off from employment, and perhaps LOVING WHAT WE DO has benefits, particularly when it comes to our mental, psychological, and physical health, beyond money.

Doing what you love and making money at it is the ideal. 

I suggest that you be prepared to answer the question of "What do you DO?" by giving an answer that covers both what you do for money and what you do for love if the two are not yet the same.  Your answer is a one sentence PR moment!

C 2016-2025 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

HELEN GURLEY BROWN quote

“If you have some daily anguish from some cause that’s not really your fault — a rotten family, bad health, nowhere looks, serious money problems, nobody to help you, minority background (I don’t have that — a WASP — but I had other things), rejoice! These things are your fuel!” - Helen Gurley Brown