Delusions of Grandeur

“Do Dead Malls Go To Heaven?”

The bewitching thing about our lad is that he can be interestingly unhappy in SO MANY WAYS.

Stephen Slaughter (British, 1697–1765). Two Women Gathering Fruit, ca. 1750. 

From the Fashion Institute of Technology NYC:

"We assert... that this [portrait] depicts a Black sitter treated as equal to a white sitter in an 18th-century continental European context. A similar piece dating to the 1760s of gentlewoman Dido Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray is also lauded as such, but this painting may actually be more representative of an equal or near-equal relationship. While Dido’s painting feeds into old tropes of servant-and-master portraiture . . . this painting avoids almost all of them. And uniquely, the Black sitter in this image is looking at the viewer while the white sitter is looking over at her rather than also confronting the viewer. The agency and perspective in this painting seems to be the possessions of the Black sitter. Both women are holding fruit, rather than having one gift it to the other as a sign of bounty and subservience (Waterfield 144).

"[The Black woman] also is the one with more lavish lace and jewelry – usually a symbol of greater standing – and the only indication of exoticism is her small matching turban. Everything else she wears is just as fashionable as what her companion wears, if not more. This is rare; Black women and servants usually are dressed more simply in comparison, or dressed entirely in fantastical clothing that resembles Ottoman Turkish or Asian styles (Waterfield 144).

"While the Wadsworth has chosen to confine this painting to the genre of master-and-servant portraiture, we venture to say that it is a more unique and respectful depiction of a Black sitter than the famous double portrait [of Belle and Murray] and gives life to research proving that slavery and servitude were by far not the only lot of people with darker skin tones in the 18th century (Bindman 12). Other respectful depictions of Black people around this time in Europe existed in life sketches and genre paintings.

[ survey.gendercensus.com ]

The 13th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th August 2026.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

PS: You can see some regularly-updated statistics about incoming data here, with lots of demography and graphs to peruse!