Some hospital psychologists understand the maintenance of feminine beauty practices to signify “mental health” and enforce makeovers for women they consider recalcitrant. Resistance by women to these practices is seen as a symptom of ill health. Thus Michael Pertschuk says that the first thing medical students are taught is to observe the patient: “How is he dressed? Hair neat? Hands clean? If the patient is a woman, is she wearing makeup? How well is it applied? Has she attended to her hair and nails?”
How come I quote from Sheila Jeffreys Beauty and Misogyny?
Well, it’s like this.
Normally, unless the blogger is 14, I just can’t get behind these chain-letter blog “meme” things where you have to list 1000 things about yourself as though it were some meaningful excercise in self-discovery and then “tag” 47 other people to do the same; blogs are dorky and self-indulgent enough as it is.
But, I just saw one (at SecondWaver, who has the good taste to link to I Blame The Patriarchy in her sidebar) which enjoins the would-be memist to pick up the nearest book, train the eye on page 123, and reproduce without permission the sixth through eighth sentences.
This exercise was irresistible to me, once a survey of my desk revealed that I would be quoting not from the Logic Pro 7 reference manual (it was 2 centimeters further away) but an author who wants the UN to recognize feminine beauty practices — yup, including lipstick — alongside FGM and honor killing as harmful cultural practices that stand in violation of human rights.
I’d be doomed. Clearly I’m terribly mentally unhealthy, for I do not generally wear makeup, and would also put up a fight if someone tried to make me wear it against my will. While hospitalized, no less.
I guess we simply can’t ever be allowed to look unglamorous, not even while we’re receiving shock treatments at psychiatric facilities.
Yup. And if you’re an *older* woman, you dam well better tow it: lipstick, hair styled, smiling, perky, and wearing your good coat, not the everyday one, or you’ll find yourself being signed up for Meals on Wheels, and an occupational therapist calling to make an appt to access you for the nursing home. They won’t mention that to you, though. But your niece will think to ask why they want to know {that} when they call your next of kin. She will say fuck you and stuff like that.
I really have to get some of her books.
Yes, Sylvanite, if, as a woman, you don’t wear makeup and style your hair every day, it is a sign of poor mental health because you are Not Taking Care of Yourself. All mentally healthy women want to look like Barbie dolls. Men? All they have to do is shower occasionally.
Somewhat off topic: She (and I) didn’t win the next battle either. Before I knew about it, they had told her that her companion was to move out. He hadn’t been there more than the winter, and it really was probably just Christian charity (because I couldn’t do anything about that, either) but the town house complex (a family foundation run effort) didn’t want “any of that.” She was 79. So my aunt lived alone until she died some years later.
While that is great and all, I just can’t get past Jeffreys’ misguided and backwards view of transpeople.
While I’m on a roll here (and have finally finished the liquor filled chocolates) I’ll tell you another Aunty story. I found out she was becoming so incontinent she couldn’t walk down the hall without losing it. So I encouraged herto see her doctor, who was about 96 but she wouldn’t change. He told her (a single woman all her life) her vagina hadn’t had enough exercise. This was not in 1940. It was 2000.
I had to return that particular book to the library before I finished it. I love librarians. They got it all the way from a Montreal library for me.
Linking beauty practices to mental health, and enforcing makeovers, is ridiculous. But enforcing against beauty practices such as lipstick, and putting it in the same category as FGM, seems ridiculous too. It’s temporary and almost always self-applied. Jeffreys is severely minimizing the critical nature of FGM and honor killing by lumping in lipstick here. What’s next, shampoo? Barrettes? I think I’m missing the charm here.
Pony - how droll of him! Any doctor who actually knows anything about women’s naughty bits knows childbirth - a result of sex had by married women (since he seems to believe single women OOPS I mean ladies don’t have sex) is a major factor in women becoming incontinent later in life, since pregnancy and childbirth stretch out all those muscles.
Oh, but I forgot - having babies is good for women. Silly me.
I know this was all somehow connected to her being an evangelical Christian. You see, she really *knew* she and other women had sinned by being women, and she spent her whole life praying and tithing and genuflecting for that. She was easy prey for assholes like that, and her minister. I better go get more liquor filled chocolates.
Well I cut my own hair recently, so I’m sure I look a little less like the patriarchal ideal than usual. Indeed, I am certain that this was behind a recent rejection of partnership in a martial arts class recently, wherein some boy cried shrilly, “Get away from me, you are a psycho.” Either that, or he was afraid I might beat him up. Actually, the third possiblity is that he was mildly concerned that practicing take-downs would damage my knees, thus calling forth my powers of Blame. On a more positive note, I do believe that my hairstyle now looks much, much more like this: http://home.iprimus.com.au/scratchy888/hat.jpg than like the hairstyle of the strange woman on this site, whom I thought I might have coem to ressemble earlier.
No one in our psych unit gets makeovers. No one would have TIME to give them makeovers. Not only that, but the hospital probably couldn’t bill insurance for it.
While that is great and all, I just can’t get past Jeffreys’ misguided and backwards view of transpeople.
Well, there are some transwomen activists who have pretty “backwards” views on radical feminists, too. Cuts both ways.
Jeffreys has done (or tried to do) a whole shitload for women’s human rights, and while I certainly don’t agree with some of her more, ah, interesting positions (tattoos and piercings = misogyny?? Yikes), I totally respect how committed she is to fighting sexual exploitation and all the work she’s done.
She hardly gets any good reviews in the Lefty press, either. People say it’s cuz of the extremity of her positions. I think it’s cuz of her rejection of all beauty rituals and the fact that she refuses to indulge left-wing men in their “good liberal” delusions. It’s what I like most about her.
octo -
I don’t think anyone’s idea is that lipstick is as bad as FGM or honor killing. That would be morally obtuse; _equating_ these things is not the point. The point, as I understand it, is to recognize: (a) that lipstick and beauty rituals (and to put a fine point on it, the idea that women are ugly without adornment!) is part of patriarchy, and (b) that this patriarchy violates our human rights. Thus, the enforcement of all these beauty rituals violates our human rights.
It would be nice to have a world someday where makeup wasn’t a demand enforced on women [legally or socially] — indeed, where makeup wasn’t identified with femininity at all. Then people with whatever genitalia could wear it or (probably more often) not wear it, as we freely wished.
But in the mean time, in our world, you have women like Darlene Jesperson, who are punished (in her case, by being fired from her job) for refusing to doll herself up in conformance with patriarchal rules about makeup.
http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/cases/record?record=191
My husband is a practicing psychiatrist and among the bits he tells me about his practice is that he NEVER judges how people dress–they can wear a court jester costume with a crinoline on top, a top hat, and clown shoes, for all he cares. It’s not his job to evaluate how people dress. People’s clothes enter the realm of psychiatry when there is something obviously bizarre or foul about them–e.g., entirely covered in feces, or something of that magnitude. Then, he can pronounce that they MAY be indicative of something else–and only then.
Of course, he’s also an entitled member of the patriarchy and has a long way to go in that regard, but otherwise I’m pleased that his psychiatric practices seem to be much less ensconced in patriarchy than psychiatry as a whole, indeed, is.
JR, I think we agree on much of this. However, I don’t think it’s helpful, whether or not one’s equating them, to categorize lipstick with FGM or honor killing, at all, end of story. Certainly, *enforcing* beauty rituals is patriarchal, and violates human rights. However, *existence* of lipstick and other beauty aids does not violate human rights. That kind of extension leads to a slippery slope that can undermine the important issues here.
The Jesperson decision came out the wrong way, and I hope the next plaintiff will learn from what went wrong in that one. The court in Jesperson did make clear than an employer “may not adopt standards that impose a greater burden on one sex than the other.†But while Jesperson’s attorneys contended that the makeup requirement imposed various burdens in money and time, they didn’t put any evidence in the record in support of this contention aside from academic literature. The court made clear that if Jespersen had shown that for female bartenders, it would be much more time-intensive and costly to meet the makeup, pantyhose, etc. requirements than the requirements for men, which were basically to keep their nails and hair short, the decision would have been different. I would think it would have been fairly straightforward to estimate the cost of makeup, hose, and haircare products a typical female bartender would use in a year, compare that to the haircare and nailcare for a typical male bartender, and bingo. I’m not sure why her attorneys didn’t do this, but I would hope it will happen the next time this issue comes up.
I’m sure your husband the psychiatrist makes no note of this on the patient’s evaluation chart, or regarding the diagnosis (Mr. Napolean extended his hand to me today, the one he usually keeps tucked in his naval uniform). Etc. But what would I know, I’ve never been a psychiatrist, a patient of one, nor can I claim credence for my comment by saying a member of the patriarchy said it.
octo -
The question is where ‘enforcement’ happens. You and I agree that it’s wrong when an employer enforces a lipstick-and-face-paint regime on its female employees. But what about when it’s not an employer laying down the law, so to speak? I said ‘legally or socially’ enforced, and I think that might be where we disagree. If nobody gets fired, but women who don’t conform to beauty rituals are insulted, dismissed, ignored, or otherwise treated differently by other private citizens, co-workers, or [non-firing] employers for that matter, on account of not wearing the requisite femme drag, then would you agree that that’s ‘enforcement’ too? (And frankly, a more pervasive form of enforcement than the job-losing kind?) I’m not objecting to the “*existence*” of lipstick here — the objection is to patriarchy that makes lipstick an aspect of femininity.
As to Jesperson v. Harrah’s, you’re right that that’s what the court _said_ (i.e. that they would strike down grooming requirements that really had a disparate impact on one gender, but that the makeup rules here didn’t qualify without more evidence). But it’s not what the court _did_. Conservative/Libertarian Judge Alex Kozinski’s dissent in this case says all you we to know about the disparate impact of grooming policies, frankly:
I find it perfectly clear that Harrah’s overall grooming policy is substantially more burdensome for women than for men. Every requirement that forces men to spend time or money on their appearance has a corresponding requirement that is as, or more, burdensome for women: short hair v. “teased, curled, or styled†hair; clean trimmed nails v. nail length and color requirements; black leather shoes v. black leather shoes. The requirement that women spend time and money applying full facial makeup has no corresponding requirement for men, making the “overall policy†more burdensome for the former than for the latter. The only question is how much.
It is true that Jespersen failed to present evidence about what it costs to buy makeup and how long it takes to apply it. But is there any doubt that putting on makeup costs money
and takes time? Harrah’s policy requires women to apply face powder, blush, mascara and lipstick. You don’t need an expert witness to figure out that such items don’t grow on trees.
. . . .
Alternatively, Jespersen did introduce evidence that she finds it burdensome to wear makeup because doing so is inconsistent with her self-image and interferes with her job performance. My colleagues dismiss this evidence, apparently on the ground that wearing makeup does not, as a matter of law, constitute a substantial burden. This presupposes that Jespersen is unreasonable or idiosyncratic in her discomfort. Why so? Whether to wear cosmetics—literally, the face one presents to the world—is an intensely personal choice. Makeup, moreover, touches delicate parts of the anatomy—the lips, the eyes, the cheeks—and can cause serious discomfort, sometimes even allergic reactions, for someone unaccustomed to wearing it. If you are used to wearing makeup—as most American women are—this may seem like no big deal. But those of us not used to wearing makeup would find a requirement that we do so highly intrusive. Imagine, for example, a rule that all judges wear face powder, blush, mascara and lipstick while on the bench. Like Jespersen, I would find such a regime burdensome and demeaning; it would interfere with my job performance. I suspect many of my colleagues would feel the same way.
Everyone accepts this as a reasonable reaction from a man, but why should it be different for a woman? It is not because of anatomical differences, such as a requirement that women wear bathing suits that cover their breasts. Women’s faces, just like those of men, can be perfectly presentable without makeup; it is a cultural artifact that most women raised in the United States learn to put on—and presumably enjoy wearing—cosmetics. But cultural norms change; not so long ago a man wearing an earring was a gypsy, a pirate or an oddity. Today, a man wearing body piercing jewelry is hardly noticed. So, too, a large (and perhaps growing) number of women choose to present themselves to the world without makeup. I see no justification for forcing them to conform to Harrah’s quaint notion of what a “real woman†looks like.
Nor do I think it appropriate for a court to dismiss a woman’s testimony that she finds wearing makeup degrading and intrusive, as Jespersen clearly does. Not only do we have her sworn statement to that effect, but there can be no doubt about her sincerity or the intensity of her feelings: She quit her job—a job she performed well for two decades—rather than put on the makeup. That is a choice her male colleagues were not forced to make. To me, this states a case of disparate burden, and I would let a jury decide whether an employer can force a woman to make this choice.
– from Kozinski’s dissent in Jesperson v. Harrah’s.
See PDF here:
http://tinyurl.com/l88tq
personal anecdote: at 22, I moved to Austin, Texas and quickly realized that no one would bat a lash if I quit wearing makeup and shaving my legs, it being all hippie-like there. I went home to visit shortly thereafter and after a few days, my mother sat me down for a very concerned “intervention”: she was convinced I was deeply depressed, perhaps even suicidal, and her only evidence for this was my “lack of attention to grooming.” Because my legs were hairy and my face unpainted. Seriously. She thought I was ready to jump off a bridge.
At the time it just annoyed me. Today it makes me sad that my mother was so distressed. She’d seen me through my punkrock-new wave-goth girl 80s transformations and none of those disturbed her nearly as much as that one.
and PS: my nearest book is Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which has no sentences in it. hm.
I only cut my hair when I am depressed and I only wear makeup for weddings and funerals. I wonder what that psych would think of me.
My closest book is a ancient Modern Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms- entries 7 and 8 on page 123 are:
ferment- syn. seethe, concoct, brew, warm, chafe effervesce, rankle, fester. Ant. damp, cool, dissipate, subside, disperse, evaporate, heal.
ferocity- (see fierceness).
Interesting. I was wondering why my last psych report from NIMH mentioned I appeared “well-groomed”.
Octogalore, I disagree a bunch that counting cultural pressure to wear lipstick among human rights violations in any way diminishes the amount of blame to be hurled at FGM et al. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
A mon avis, Jeffreys is off on certain issues. These include body modification, the imperative for “political lesbianism” and trans rights. While I don’t agree with her on any of those, I would be more than willing to look past the first two. (It so happens that I don’t agree with everything Twisty says, either. Nonetheless, I all but live for this blog.) However, her attitude toward trans issues is deeply disturbing and unacceptable. I could not possibly embrace or endorse any movement hostile to transpeople. I’m tempted to say that one can’t do a whit for women’s rights if one insists on being arbitrarily exclusionary. That may be hasty. At the very least, anything she has accomplished or will accomplish is tainted and reduced by her prejudice.
Refusing to indulge men’s delusions is absolutely righteous, I’ll grant you. However, following such an act by indulging one’s own is quite disappointing.
Well, there are some transwomen activists who have pretty “backwards†views on radical feminists, too. Cuts both ways.
That’s irrelevant and offensive in its implications. Just as Jeffreys’ views don’t discredit women or radical feminists simply by virtue of her inclusion in either category, the views of individual transwomen do not justify prejudice against transpeople. With all due respect, I find that concept pretty basic.
He only drank on Fridays and Saturdays. He got married the day he killed himself.
I see myself siting on his bed, this creaking fourposter. on the wall facing me is a poster.
Only the 6th to 8th sentences?!
There is also the point to be made that the medical profession as a whole tends to dispense care of a lower quality to those women who do not adhere to the culturally required beauty regimine(s). At the point where this intersects with mental illness, the result is such that medical “care” is largely non-existent. I have an Aunt who is entirely nuts, and whose appearance reflects the condition of her mind. Yet, she is a human being and deserving of a level of care marked by compassion and excellence. We have, as she has aged, witnessed numerous health care professionals refuse to to follow up on her care, try to dissuade her from pursuing certain treatment options, and even flat out lying to her. While anecdotal, we draw the conclusion that in the eyes of the medical professions, she isn’t feminine enough to warrant compassionate or competent treatment. In that sense, then, lipstick (as a symbol of what is deemed feminine) is a rather powerful item.
JR – I too believe lipstick or other make-up wearing should not be either legally nor socially enforced. However, that’s not what the post stated that Jeffreys was advocating. It said: “an author who wants the UN to recognize feminine beauty practices — yup, including lipstick — alongside FGM and honor killing as harmful cultural practicesâ€. This struck me as placing the *wearing* or *existence* of lipstick, rather than the *mandated wearing* of lipstick, in a category alongside FGM. That’s rather broad. Sure, some wearing of lipstick reflects unhappy acquiescence to an unfair standard. Others may enjoy this fairly quick act as a fun way to match a new sweater. Trying to convince the latter group that they are unknowingly in the sway of an overarching patriarcy, while surely true in some instances, strikes me as wasteful of time and energy better spent elsewhere.
On the Harrah’s case, obviously the court wasn’t trying as hard as it could have to do the fairly easy math involved, but my point was simply that they opened the door to be hand fed this information the next time around and reach a different and better conclusion.
Twisty – I agree in theory, there is certainly plenty of blame to go around, and cultural appearance mandates deserve their share — of blame. Not placement in a legal document alongside FGM. In an official document, once a list of offenses starts looking like a laundry list, it inevitably gets taken a lot less seriously. Something as loosely worded and impossibly enforced as “cultural pressure to wear lipstick†shouldn’t be in the same category as FGM. In the real world, how would the UN do anything sensible to prevent such cultural pressure?
That is very …stingjay (as my Korean ESL students have been known to say). After I cut my hair into a Spartan helmet shape, I was a little concerned about how the opthamologist would receive me, but he was really positive and even compelled me to have an additional eye-exray for his own academic analyses, and to test out a new camera. Afterwards, he applauded my eyeballs as “Very good, normal and healthy.”
Can you have a “cultural practice” that is in no way “socially enforced”? (If it wasn’t in some way socially enforced, would it be a cultural practice at all? How would anyone know about it?) If a tree falls in the forest…
I don’t want go on endlessly, but it seems to me that it’s pretty serious and nonwasteful of time and energy, in general, to convince people that actions that seem harmless and “quick” and that make them “happy” and so on can actually be part of a larger “cultural practice” that is “harmful.” I think a lot of feminism involves learning to see things like that as they are: NOT just individual happy choices based on our natural preferences that fell from the sky, but also as “cultural practices” of gender, which almost inherently involve things like norms and pressure to conform and so on, even if we don’t see these pressures at first. That frame shift is a big one. It’s takes a lot of energy because it causes lots of cognitive dissonance to see things that once felt natural and good and not-a-big-deal as tiny facets of huge international human rights problem! But once you break through that, a lot of things become a lot clearer…
So anyway, I’m not going to stake anything on whether or not this particular UN list is actually achieving this goal of convincing people “that they are unknowingly in the sway of an overarching patriarcy.” Maybe you’re right that the UN isn’t doing the job.
But I know this blog is doing the job! That’s why I love it.
Can you have a “cultural practice†that is in no way “socially enforced�
I think it matters how many other socially acceptable alternatives there are to it. For example, lipstick is socially enforced by peach vs. pink is not so much.
Lipstick is socially enforced, but wearing bracelets specifically (as opposed to earrings or rings) is not.
It depends on what other alternatives there are, and whether or not negative stereotypes exist of people who don’t do it. Otherwise, it’s just like drinking Coke vs. Pepsi.
When I was small in the early 1960s, my mother did volunteer work for an organization called “Vanity Is Sanity” that went into psych wards to do makeovers on female patients. Participation wasn’t mandatory, but women who did participate got some kind of tokens they could use to buy cigarettes and toiletries. Nobody seemed to care what the male patients looked like.
I obtain complete copies of my medical records on a regular basis, and I’ve noticed that at every clinic visit and chemo session, a notation is made about my appearance. They seem particularly obsessed with my head gear, or lack thereof. “Pt does NOT wear wig,” “Pt wore hat today” etc. I guess it’s more cost effective to keep track of my cranial coverings than to do something hi-fallutin like, oh, maybe a PET scan.
With all due respect, I find that concept pretty basic.
With all due respect, I think you’ve misread me and don’t appreciate being patronised.
That’s irrelevant and offensive in its implications.
It would be, if I’d ever said that the views of individuals should be taken to represent the views of a group, which I didn’t. My point was that in radfem vs. trans activist squabbles over women-only space and other such issues, radical feminists aren’t entirely to blame, and that if rad fems are capable of regressive ideas, so are some trans activists. I don’t see what’s so offensive about that.
I know that the following post is missing Twisty’s point, but: the nearest book on my desk is a copy of “Scrambled Eggs Super” by Dr. Suess. No page 123 there. How sad.
If my shrink suggests in-patient therapy due to my cut to the quick fingernails perpetually sans polish, I’ll take her to the barn and see how she manages to saddle & groom a horse with long, manicured fingernails. I’ll stick around for her own grooming later to see how she gets all that dirt and possibly horse poo out from under her long fingernails.
My only gripe with lipstick, however, is the way it sucks moisture out my lips faster than I sucked down that large pizza almost entirely by myself last night. Which would explain why I slept for shit and am up leaving comments at 4:16 AM.
scratchy888, I just cut my own hair too. Rock on.
Also, I agree with everything Jeffreys says. My only complaint is that she doesn’t take it far enough. I’m serious.
My apologies if this is OT, but it’s related to the trans-activist angle that some folks are discussing, and I’m asking because I’m not an academic, and therefore largely ignorant of the latest developments in theory, as well as a bunch of other stuff.
Where I live, it seems like there’s been a major shift over the past three years or so, a mainstreaming trend within the trans community which has surprised and saddened me. Of all the transfolk of my personal acquaintance, there’s now only one FTM and one MTF who continue to identify as ‘queer’; everyone else is overtly pursuing assimilation and passing within the het community. My genderqueer acquaintances don’t appear to be trending that way, but my trans friends sure are.
So my question–yes, finally, there’s a question–is: does anyone know if this is a widespread trend within the trans community overall? Because one of the side effects I’m dealing with here is a pretty intense wave of post-transition misogyny, and really, none of my ‘normal’ responses are appropriate for this situation.
Contrary to the myopic beliefs of the male dominated psychiatric establishment, women who strictly adhere to society’s increasingly demanding standards of beauty are signalling their emotional distress, rather than providing evidence of their mental well-being. Scratch the surface of any bleached, botoxed, nipped, tucked, perfumed, shaved, waxed, exfoliated, tanned, toned, pedicured woman and you’ll likely find a terrorized, insecure, self-loathing, nervous wreck who fears the loss of patriarchal approval will render her identity null and void. Meg Ryan, Courtney Love, Teri Hatcher et al are terrifying reminders that women who seek out cosmetic solutions as a balm for their depression usually end up wearing their inner demons on their faces.
al:
My apologies, no condescension intended.
if I’d ever said that the views of individuals should be taken to represent the views of a group, which I didn’t. My point was that in radfem vs. trans activist squabbles over women-only space and other such issues, radical feminists aren’t entirely to blame, and that if rad fems are capable of regressive ideas, so are some trans activists. I don’t see what’s so offensive about that.
Well, what’s offensive about that is that neither I nor anyone else had brought up radfem vs. trans activist squabbles. I’d made a specific criticism of Jeffreys’ anti-trans views. By way of response, you cited 1) the shortcomings of transfolk, 2) Jeffreys’ contributions to radfem and 3) the stupidity of her mainstream detractors. None of that is the least bit relevant to Jeffreys’ anti-trans prejudice. Instead of acknowledging the problem, your reaction was to apologize for her. Pointing out the faults of the marginalized group in the course of trying to rhetorically neutralize prejudice amounts to a justification. The implication is that, because transpeople are not uniformly model radfems, prejudice against them becomes more acceptable.
Jeffreys’ views, by the by, are not the stuff of an activist squabble. She is anti-trans not anti-transactivist. This is not a disagreement. This is a prejudice.
CannibalFemme:
Generally, I would assume that people are driven to blend in by survival instinct, as Twisty has said. I think, though, that it’s hard to get a sense of transpeople “as a whole,” what with society not even aware enough of them to stabilize a healthy knee-jerk loathing. I’m not the best person to ask, though, because I’m not as enlightened about trans issues as I ought to be.
Violet: “terrifying reminders that women who seek out cosmetic solutions as a balm for their depression usually end up wearing their inner demons on their faces.”
Excellent. Beautifully said. This calls for my ‘I Was A Mary Kay Tester Bunny In My Last Life’ t-shirt.
Sandinista: thanks for your input. I do get the survival instinct thing, although this particular manifestation of it does depress me all to hell. When I’ve asked my trans friends about it, almost every one of them has responded along the lines of “this feels like the logical conclusion to my transition”, and I wondered if that dynamic was geo-specific, or not.
On the meme: Cool. I’ll play. “To the victor went the spoils–that was the way of the world. But Black Americans are a *whole new animal*–we are unique in the history of the world. Our situation is not comparable to what happened in the West Indies, in Africa or in South Africa.” [–Interview with Wanda Coleman in Angry Women]
I’m so lucky I was reference-hunting this morning. That was very nearly three sentences’ worth of extremely silly fanfic.
During my own stay in a psych ward as a teenager, no one ever pressured me to don make-up; on the other hand I didn’t get to wear pajamas all day, as I’d kind of hoped.
And I’m very much of the school of thought that that U.N. should be tackling the issues of wartime rape and acid-blinding before moving on to lipstick and high heels. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be totally averse to a law forcing grotesquely painted-up ladies of the former Confederacy into deprogramming sessions.
JR – I’m not disagreeing with you on the theory, but on the practice. Whether or not beauty practices are socially enforced, because the individual instance cannot be proven to be harmful, it shouldn’t be classed with FGM as a practical matter if one wants the appropriate attention to be taken to combat FGM. Whether it appears in some non-official document outlining a vision statement or not, any attempted enforcement against beauty practices isn’t going to fly. Combating the underlying reasons they exist is more realistic, though as you say, quite time consuming.
One of the challenges is not sounding patriarchal when doing this. You say “[beauty practices] can actually be part of a larger ‘cultural practice’ that is ‘harmful.’†“Can be†is the right way to put it, because insisting that every lipstick-wearing woman undergo a “frame shift†to convince them this is harmful is patronizing. While surely in some cases such a “frame shift†would result in a realization that would ultimately better an individual’s life, it wouldn’t be universal. Do drag queens have fun with lipstick because it’s dictated by the patriarchy? Even if they are mimicking the patriarchy, they’re enjoying the adornment. Something tells me many women would find lipstick whether or not the men in our world cared about it, and would resent the somewhat patriarchal implication that we’re simply resisting the “energy†it would take to “break through†our harmful ways.
Page 123, sentences 6-8: “Add Spanish Mediterranean architecture and rose gardens to these lawns, and it is easy to understand why the Scripps campus is a National Historic Landmark. Students feel extremely safe on the Scripps campus. It is a quiet and closed community in which students ‘never feel endangered.’” The 2006 Insider’s Guide to Colleges is the only book on my tiny desk right now. What’s remarkable is that page 123 (of a 1000 page book) is all about the college that one of my daughters attends. I expected three sentences about some random state university or a UC. Time for the Twilight Zone music.
I hate lipstick. Does everyone know how it works? Typical lipstick is acidic because in order to get the color to stay on the lips, the lip skin must be burned a little. That’s why frequently belipsticked lips feel dry. They may even peel. Lovely dry, peeling lips.
“Something tells me many women would find lipstick whether or not the men in our world cared about it, and would resent the somewhat patriarchal implication that we’re simply resisting the “energy†it would take to “break through†our harmful ways.”
Well said, Octo.
Here we go again.
Violet, I resent the hell out of your comment.
I resent that armchair psych stuff and I resent you equating “toned and perfumed” with “nipped and botoxed.” I understand you’re laundry listing, but let’s not equate some DIVINE Jean Nate with botulism, ey?
What if I were to say: “Women who are morbidly/obese are signaling their emotional distress. Scratch the surface of any very large woman and you’ll likely find a terrorized, insecure, self-loathing, nervous wreck who fears the loss of patriarchal approval will render her identity null and void and thus has learned to turned to food for comfort. And of course, her inner demons shows on her body.”
I don’t believe all of that, please note.
I dislike me some FGM as well as the next gal.
I don’t think plastic surgery is a great idea for myself.
I hate the media’s refusal to portray healthy-sized women — or even average looking folks in general.
But making generalizations about a woman’s psychiatric makeup due her appearance are unpolite, often incorrect, offensive and frankly no one’s business but hers.
Kim, I kinda thought Violet wasn’t blaming women for their psychiatric makeup (pun unintended) that might be implied by the whole adhering to the rules of patriarchal lookism, but rather, the state of their compliance with the patriarchy. I think what was meant was more, if you take that state away, or rather, if a woman who is invested in looking the way the patriarchy wants you to look suddenly finds that she DOES NOT MEASURE UP to the standard that she has become accustomed, then maybe that will make her a nervous, insecure wreck.
In other words, blame the p.
Thanks much, Kim.
Edith – the point I am making and that I think Kim is making is that generalizations about why lipstick is worn, or why a woman’s appearance conforms with a standard endorsed by the patriarchy, are not useful and actually insulting on an individual basis. Maybe “adhering to the rules of patriarchal lookism†*sometimes* “implies†something about someone’s psychiatric makeup, but it’s really impossible to know in each instance and it’s insulting to pretend to do so.
Let’s say, as you suggest, Violet had meant “if a woman who is invested in looking the way the patriarchy wants you to look suddenly finds that she DOES NOT MEASURE UP to the standard that she has become accustomed, then maybe that will make her a nervous, insecure wreck.†Not necessarily. Why assume that she’s invested in looking this way because because the patriarchy wants it? If indeed she has personal goals for fitness or even purely about appearance, that for all we know are completely compatible with health, why would any lapse in this make her a wreck any more than if, say, her professional status slipped, or her bank account took a hit? Assuming that a woman who wishes to look a certain way is a potential nervous wreck waiting to happen is condescending and, yes, patronizing – note the root of that word.
Yes, that is the point I’m making Octo (I’m liking’ you — where’s YOUR blog?), and Edith, I understand your point but my very basic point — and has been for months, I’m dead horsing myself into a frenzy here perhaps — is that sometimes women wear makeup, work out, etc. for reasons that are not due to a sense of duty to/desire to please The Patriarchy.
“If a woman who is invested in looking the way the patriarchy wants you to look suddenly finds that she DOES NOT MEASURE UP to the standard that she has become accustomed, then maybe that will make her a nervous, insecure wreck.”
While this MAY be true for some women, Edith, can you also see how at the same time it writes us off as weak, hysterical, hang-wringin’ little fluffs who become absolutely UNDONE when we find we aren’t “pretty?”
Shit — even Twisty had her punk rock tutu phase.
We could have looked at her, tsk tsked sadly and feared for the day she no longer had the youth/boobs/whatever to pull this off.
Forgive ME for armchair psychin’ on YOU Twisty, but methinks Twisty did and would tutu it without givin’ a flip for what anyone thought.
Look, I’m not saying a facefull of makeup and 4-inch stillettos are empowering and you’ll never get a set of — what are they called? Acrylic nails? on me. Women have done horrible things to themselves in the name of beauty, I grant this, no question.
But until you’ve conducted a personal interview with every woman who brandishes an eyeliner, please don’t assume the reason every woman girls it up in whatever way is rooted in a desire to win male approval.
FYI: I get the bigger pic by the way. A friend recently stated that boob jobs are America’s FGM. I don’t necessarily disagree. I get that if we all took a collective stand to gain 30 pounds, eschew makeup and get as hairy as we wanna be, the beauty standard for women would change, quite possibly making us all happier and healthier.
I get that right now, some of you might be thinking “Then do it! Do it and help us out and stop contributing to Teh Problem!”
Nah.
Because I’m one of those who like drama, glitz, an’ shit. I’d CleopatraKohl my eyes out to my temples and go back to black and green hair if I weren’t so gosh darned Professional. Somedays I want to be six feet tall and if heels give me that, so be it. I believe many straight men might slap on some makeup if it were accepted by society.
Some of us just like to play with decor, be this on our walls or on our faces. If I were to change who I am for any of you or for “feminism” I’d be miserable.
Back in my gothier days, I used to get in big trouble for not taking eyeliner and mascara out with me, because my drag-king friends never carried their own and would want to fix their facial hair halfway through the night. I think I bought them all portable make-up kits of their very own for Christmas that year.
For a small quantity of pigment-and-wax, make-up is remarkably powerful stuff. I adore it for its theatrical uses- transforming a human face into an alien one, sketching circuit-boards onto cheekbones, turning a bio femme into a queen, a skinny baby dyke into a king of bois. I’m personally looking forward to the day when people of many genders get to be as transformed or untransformed as they please, day-to-day, without patriarchal reprisal, without assumptions being made of level of compliance with patriarchal directives.
But make-up in it’s current incarnation is clearly not a power-neutral phenomenon. There are people (as in the Jespersen case, and probably many others) who are suffering as a result of a refusal to comply with the Patrarchy’s Make-Up Rules (full face on women, not a smidge on men). I blame the patriarchy for forcing people to do things that are uncomfortable and limiting.
On the trans-topic, I’m not sure that it is a universal thing. I know some of my trans friends get to a point where the most comfortable thing for them is integration directly into hetero society, and others who are determined to spend their lives disrupting gender norms. And some, of course, who are queer in that they are trans homos & dykes, and will remain in the queer community because of that rather than their trans experiences.
Also: Raging misogyny from people newly experiencing life as men should be shot down as promptly as it is from people who were raised male, in my opinion. I’m really, really not into the idea that ’successful’ FtM transition means turning into a grade-A patriarchal meathead.
Kim:
The laundry list of “beauty” treatments I mentioned in my “offending” post are meant to be taken together as a whole, and should not be construed as an indictment of fitness, perfume or even basic grooming habits - all of which I wholeheartedly endorse (as long as the perfume isn’t some cloying, vanilla-based bug spray named after a celebrity and sold by the gallon in K-Mart). Fellow blamers, please note: this is merely a personal opinion of little relevance to the topic at hand and not an invitation to “debate” the “evils” or “virtues” of wearing perfume.
Your point about morbidly obese women does not apply here since obesity is neither a sought out “beauty treatment” or approved by the patriarchy.
Contrary to the persistent and willfully erroneous beliefs of some commentators here, critiquing the standards society imposes upon women is not a clarion call to pack on the pounds and staple one’s thong collection into one massive pair of boxer shorts to be worn over grease stained coveralls. Your mascara is safe. No one here is trying to pry it from your cold, dead (and well-manicured) fingers.
I hear this a lot around here, but that isn’t the point, is it?
Righty, then.
You win, Vi.
For with a snarky comment like this
“is not a clarion call to pack on the pounds and staple one’s thong collection into one massive pair of boxer shorts to be worn over grease stained coveralls. Your mascara is safe. No one here is trying to pry it from your cold, dead (and well-manicured) fingers”
not only do I question if you really read or thought about what I wrote (Who was it that said “You’ll never get a set of — what are they called? Acrylic nails? on me?”) but here you go, gettin’ all pissy and snide on my ass, throwin’ around the “quotes,” and accusing me of fat phobia, thong-lovin’ and coverall fear. Natch, this MUST be my demographic.
Thanks for making it clear that apparently it’s much more fun to be shitty and self-righteous than to attempt to have an intelligent conversation.
I nearly forgot but thanks for the blog fodder.
the stupidity of her mainstream detractors.
*blink* Where did I say this?
This post, by a blogger I respect, probably best sums up how I feel on the issue.
Kim, I’d love to stay and chat, but ‘Lou’ my regular foxy boxing sparring partner doesn’t like to be kept waiting. She’s gnawing on the ropes as we speak.
From page 123 sentences 6-8 of “The Breast Cancer Survivor’s Fitness Plan”:
“After TRAM surgery, for example, it’s natural to bend forward at the waist and hip to avoid pain and tension at the broad abdominal incision where skin and muscle were taken from the belly and moved up to the chest. Over time, this can shorten the hip flexors that link legs to trunk, making it hard to straighten the legs and causing lower back pain. What’s more, such decreased flexibility prompts lasting problems with posture and balance and may interfere with daily tasks.”
This is describing a few of the drawbacks of a certain type of breast reconstruction called a TRAM flap. I agree with whoever said that breast surgery was our form of FGM. I, most assuredly, blame the patriarchy.
From page 123 sentences 6-8 of “Misogyny, The World’s Oldest Prejudiceâ€:
“Or a judge may ‘come in and promise that he will be merciful, with the mental reservation that he means that he will be merciful to himself or the State; for whatever is done for the safety of the State is merciful.’ As in twentieth-century totalitarianism, things become their opposite according to the dictates of the regime. It reminds us of the nightmare world of George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eight-four,’ with its dominant slogans, ‘WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH’; the authors of ‘Malleus’ might add, ‘CRUELTY IS MERCY’.”
“She’d tell him she was thinking of trying her hand at a novel, now that Kenneth was away and time hung so heavily on her hands.
She gave her party on the last day of June. She arranged that Rhoda stay with Mrs. Forsythe across the hall; but Rhoda wanted to come in for a little while to meet her mother’s guests”.
Pg 123, sentences 6-8 of “The Bad Seed” by William March
Raging misogyny from people newly experiencing life as men should be shot down as promptly as it is from people who were raised male, in my opinion. I’m really, really not into the idea that ’successful’ FtM transition means turning into a grade-A patriarchal meathead.
Wow. Well, if transpeople are capable of misogyny, I guess Jeffreys isn’t prejudiced after all. It only follows.
al:
the stupidity of her mainstream detractors.
*blink* Where did I say this?”
“She hardly gets any good reviews in the Lefty press, either. People say it’s cuz of the extremity of her positions. I think it’s cuz of her rejection of all beauty rituals and the fact that she refuses to indulge left-wing men in their “good liberal†delusions. It’s what I like most about her.”
the Lefty press = her mainstream detractors
the reasons you propose for their disapproval = their stupidity
This post, by a blogger I respect, probably best sums up how I feel on the issue.
From said post: I don’t even think they are topics worthy enough of serious discussion to have people spend the amount of time and energy on them that they do
I agree! What would possess someone to consider oppression and exclusions based on gender identity a topic relevant to feminism? How irrelevant.
There is no parity between identifying with a gender and identifying with a political movement. Granted, a movement is a nebulous thing and making extensive assumptions based solely on political identification is unwise. But political identification is a moral and intellectual choice, and every movement carries with it a set of issues that an individual who elects to be a part of it must take on.
Gender dysphoria does not should not carry such a stigma. It has no implications beyond the individual. Using the misguided convictions of individual transpeople to rationalize transphobia implies otherwise.
More from said post: Dear transpeople - radical feminist groups that do not let MTFs into women only meetings or gatherings are not the defining issue of your oppression. I have yet to see any radical feminist say it is okay for you to be discriminated against in jobs and housing and beaten to death by roving packs of homophobic/transphobic men.
Oh those magnanimous radfems! They don’t advocate legalized bigotry or homicidal violence or anything! “Not the defining issue of oppression”? Do you want a cookie or something? So it isn’t necessary to be accepting or, heavens forfend, supportive, so long as someone else is screwing them worse? Yea, this is exactly the movement I always pictured myself in.
I won’t lie, I didn’t read far past that. If even those radfems who can recognize transphobia (save for their own, of course) offer transpeople this kind of welcome into the movement, is it really a wonder that they aren’t queuing to join? It’s clearly and explicitly not for them.
If this was the offending sentence:
People say it’s cuz of the extremity of her positions. I think it’s cuz…
then I wasn’t calling them stupid; merely expressing disagreement.
But I do think it’s disingenuous that some people on the Left use her views on trans to denigrate all her work and invalidate her critiques of the sex industry. Not that her treating transpeople as abstractions rather than people isn’t a problem, but this isn’t the reason she’s attacked so viciously by most factions of the Left–it just provides a handy beating stick for ‘em. These guys are only really concerned with protecting their ‘right’ to prostitution. They could give two shits transpeople.
Speaking of which, mtfs get prostituted in no small numbers, and I think fighting this exploitation is something that radfems/anti-prostitution feminists and trans-actvists could work together on. If they’re able to put aside their differences for long enough, that is.
Oh, crap. Forgot to close italics.
I’d like to take a piss in a public can knowing for a fact there are no boys in there whining “I was born in the wrong body” for fucksake, insisting I refer to him as “she.” Phobic? Hardly. Resentful that women lose yet another space of their own? You betcha big time.
“They could give two shits transpeople.”
…and that should read, “They could give two shits about transpeople.”
Fuck this, it’s way too early here.
I’d like to take a piss in a public can knowing for a fact there are no boys in there whining “I was born in the wrong body†for fucksake, insisting I refer to him as “she.†Phobic? Hardly. Resentful that women lose yet another space of their own? You betcha big time.
Mar Iguana, that’s pretty much the DEFINITION of transphobia. I don’t even know where to begin. Refusing to be respectful of a transwoman’s gender identity by saying she’s really a “boy” and using the wrong pronouns, calling trans dysphoria “whining”… dear god. How the hell does a transwoman using the women’s bathroom hurt you? What bathroom is she supposed to use instead, since if she uses the men’s bathroom she very well could get attacked.
Personally, I prefer the good old days when feminists were just called “manhaters.”
Why is it every time women tell men to get their foot off our necks, men cry we’re manhaters and claim they’re being oppressed? “Transphobia” is the new version of this very old game. Same shit, different label.
My quote: “Raging misogyny from people newly experiencing life as men should be shot down as promptly as it is from people who were raised male, in my opinion. I’m really, really not into the idea that ’successful’ FtM transition means turning into a grade-A patriarchal meathead.”
Sandinista’s quote: Wow. Well, if transpeople are capable of misogyny, I guess Jeffreys isn’t prejudiced after all. It only follows.
I’m not sure if you’re implying that I agree with Jeffreys on the issue of transpeople and transphobia, because nothing could be further from the truth. I was actually responding to this statement from CanibalFemme-
Because one of the side effects I’m dealing with here is a pretty intense wave of post-transition misogyny, and really, none of my ‘normal’ responses are appropriate for this situation.
I’m not mentioning misogyny among transpeople as a way of invalidating their (very welcome) participation in feminist, patriarchy-blaming communities. I don’t think that transition in any way implies misogyny, I don’t think that trans women transition to ‘invade’ ‘our’ space, I think that trans people have every right to enter the spaces of their post-transition gender, and I think it is the height of rudeness to knowingly refer to someone as other than their chosen pronoun.
What I am referring to in the paragraph at the top is a phenomenon that I have encountered in my immediate community, and it appears that CannibalFemme has also encountered, of surprising incidents of misogyny among previously gold-star patriarchy-blaming individuals, post-transition. My experience with this has occurred mostly with trans men, some of whom, in seeking out the way that they live as men, begin to act like the most sexist of the oppressors. I don’t believe that testosterone is a brain-killing bullet, I believe that these men see “manly macho-ness” as the most valid way of being male, the way that will give them the most external validation of their gender- after all, this is the kind of man that patriarchy promotes as top dog, right? Among transgendered men I know, the topic of ‘how to avoid becoming a patriarchal meathead in the process of becoming a man’ is a lively, ongoing discussion, and I really don’t think it’s transphobic, or supporting transphobia, to be able to critique oppressive presentations of masculinity & maleness. Do you?
It sucks watching someone you love turn into someone you don’t like, and it sucks losing valuable allies in patriarchy-blaming, which is why I think it’s worthwhile combatting the myth that manly-macho-misogyny is the one true path to manhood.
Lucky, that was Friday.
Fuck this, it’s way too early here.
That’s right. It’s way too early for men to think that women have been completely conquered, assimilated and eliminated.
How the hell does a transwoman using the women’s bathroom hurt you?
You want to know how men can hurt women? **chuckle** You’re joking, right? Oh wait. I’m supposed to believe men in drag are women. And if you put on a werewolf mask, will you also expect me to believe you’re a werewolf?
Well shoot, if that’s the case, if I go in drag as Napoleon, do you think France will hand their country over to me and hail me as their new leader? Can I cry I’m being discriminated against and I’m oppressed if they don’t?
What bathroom is she supposed to use instead, since if she uses the men’s bathroom she very well could get attacked.
OIC. And trans boys would like to maintain the position they’re use to — being the fuckers instead of the fuckees? Can’t say as I blame them. But I’m afraid their issue is with men, not with women. So take it up with men instead of demanding that women be your mommy and take care of you. I owe you nothing, boy. You’re not entitled to a damn thing from me. Get that through your thick, dense head.
There is no way to eliminate conflict during a play date, nor should you wish to, because conflict is one of your child’s greatest teachers. When playmates under the age of two covet the same toy, most of the time all you really need to do is “sportscast”. “You both want tthe wheelbarrow. Miriam is pulling on one side and you’re pulling the other. I’m going to get a little closer to make sure you’re both safe.”
From Trees make the Best Mobiles, by Jessica Teich and Brandel France de Bravo.
How the hell does a transwoman using the women’s bathroom hurt you?
Because any piece of shit pervert can now claim he’s a woman and enter a woman’s bathroom. What’s the harm in that? Let me count the ways.
What bathroom is she supposed to use instead, since if she uses the men’s bathroom she very well could get attacked.
Well if men can now use the women’s bathroom, wouldn’t that make the women’s bathroom just as dangerous as the men’s? Or do trans boys imagine they’d be the only man allowed in there?
Ooops, sorry. Didn’t mean to use logic. And ruin that trans boy harem fantasy they have going on in their heads.
Just goes to show you, you can take the male out of the man, but you can’t take the man out of the male.
CannibalFemme: That’s a really interesting question. The only study I’ve seen on how trans identities pattern in different age groups showed pretty distinctly that the number of trans folks identifying as queer is larger the younger the sample; an interesting question that I think that researcher (Brett Genny Beemyn, who is awesome) is also looking at is whether that’s a permanent change or whether those people will begin identifying as queer less as they age and go further in transition.
I think in some ways a trend toward identifying less as trans and more as post-transition gender is inevitable for trans people who identify firmly as male or female, as people pass more and move around in the world more like cisgendered individuals. Misogyny, however, is in no way inevitable and definitely needs to get nipped in the butt in all cases… I think in many situations transguys are just so desperate to pass that they seize on anything that helps them read more as male and less as butch dyke–basically, I think a lot of guys go through a stage where they’ll do ANYTHING to keep from getting “she”ed. IMO it’s a more sympathetic but no less problematic version of patriarchal bullshit.
I’m thinking degree of welcomeness in the queer community can also play a role; someone who’s hetero and trans might not feel so comfy in queer space once they’re more secure in a post-transition identity. I don’t think they *should* feel unwelcome, but I can see why they would (*cough*not to mention pervasive transphobia in many queer spaces*cough*).
Luckynkl, nothing you’ve said goes to show anything at all except that you are a seething mass of hatred towards trans women, requiring only a few paragraphs of disucssion to send you into a frenzy of incoherant refutation. For example, this paragraph makes no sense whatsoever, unless one assumes you are randomly spouting responses to things you imagine we might have said at some point in this discussion. It certainly bears no connection to the quote before it:
“What bathroom is she supposed to use instead, since if she uses the men’s bathroom she very well could get attacked.
OIC. And trans boys would like to maintain the position they’re use to — being the fuckers instead of the fuckees? Can’t say as I blame them. But I’m afraid their issue is with men, not with women. So take it up with men instead of demanding that women be your mommy and take care of you. I owe you nothing, boy. You’re not entitled to a damn thing from me. Get that through your thick, dense head. ”
The discussion between feminists and patriarchy-blamers about trans issues is an important one, and just because I may disagree with a position does not mean that I will dismiss the arguments. In this instance I am dismissing your arguments because they make no sense.
Luckynkl: Thankfully, your “feminism” isn’t everyone’s feminism. I’m a feminist. I dated an amazing trans lesbian for 2 years. I’m an activist for trans rights. My feminism isn’t in the business of stomping all over people who aren’t hurting anyone.
Hint #1: The little skirted stick figure on the bathroom door doesn’t have magical powers. If a pervert wanted to go into the women’s bathroom to ogle or harass, he can still do it even if you relentlessly beat out all the transwomen who just want to pee in peace.
Go ahead, come up with a single instance of a transwoman attacking someone in the bathroom. Hint #2: You can’t.
Gender neutral bathrooms are the best answer for everyone; I for one am a female-bodied person who uses women’s bathrooms who doesn’t give a shit (no pun intended, oy) who’s in the stall next to me or who I run into at the sink. Segregation isn’t making anyone safer, and it’s sure as hell causing problems for a lot of people.
I don’t think there’s any way for me to change your bullshit, simplistic binary view of things in this medium. If you’re stuck on thinking penis always = man, very little I can type will make a difference. But there’s no way you can claim any actual, concrete harm from letting transwomen use the right bathroom.
Luckynkl, nothing you’ve said goes to show anything at all except that you are a seething mass of hatred towards trans women, requiring only a few paragraphs of disucssion to send you into a frenzy of incoherant refutation.
ROFL. Reverse things much? So let me get this straight. If women say “No” to men, we’re seething masses of hatred and oppressing men? LOL. You sound like a 2 year old throwing a temper tantrum.
I’m not impressed with bullies. Run that boy shit by someone else. Nice try tho. Just no cigar.
Luckynkl: Thankfully, your “feminism†isn’t everyone’s feminism. I’m a feminist.
You could sit in a garage and call yourself a car. That wouldn’t make you one.
I suggest you learn the difference between feminism, liberalism, and libertarianism. Liberalism and libertarianism applied to women aren’t different kinds of feminism.
I dated an amazing trans lesbian for 2 years.
And you think I need to know this because? I could care less if you dated a purple spotted cow with 3 legs for 2 years.
Sex is static. It cannot be changed. Men cannot be frogs, they cannot be giraffes, they cannot be trees, they cannot be rocks, and they cannot be women. Get over it.
Hint #1: The little skirted stick figure on the bathroom door doesn’t have magical powers. If a pervert wanted to go into the women’s bathroom to ogle or harass, he can still do it even if you relentlessly beat out all the transwomen who just want to pee in peace.
Alas, in the year 2006, men still view women as their property. And men just don’t take kindly to other men infringing on their property rights. They don’t view it as being disrespectful to women. They view it as being disrespectful to them and take it personally. And that’s a real no no. If these boys catch a pervert in the bathroom with their wives, gfs, mothers, sisters, or daughters, well, it isn’t going to be pretty. And guess what they view trans as? Men as a class don’t buy into trans bullshit. Now let’s cut the crap. Trans are more likely to be killed for being in a woman’s bathroom than for being in a men’s bathroom.
Go ahead, come up with a single instance of a transwoman attacking someone in the bathroom. Hint #2: You can’t.
Who told you these big fibs? Actually, there are many cases of men dressing up like women and not only just attacking women, but killing them. Trans assault women regularly. Both verbally and physically. Boys will be boys, ya know. They don’t get brain transplants with SRS.
Gender neutral bathrooms are the best answer for everyone; I for one am a female-bodied person who uses women’s bathrooms who doesn’t give a shit (no pun intended, oy) who’s in the stall next to me or who I run into at the sink.
Well there’s certainly no law against stupidity. But that’s your problem. Don’t make it mine.
Amanatas post (linked above) is well worth reading. Lots worth quoting, here’s a sample:
“Transwomen - if you are serious about transitioning and serious about feeling like a woman, you have to stop insisting that female fear of men is sexist or unreasonable. Every time you do this it just proves the point of why women do need some women born women only space - so they don’t have to deal with you, as a newcomer to living as a woman, to tell us how we are doing it all wrong…You can be as unhappy about that as you like - trust me, I am unhappy about it too - but until the epidemic of male violence against women ends, this is how it is going to be. You cannot blame feminists for this - they did not invent an irrational prejudice against men as violent rapists - the high number of men who are violent rapists is what is responsible for this very realistic fear.”
Read the whole thing.
I don’t think there’s any way for me to change your bullshit, simplistic binary view of things in this medium. If you’re stuck on thinking penis always = man, very little I can type will make a difference. But there’s no way you can claim any actual, concrete harm from letting transwomen use the right bathroom.
Oh, I have no problem with trans using the right bathroom. The one with the sign that says “men” on it.
And yes, I can claim actual, concrete harm that’s been done personally to me in a bathroom by a trans. Oh well, you rolled the dice and gambled and lost. What’s next? Telling me not all men/trans are like that?
Now let’s cut through your load of bull. Ask yourself one question. Who benefits? Women? Do women benefit when men use their bathroom? Do women benefit when men pass themselves off as women? Do women benefit when femininity is conflated with the female sex? Is it to women’s benefit to reinforce gender roles? Is it to women’s benefit for males to define what a woman is? Who are you defending here? Men or women?
Since when is defending men for men’s benefit at women’s expense called feminism? I think you have it half assed backwards. That’s called patriarchy.
“I don’t believe that testosterone is a brain-killing bullet…” slashy
No, however that big rush of testesterone he gets at a certain point of development in the womb and the effect it has on his brain sure doesn’t do it any favors. Don’t have time to look it up right now, but it causes the divide between the lobes that makes it damn nigh impossible for the boys to shift from left to right when appropriate whereas women can jump back and forth in the wink of an eye.
Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. These boys are not women. They are SCAMs. Surgically/Chemically Altered Males.
Geez. At my house the bathrooms were always co-ed. So far as I could tell it never caused any problems.
Well, by all means, Hedonistic, if it’s not a problem at your house, it can’t possibly be problem for the rest universe as well! And if you haven’t been raped or subject to incest, then by all means, rape and incest shouldn’t be a problem for women, either. After all, you are the standard!
Run that nonsense by the millions of women who have been subjected to rape and incest. Because it sure was a problem at my house. And when I went to college, it continued to be a problem. Men wandered into the bathrooms in women’s dormitories and freely helped themselves to women in the shower. There I am, taking a shower, and these goons would be chinning up over the shower curtains to help themselves to a free show.
But Luckynl, much in the way there is nothing objectively oppressive about lipstick, the bathrooms at your dormitory weren’t the problem.
Wow… I’m getting all quoted and stuff.
Well Sandinista - you said above you weren’t going to bother to read the whole thing. Guess you’ll never know what I was trying to get at, then. It seems pretty obvious to me upon reading it that it’s an attempt to build bridges, but you seem more interested in burning them down. Twisting something I said completely out of context and adding your own meaning to it and then attributing it to me is something I find disappointing, to say the least.
My wife (we were not yet married at the time I wrote that) is a transwoman. I love and respect her very much. She is also a feminist, a radical feminist even. I (and she) feel very much in the middle between these two movements sometimes. My post (referred to above) was a way to try to find some common ground and create some dialog where dialog seems to be absent, but it seems people are more interested in ripping it apart and declaring me a traitor to one side or the other. Oh well.
In the meantime, I shall go on with my happy marriage.
Oh and BTW - - just for the record. I WAS sexually abused, in a BATHROOM no less, by a pedophile uncle. I lay the blame where it belongs.
When I did that, it just said fifth sentence.
“At school, I hadn’t liked not being chosen for teams.”
From “Fat Girl, a True Story”. Which is a whole ‘nother spiel on the cultural dysfunction inflicted on women who don’t conform to body type.
So, do I get to be whatever race I choose?
Do I get to be an woman of colour or a black woman because I *really* feel like one (even though I’m white as the freshly driven snow)?
Do I get to play around with the legal definition of the First Nations people here in North America because I suffer from “racial dysphoria”?
Do I get to insult all the people of colour who don’t accept me as such, as being bigots?
Aw, gee, why not?
IBTP.
(Actually, I blame men, but whatever.)
“2. To create pleasant and fulfilling work for those of us who bake Flatbread; 3. To produce, package, and distribute our product in as environmentally conscientious a way as our resources and imagination allow us. To be proactive in this: to discover new ways of doing these things better;” From “The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens” by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott.
It’s arguable whether those are complete sentences, but no way am I typing the whole list.
Slashy:
My mistake. I didn’t note what you were replying to and therefore misread what you said. Apologies.
al:
It wasn’t an “offending sentence,” just an irrelevant one.
But I do think it’s disingenuous that some people on the Left use her views on trans to denigrate all her work and invalidate her critiques of the sex industry.
And I think its disingenuous to fight for women, but only some women.
Not that her treating transpeople as abstractions rather than people isn’t a problem
She treats them like dirt, not abstractions.
but this isn’t the … could give two shits transpeople.
Once again: not relevant.
Speaking of which, mtfs get prostituted in no small numbers, and I think fighting this exploitation is something that radfems/anti-prostitution feminists and trans-actvists could work together on. If they’re able to put aside their differences for long enough, that is.<