Comments on: Pussycat Dolls: They got empowerfulment for DAYS

By: Stella

Stella — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 05:01:23 +0000

I am mildly obsessed with female “body grooming”; I am also a hetero feminist, and shave my legs and armpits (even though I have been happily single for almost two years – it really *is* “for me”), but I refuse to do any vulvic grooming. I don’t get it. My women friends (who would all call themselves feminists, and are on the road to enlightment, at least) *all* practice some form of hair removal. I cannot possibly see how the investment of time is worth whatever “pleasure” this brings them. I think they are doing it because men now *expect* it (pornification, previously covered extensively on this blog); for the record, I have only had one male partner disapprove – and we was a *complete* wanker. And I have yet to meet a man who gives a rat’s ass about leg hair.

By: Dagens Onde Kvinner » Blog Archive » Oh no, ikke pusekattene

Dagens Onde Kvinner » Blog Archive » Oh no, ikke pusekattene — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:38:08 +0000

[...] Via I blame the patriarchy [...]

By: Naomi

Naomi — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 18:43:02 +0000

THAT WAS NOT FUNNY, I LUV THAT SHOW

By: juls

juls — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:41:10 +0000

I can’t relate at all to what the younger generations are trying to do with their stripper poles. But in reading through the comments here, I believe I’ve actually learned a thing or two, about myself and the world around me.

Thank you, Twisty, for initiating this amazing topic. And thank you, Blamers, for sharing your remarkable intelligence and insight.

By: maribelle

maribelle — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 21:04:37 +0000

You provide the cage. We lock ourselves in, without you forcing us to do it.

Yes. One most egregious example of this is bone-thin-woman-as-desirable syndrome. It is impossible to imagine any other animal in the world demanding self-starvation of its child-bearing age females and calling it empowering.

Yet another of example of our species’ tendency towards self destruction. This blog produces new examples weekly.

By: S-kat

S-kat — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:58:35 +0000

mearl et al.

So glad to hear I’m not alone! It’s my take that us heterosexual women ought to pressure men the way we’ve been pressured to worry more about their looks. After all, women are naturally beautiful, it’s they guys that need more gussying up. Of course, turning the tables that way doesn’t really solve anything. I just want more guys worth looking at to satiate my desirous gaze.

A few years ago I was telling some of my female friends that I thought we should put together a porn magazine for us womenfolk because, you know, Playgirl is so poorly done. They responded that (1) they don’t actually like looking at naked men and (2) they’d much rather look at naked women. They then insisted up and down that they are SO heterosexual and that their feelings on the matter were obviously quite normal because otherwise there wouldn’t be so many pictures in our culture of naked/scantily clad women and so few of men.
*sigh* Those girls aren’t my friends anymore or I’d send them to this blog.

Shabnam, I believe that you’re mistaken. My hairy arm pits are as despised as my hairy legs. That’s fine with me, it keeps the weirdos away.

By: mearl

mearl — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:45:21 +0000

Word, word, and word! Shab, your comment about femininity being the fetishisation of being a loser and being ripped off was spot-on. It’s sad that it’s true, but the way you put it made me laugh so hard I fell off my computer chair (this is also in part because the chair seat has come unscrewed in the past few days, but still). That is a revolutionary slogan if I ever saw one.

By: Pony

Pony — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:26:20 +0000

It’s sadder than the same old shit. It’s sex slavery. It’s blackface and minstrel shows.

By: hedonistic

hedonistic — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:58:22 +0000

As I said to an old flame about the PCDs last week: “Hey, if the PCDs themselves were to decide when/where/if/how/under what conditions they perform,and/or perhaps if they are exhibitionists who get off doing whatever sexually charged thing they feel like doing on stage, and/or they collapse in orgasmic bliss after every performance, ONLY THEN would I be tempted to call what they do “empowering.” As things stand, this is the same old shit. Not impressed.”

By: Spinning Liz

Spinning Liz — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:32:45 +0000

This idea is well articulated in Polly Young-Eisendrath's Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted. From the book's blurbs: "In providing some answers to Freud's famous question about what women really want, Young-Eisendrath draws on her experience as a psychotherapist and on ideas gleaned from Buddhism, Jung and feminist writings. She argues that most women don't have a clue about what they want because society has programmed them simply to want to present a desirable image...Hoping for approval and self-validation, women often conform to ideals of beauty, sexual attractiveness, and femininity before they have identified their own desires and needs."