I kid, I kid! There are no incredibly enlightening insights into the male point of view. The male point of view is in fact the default point of view. Thus are we already completely intimate with it. Even as we struggle to end our own oppression we take the time to grasp the enormity of the hardships men endure. How well we understand the dreadful inconvenience thrust upon you by facial hair fashion trends. Our hearts bleed, O 20-something White Dude.

I have not deleted your comment, Marriage, not because you have demonstrated that you are qualified to post here, but because it is hilarious. Do you seriously propose that a class of people who are genuinely oppressed by your class give a rat’s ass about your shaving habits? Priceless.

I’m not taking issue with the post. In as much as I can, I agree. It’s the comments that annoy me. Mostly the ones that relegate me to a penis that just wants to fuck everything. Hirsuteness is a bit like a third nipple; momentarily off putting because it’s not the norm, but ultimately irrelevant in a relationship.

I just wanted to add in a bit about guys shaving. It fits many of the criteria brought up by the comments. It’s uncomfortable (ingrown hairs/razor burn ON YOUR FACE!), it’s expensive (we use razors daily, not weekly), it’s time consuming (15-20 minutes a day) and being clean shaven is entirely a passing fashion trend (look at Kaiser Wilhelm, EPIC facial hair!).

In my relatively brief years of employment I’ve been given repeated verbal (and a few written) warnings about my facial hair. I’ve actually been threatened with losing my job if I don’t comply with The Patriarchy’s view of what is socially acceptable.

I have no idea how I became a victim of The Man, because to all intents and purposes I AM THE FUCKING MAN! But I guess that’s another reason to add to the list of destroying The Patriarchy. It doesn’t even protect the people it’s supposed to protect.

“is there something we can work with that doesn’t have to fall into the camp of binary opposition of “does she or doesn’t she?”

Personally I try to combine expected behaviours with unexpected ones in the hope of confusing the hell out of the the patriarchy. I know it’s not much, but sometimes it makes people think, or change their opinions on what they consider “beautiful”, and it can be quite interesting as a social experiment.
For example, my best friend and I wear makeup (although very non-conventionally) but have all of our natural body hair; I shave part of my head and grow the other part long, wear comfortable clothes and shoes most of the time, and sometimes deliberately bind my chest to appear more androgynous.

It may not do much in the grand scheme of things, but sure makes for some interesting conversations at the pub while we think up better ways to overthrow the patriarchy.

“yeah, that’s right, successful women ‘don’t have to be men.’ Women can be empowerfulized and still do things that are ‘natural’ for women to do.

‘It’s okay to have a family’ she insisted. ‘It’s okay to be pretty.’”

So…by that logic, it isn’t “natural” for men to have families? Or to look good?

haha my little laugh of the thread. Reading this wee blog from Texas has bought feminism back. How does a man hating radfem decide on not being feminist?
Not on this blog but on another British one where radfems are generally attacked by mods, and trolls seen as providing reasonable grounds for discussion. There is also a tone of ironic hatred and resentment amongst British feminists, undoubtedly seeped in from british ironic edge culture. Any contribution at my college womens committee – I talked about assault on campus for e.g, was met with malice. I got a particularly vindictive booting off the committee, and from experiencing vitriol from edgy feminists who hate the word patriarchy – I decided to wash my hands off feminism. I met less resentment as exists within the british feminism – which is observational and passive, if not talking about rice workers in Africa – when I went out with the girls and slapped on some lipstick.
What is it with the infighting that makes feminism just as pleasant to ignore as sexism? We need a more comfortable movement and less of a culture based on herd mentality for feminism to actually work. Someone upstream mentioned the second wave just had a unity we don’t have. Who wrote the rules where we had to rage with each other about everything from tofu to weather applicable sandals?
P.s not aimed at you guys actually, this blog is nice for it’s relative sense of community and amazing, for it’s acknowledgement of the p.
Just my frustration that British feminism doesn’t have this – we have this edge to being anti- feminist instead.

If everyones Thank god there’s less of that overseas!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123202099

http://kateharding.net/2009/10/23/friday-fluff-take-back-the-diet-food/