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 , 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. 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. 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.
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.
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?! 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 practices”. 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? 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. 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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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!
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. 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. You win, Vi.
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.
the stupidity of her mainstream detractors.
*blink* Where did I say this?
, by a blogger I respect, probably best sums up how I feel on the issue. 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.
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.
post, by a blogger I respect, probably best sums up how I feel on the issue.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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?
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. 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.
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. 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. 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.) My mistake. I didn t note what you were replying to and therefore misread what you said.
Apologies.
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.
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.
Maybe if radfems didn t insist on denying transpeople recognition, they could work together. I imagine it s pretty hard, however, to work with someone while pretending they re not real.
Oh, sorry.
One more.
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.
Well, you ve got me.
I tried to mask my secret as a critique of your approach. The truth is, I just want discord.
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.
I went out of my way to link back to your post and delineate your statements from my responses to them. I don t see what else I could have done. I assure you, I have no interest in conflating my thoughts with yours.
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.
I grasped the intention of your post; it was grand.
It does not make you immune to criticism. Not everyone who does not agree with everything you had to say is opposed to common ground and dialog.
If you re so interested in dialog, you might consider actually engaging with my criticisms of your post.
Wow, that s quite an outpouring all round. And thank you, anacas, for the steer towards Beemyn, which I ll see if I can find. I do definitely see a generational difference in the transfolk I know as far as mainstreaming issues go, and would like to read more about it.
While I agree wholeheartedly that taking action against misogyny is necessary no matter the gender of the misogynist, I have found for my own part that I haven t yet sourced a path of action that works for me in this particular instance: I know how to deal with misogynist men (i.e., boot to the head), and I deal differently with misogynist women, but I don t really know yet, even on a case-by-case basis, how to deal with FTM misogyny.
Even the weed-common practice of requiring/expecting a femme s femininity to reinforce or validate FTM masculinity is seriously stomach-turning for me. Communicating that, however, hasn t worked out so well.
And on a final personal note: I love my trans friends and family.
Sometimes I m angered by their behavior or saddened by their choices and goodness knows that s not limited to my trans friends, by any means but yes, loving them muchly. 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.
The problem with both is the same: tricking men who think they have a right to sex.
Trans activists on board with going to the source of prostitution s many harms are my allies, as is anyone willing to challenge men s sense of entitlement to sex and the sexual slavery of roughly 90% of prostituted people needed to meet men s voracious demands for bodies to sexually (ab)use. I do not care what gender, race, sexual orientation or species someone is so long as they re willing to focus attention on the problem s source, tricking men. I ve found most all trans activists are big on patria-capitalism s edict of making human sexual interactions money-exchanging transactions.
Sandinista, do you see that tricking men are the source of prostitution s problems or are you stuck where most people are in trying to build better prostitutes as if there s something wrong with prostitutes that needs fixing while tricks demands are unchangeable?
Maybe if radfems didn’t insist on denying transpeople recognition, they could work together.
Oh please; and everything amananta posted on the subject.
I m in Oregon s medical marijuana program and have been for several years. I m under no obligation to pay my caregiver for growing medicine but I help out because it s time and money consuming.
I had five male caregivers over 3 years and each of them was unreliable.
One man up and stole growing equipment from me and then disappeared, another got into the Mayo clinic and so left abruptly, another was always late and flakey about appointments, etc. Believing in try women for a change , I decided to ask the Oregon medical marijuana community if there was a woman who would like to be my caregiver.
After a few dolts saying I was sexist for asking for a woman caregiver, I got an email from Gabby .
Gabby told me she has lived most of her 20-something life as a man but in the past few months was taking over-the-counter hormones and dressing everyday as a woman. She had a wife and had no plans for surgery as of yet. Gabby asked if I would accept her invitation to be my caregiver despite not being a woman-born-woman.
I did.
I did because I was open to seeing if she would meet my needs and how the experience would differ from the five male caregivers. Gabby has been the best caregiver the past two years, reliable despite only growing for her wife and me in their apartment.
She is a great cook who has made me marijuana ice cream, cookies, vodka infusions, sweet cream and other goodies. I asked for a woman and I accepted Gabby for the woman she says she is, but I do not forget that she lived as a man lives in this patriarchal world of ours for the majority of her life and that education cannot be undone.
I doubt you could find another instance of an anti-pornstitution radical feminist specifically accepting a transwoman as a woman than this example.
First of all, you didn t accept her as a woman. You just made a point of saying that her prior socialization as a man cannot be done. (If education cannot be undone then I can t help but wonder why the hell you d bother with radfem at all.
)
Second of all, if you doubt I could find another instance of radfem acceptance of a transwoman, then why are you oh please -ing me several paragraphs up? Luckynkl: 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.
Ummm, sex is static?
Have you taken high school biology?
Pseudohermaphroditism: Usually the result of endocrine or enzymatic defect in persons with normal chromosomes; female pseudohermaphrodites have masculine-looking genitals but are XX; male pseudohermaphrodites have rudimentary testes and external genitals and are XY; assigned as males or females, depending on morphology of genitals.
There are also cases of Turner s syndrome, Klinefelter s syndrome (genotype XXY), Androgen insensitivity syndrome, hermaphroditism etc.
Recent findings point to a difference in the brain of male to female transsexuals. In a postmortem sample of 6, the red nucleus corresponded in size to that of typical females rather than of typical males; independent of whether the male transsexual was heterosexual or homosexual.
How should I take your avoidance of my question regarding prostitution?
My instincts and experience say you re of the build more rape-resistant hookers mindset instead of the build less rapist men one, but if you could confirm one way or the other it would be swell.
First of all, you didn’t accept her as a woman. You just made a point of saying that her prior socialization as a man “cannot be done.
”
The two are not mutually exclusive. I also accepted a formerly prostituted woman into my intimate life without forgetting the lifetime of abuse at the hands and other appendages of men that went into making her who she was, and I m guessing she didn t forget my life experiences and how they affected my behavior in the relationship either.
If education cannot be undone then I can’t help but wonder why the hell you’d bother with radfem at all.
Because education doesn t stop, it continues every day. There are sexisms inculcated in woman-born-woman me I ll spend the rest of my life trying to expunge with varying degrees of success that will never add up to 100 percent.
I doubt a more precise example of a radical feminist specifically asking for a woman and accepting a transwoman as the woman asked for can be found.
Gabby was not a lover of mine who decided to transition or a friend, coworker, or relative I would otherwise accept for the sake of the existing relationship. She was a person who responded to my request for a woman marijuana caregiver and who I accepted on the conditions I had set in my search for a woman marijuana caregiver.
I call her the name she wants me to use instead of what s on our shared documentation and I use the pronoun she prefers.
I stand up for her equal rights as I would for anyone and get pissed off about men s violence and exploitation of transgendered women in prostitution; I ve never known a transgendered man prostituting. What more do you expect of me before rethinking the transhater label you slap indiscriminantly on radical feminists? Slashy, your name reminded me of something that was going on in the Financial District of San Francisco in the mid-70s.
Women stopped going to the restrooms alone because there was a slasher who would wait in a stall, reach under the partition and slice and dice women s legs with a big knife. I don t think they ever caught him and there was theory that he might have been dressing as a woman.
Just for the record, I do not fear or hate these psychologically damaged boys.
I pity them. I do hate that professionals can say they are able to magically turn these pitiful guys in a woman. As I said before, they should lose their license to practice medicine by praying on and profiting off the mental problems of these unfortunates.
Unfortunate as concerns their mental state that is. But, I note they took advantage of being able to make manmoney in order to be able to afford these pricey procedures that are not covered by insurance. Mar Iguana, my name on this blog is derived from the term slash used in fanfiction to refer to same-sex sex contained within (as in m/m, f/f).
My life contains a great deal of same-sex sex, so it seemed appropriate.
I will continue to be involved in vibrant queer feminist communities that fight patriarchal oppression side by side with heteronormativity and gender oppression. I will continue to welcome my trans sisters into my communities of women, and I will continue to remain supportive and welcoming of my trans brothers in the queer community.
Your hateful language (yes, hateful- pity ? Damaged ?) will not impact me at all, except to make me sad that there are people so utterly committed to policing the boundaries of gender normativity, even in a community committed to fighting for more options than the limitations patriarchy imposes.
I will continue to be thrilled that there are people like Sandinista, anacas, CannibalFemme company who will continue to broaden what it means to be a feminist beyond the confines of transphobia.
I needed to say those things because for a second, reading such utter hatefulness from fellow feminists was kind of getting me down. Slashy: dunno what you go by in the fanfic world, but I ll go ahead and out myself as Aristide.
Howdy!
On the trans issue: this has been one hell of an eye-opening conversation. In the communities I inhabit (San Francisco/Los Angeles and in between), there are close ties between queer activism, feminist activism, and trans activism at least, the activism I ve been a part of.
There has only just recently been any sort of question or focus regarding whether some trans dynamics interfere with a queer or feminist identity, and there has been a significant backlash against even asking these questions.
My gut feelings on this are intersectional: oppression is oppression for me, whether it s sexism or racism or classism or homophobia or fatphobia or ageism, or transphobia. But of all of those I just mentioned, the only one that I am conscious and I would stress conscious here of carrying, internally or externally, is trans resentment, which would have to qualify as transphobia.
And it doesn t matter to me that my resentment is limited to specific individuals and/or dynamics, because the bottom line is that I m sick of carrying this resentment around. It feels wrong especially in comparison to the rest of my rage, which feels oh-so-right.
I think I just clued in to what several people here have already said yes, I m slow, it s a side effect of my complete lack of formal education and figured out that it s entirely possible to divorce my resentment from transfolk, because what I truly resent is patriarchal behavior, and that s always going to be true.
Duh. Sorry for the ramble, all. well, yeah, but where would you classify women who were born with uterine issues?
or (god forbid) get injured before menarche, or who, for any other reason, never menstruated, or who, for any other reason, never ran the risk of getting pregnant? are they men?
on one hand, I see what you re saying about common experience among women as unifying force.
But what about that runner in India who was stripped of her medal after a genetic test revealed she had more Y chromosomes than were allowed ? she s assumedly lived her whole life as a woman-born-woman except not, apparently. where would you classify her?
Hi Salty,
To trans-activists, trannies are everything and women are nothing.
Feels good to the female-born trans-groupies because it gives them a chance to focus intense rage on other women while claiming to be feminist.
Same as the Ess and Emm freaks who do this from within feminism.
Of course, they get all the cred from male liberals and further distort the public image of feminism to female-born women.
As for the rest, you’re quibbling over the edges of the bell curve,
I suppose that is certainly possible.
however, I m not sure I d surrender so easily if I was one of those women with non-functioning, damaged or absent reproductive organs.
I don t expect so.
IS it bigotry to say that being born with a uterus is special? That being targetted by anti-choice legislation is special?
That dealing with a late period, a missed period, a good period, a bad period, is special? And deciding whether to keep it or not is special? And that never having one in the first place can not be replaced with pretending to know what it’s like to be marked by having had one?
seemed to indicate that you thought that the shared experience of dealing with the female reproductive system was the defining factor in whether one could be considered female.
but I was confused, apparently. thanks for the clarification.
hedonistic Dec 18th, 2006 at 10:29 am
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.
This, when said to someone who has been assaulted in a bathroom, smacks strongly of get over it. Fuck, that makes me mad.
I like to be an inclusive feminist.
However, when it comes to the personal safety of women, I m ready to exclude anybody and everybody.
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