Photo by Marie C.
Recently while I was perusing my Tumblr I came across this post. At first I was just going to scroll past, but then I decided to actually stop and look at it.
When Were We Happy?
culture
Don’t Censor the Bush/The Politics of Pubes
Today I want to talk about pubes.
For many people, deciding how to groom their pubic hair is an issue fraught with anxiety, and women in particular are bombarded with images of completely smooth, hairless thighs and bikini lines that we are supposed to emulate and admire. We’re told to shave it, pluck it, wax it, sculpt it—it doesn’t really matter what method we use, as long as we’re rid of our unsightly hair. This standard is so pervasive that women’s pubic hair is now widely slandered as unhygienic (patently false), barbaric, and, above all, pornographic.
*pics of pubes after the cut* Continue reading
Entitled To Rape
An international coalition of researchers recently released the results of a study conducted throughout 6 Asian nations, China, Bangladesh, Cambodia. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Papua New Guinea. They surveyed over 10,000 men and the responses were startling (although, not really, but I refuse to ever become desensitised to rape statistics). The survey found that, on average, 1 in 10 men admitted to raping a woman who was not their partner and when partners were included, it was around 3 out of every 10 men. The researchers were careful to not use the word “rape” because then it just sounds wrong so they side-stepped around it by asking if they had ever forced a woman to have sex, ignored when she refused, or had sex with a woman who couldn’t consent (either she was drugged or too drunk). This allowed the men to be more candid. Of the men who acknowledged forced intercourse (bka. RAPE), over 40% said it was because they were angry or wanted to punish the woman and over 70% admitted that their reasoning was because of sexual entitlement. They felt entitled to have sex with women, any woman they chose, any woman they had access to. They were entitled. Entitled to someone else, who isn’t really anybody because all we are is a body. A body for sexual pleasures.
Shrinking Women
I recently came across a Youtube video entitled “Shrinking Women,” which is a piece of slam poetry written and performed by Lily Myers. It discusses the topic of bodies and the space they take up. I found this piece to be profound and it immediately reminded me of this course.
Women in Public ≠ Public Property *TW assault*
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the issue of women’s bodies being viewed as public property. From cat calls to groping, it seems that many men have a clear sense of entitlement to women’s bodies in public spaces. This way of thinking and acting is incredibly prevalent in our society, and the cultural encouragement of this behavior is especially disturbing. I recently watched several videos by Stuart Edge and Andrew Hales that completely condone this type of behavior by harassing women and then playing it off as a fun joke.
He called me a waste
The guy I went to prom with called me a waste the day I came out to him. He looked me in the eye and said this with a smile on his face as if it what he were proud of what he just said. This wasn’t the last time something like this had ever been said to me. On multiple occasions I have been called “selfish”, “unfair”, and “a waste” by a number of men because of my sexual orientation. And on every one of these occasions I ask them all the same question, “Why?”. Continue reading
Dysmorphic Friends
One of my closest friends is a fashion stylist. She chooses outfits, hair, makeup, and general looks or moods for photoshoots for natural makeup companies and independent designers. I have modelled for her in the past even though I am not a model and don’t look like a magazine model. I also model for my own Etsy store, selling vintage clothing. My friend has had eating disorders since puberty and I have not. I feel that her eating disorders are a sign of privilege and she feels that my “poverty genes” and post thyroid cancer synthetic metabolism are a sign of privilege. The arguments are frequent and comical.
I feel that it would be insulting to her profession and life’s path to say that her involvement with fashion feeds her disorder, so I often try to tell her eating disorders are a result of a sexist, competitive capitalism, a first world problem, and that if she stops aestheticizng the super young and super thin, wheat colored waify girls with vacant expressions, she won’t hold herself up for comparison to them. I tell her to keep her job but change her aesthetic, make it weirder, and I tell her she’s a misogynist. Then I go on like a hypocrite and smooth out my hair, put makeup on, and have my boyfriend shoot photos of me for Etsy, to make money. And I do make money. But recently, editing and cropping photos of myself, I feel like I look OOLLDD. So I call my friend and ask her for a disorder that will make me less old, less short, less frizzy, less dark, less tired. And there isn’t one. I’m really not sure what I’m aestheticising, but even though I’m perfectly happy with my weight I still feel the need to critically tear apart whatever I can about my own image, down to my assymetrical smile or uneven hair texture or slightly more almond shaped right eye than left one. Little little minute stupid details. All while knowing that I’m making this image public by my own free will, by my need to pay the bills and put gas in my car to get to school. Because those waify wheat colored girls are out there, and my tiny little capitalist enterprise is knowingly in competition with them, and growing up in the 80s and 90s, between Debbie Gibson and Kate Moss, I never felt that my features were pure or innocent, only exotic and “olive olive olive”, and now getting older.
Can a woman be this self-critical and also be a feminist?
Fed Up With Facebook
“Does she seriously think that she looks good???? Yuck”
“It’s like those ladies at the beach or pool who wear bikini’s and their fat it bulging out and yet they think they look good! Good enough to appear day after day like that! Ladies, think of how many eyes you are hurting!!! Lol.”
“She looks so ridiculous…cowhide, leather, beef jerkey, lost at sea…exactly. Attractive…NOT!!! She truly looks like she is in her sixties. Whether she actually brought the child into the tanning bed or not, she is a terrible role model. She needs some psychiatric help to get over that obsession with tanning.”
Although I am not the biggest fan of perpetuating harmful ideas in order to make a point, I am just about to do that. Even though I find the above comments repulsive and upsetting, I think it is important to pull them away from the Facebook context and to put them on here so that our blog readers can consider what they have been seeing on Facebook.
The above comments are in regards to the recent story about the mother who had her young daughter use a tanning bed even though it is against the law. I will be honest, I do not know a lot about this story, perhaps I would have read more about it if I hadn’t seen these comments on Facebook bashing her. I am not defending her actions, but I also want nothing to do with condemning her either, I don’t know her.
However….
If I were to take the route of acting like I know something about this woman, I would say that it does appear that she has some sort of disorder, maybe an addiction. If we look at the story through this perspective I wonder if these people who made the above comments would be saying the same kind of things. Let’s replace the addiction of tanning with alcohol. Would this public speculation even make sense anymore? Because of the physical marker of this disorder, people feel that they are able to openly comment of the “unsightly” nature of it. Then again, maybe these same people think alcoholics are disgusting too. The physical aspect of this disorder mixed with the chance to criticism a woman in her role of being a mother has created a Facebook freak show frenzy. How about we all do ourselves a favor and think before we post?
Do These Pants Make My Ass Look Bisexual?
Why does what I’m wearing define my sexual orientation? I’m a 22-year old female, and I often change the way I dress, even on a day-to-day basis. I may feel like wearing a tight skirt, heels, make-up, and jewelry and shaving my legs on Monday. On Tuesday I might wear sweatpants and a T-shirt and throw my hair in a messy bun, and on Wednesday I may wear a baggy pair of guy’s jeans with paint stains on them, a tank top, and skater shoes but do my hair in a cute way. I enjoy dressing in any way that makes me feel comfortable, and I usually do.
But recently, I got a girlfriend, and even though I dress the same way I’ve always dressed, with my same unique style I’ve always had, I’ve heard some interesting comments, even from people that I know care about me and aren’t trying to be offensive. But if I’m dressed up (and meet society’s beauty standards) I’ll hear people say things like “Are you really a lesbian?” or “I don’t understand how you’re gay” and when I dress down, or “more like a guy” I hear “You’re such a lesbian.”
And I’m not even a lesbian! I’m bisexual!
I feel as though society often judges people as being gay or straight based on what they’re wearing. A recent conversation with my (straight, male) roommates went like this:
Roommate 1: “What are you wearing?”
Me: “Jeans.”
Roommate 2: “She has a girlfriend, she can wear what she wants.”
Roommate 1: “She’s only half-gay.”
Me: “What does that have to do with it?”
Roommate 1: “Well sometimes you dress like the straight half.”
First off, I consider myself a hundred percent gay and a hundred percent straight, and I hate it when people call me “half gay.” It’s not like I find women attractive half the time; I find attractive PEOPLE attractive ALL the time. Second, how come I can only wear “whatever I want” because I have a girlfriend? It’s not like my girlfriend dresses me. Could I wear girls’ jeans if I was a lesbian? Could I wear guys’ jeans if I was straight? Why are my roommates only saying things now? Don’t the same rules apply now as when I was single? Or am I “more gay” when I have a girlfriend?
It’s also weird to me that clothes can make you look gay (“He’s totally gay, look at his pants.” “I can’t tell if he’s gay or if he just dresses really well…” “She looks like a dyke in those pants.”) or even make you look straight (“Can you believe he’s gay? He dresses so straight!”) but I have never heard of clothes making you look bisexual. If bisexuality, homosexuality, and heterosexuality are all valid sexual orientations, why don’t our clothes make us look bisexual? Where can I buy pants that make me look like I date boys and girls?
Can I be a feminist and still wear lipstick?
Have any women out there felt a conflict or contradiction between their feminist identity and desire to adorn their bodies? That is, can I shave my legs and simultaneously protest patriarchy? I know of many women (including myself) who have struggled with this and similar questions. In a culture so rampant with images of plucked, primped and worked-out women and men, it’s sometimes hard for me to decide if I want to display my feminist protest on my body or wear pretty clothes, shoes and jewelry.
When I read Gala Darling’s post “Am I A Hypocrite For Professing Radical Self Love While Wearing 5 Inch Heels?” or “Can you call yourself a feminist and still wear lipstick?” I was thrilled to read her take on these very questions. As a woman who blogs about fashion and style and who also boasts a “Radical Self-Love Bootcamp” program, Gala Darling’s work may seem to contradict itself. So she asks the million-dollar question about lipstick and feminism, and raises very good points about bodies, body adornment and our selves.
Gala points out that when we (women and men alike) display our bodies the way society wants us to, we are rewarded for this behavior. This could be by wearing makeup, stylish clothing, shaving, etc. Gala calls this “beauty” privilege.” Beauty privilege can be as simple as a smile from the person ringing up your groceries! In a lot of ways it’s easy and comfortable to conform to beauty standards when you can in order to access beauty privilege. Of course, not all bodies have equal access to this privilege. It is overwhelmingly easier for able bodies, thin bodies and white bodies to access beauty privilege. Access to money helps beauty privilege too!
Further on the subject of beauty and feminism Gala explains, “I’ve spent some time recently thinking about “beauty” & trying to reconcile that with truthful feelings about myself. A major & difficult piece of the puzzle is that none of us grew up totally free from societal influence, & so it is almost impossible to separate what we really want from what we think we want…. The place I keep coming back to is that even when I recognise that my ideas of beauty have been passed down to me from society, it doesn’t feel good to me when I choose to deny myself something which provides me with genuine enjoyment….
Gala argues that body adornment is akin to art. People are attracted to aesthetically pleasing objects, whether natural or manufactured, and enjoy being surrounded by them. Of course there is variety in peoples’ tastes, but I think it’s fair to say that most of us like having pretty things around us!
She further notes that “wanting to feel beautiful does not make you a bad feminist or a bad woman. It does not mean that you are being oppressed or that you lack the ability to think for yourself. Wanting to adorn ourselves is natural & normal — very few of us live in houses that are all function & no form, & while we COULD all drive boxy Volvos, the truth is that most of us are attracted to beauty — however we choose to define it.”
Lastly, I found this point quite persuasive: “Some women say that if we wear lipstick, we’re only doing it because society has told us to. I would argue that the woman who tries to buck society by NOT wearing lipstick is just as influenced! No one exists in a vacuum, & almost all of our decisions are effected by external sources.”
I find Gala Darling’s discussion of beauty, bodies and feminism quite persuasive. I like wearing clothes that flatter my shape. I like having smooth legs and putting glittery eyeshadow around my eyes. I love earrings and bracelets. This doesn’t make me less of a feminist, right? What are your thoughts?
Unruly Bodies 