Wonkette Syndrome
I wonder if Katherine Rake has been reading Wonkette.
Roll up, roll up, for a spot of that old favourite, feminist-bashing. Anyone can have a go, it’s easy. Trot out that readymade mythological figure of the dungaree-clad, scary, hairy and humourless feminist.
Don’t forget ‘fixated’ and ‘so angry’ – they go with the humourless bit. And as for rolling up – the comments are depressing. Actually they’re more like disgusting. And that’s at the Guardian! So men in the rest of the world are even more misogynist and contempt-filled – how encouraging.
And we now also have to contend with the hypersexualisation of our culture, a phenomenon that has developed and snowballed with hardly a murmur of dissent. Against a backdrop of ubiquitous images of women’s bodies as sex objects, rates of self-harm among young women are spiralling, eating disorders are on the rise, and plastic surgery is booming.
Well there’ve been quite a few murmurs of dissent from me, but I do my murmuring in such a quiet, genteel, whispery, mousy way that no one hears me, what with all that panting and grunting going on. I suppose it’s my karma.
I think there’s some tension there though, and I think it’s a tension you find in a lot of feminists. A bit of eating cake and having.
The stereotype of the mythological feminist, while ridiculous, is dangerous in that it gives the impression that feminism is first and foremost about how women should dress or whether they should wear make-up…Against a backdrop of ubiquitous images of women’s bodies as sex objects…
Well, which is it? It’s no good disavowing concern with how women should dress in one breath and then expressing concern with ubiquitous images of their bodies as sex objects with the other. The two are, unfortunately, linked. I myself have a Talibanish tendency to flinch when I see women ambling around the supermarket with their stomachs or buttocks or tits poking out, for precisely that kind of reason, a tendency which always causes me to ask despairingly why women can’t just wear clothes instead of either tents or bathing suits. I ask that question for feminist reasons, because I think it makes a difference to how everyone thinks of women – so I don’t think it’s much good pretending feminism isn’t concerned with that subject, even to suck up to the Wonkette crowd.
OB: “I myself have a Talibanish tendency to flinch when I see women ambling around the supermarket with their stomachs or buttocks or tits poking out, for precisely that kind of reason, a tendency which always causes me to ask despairingly why women can’t just wear clothes instead of either tents or bathing suits. I ask that question for feminist reasons, because I think it makes a difference to how everyone thinks of women…”
This seems to be rather confused. The Taliban is bad because it dictates that women should be concealed from head to toe.
BUT leaving women to dress they way they want — including exposing various and sundry bits — is also bad because it affects (adversely, presumably) how people think of women.
I don’t see how you can have it both ways! AND, in both cases, OTHER people (the Taliban or you) are dictating how the women dress.
The sensible thing is to — within health and safety constraints — let people dress as they like and stop worrying about how it affects how other people think.
How is Ophelia Benson trying to “dictate” the way some other women dress? And how is expressing an opinion about it tantamount to imposing draconian clothing requirements as the Taliban did?
>>And that’s at the Guardian! So men in the rest of the world are even more misogynist and contempt-filled – how encouraging.
No cause for alarm. The misogynist ranters at the Guardian barely represent anyone in the sane and sensible demographic. I’ve been reading their talkboards for 7 years and my boyfriend is now embarassed for me at dinner parties because I tend to froth a bit myself. Bad influence of the guardianistas. Really.
I’ve noticed 3 subjects in particular let loose all civilised restraints: Israel, Palestine and feminist issues (including child custody rights;mention Fathers for Justice just for fun, go on)
OB What strikes me about the bikini sticks drifting round shopping malls is that they don’t actaully feel remotely sexualised most of the time. Guys ogle; they shop. It’s just that that is the kit they have to wear, as dictated by advertising, peer pressure and their men. They’re prepared to put up with the discomfort of it all because ultimately there’s a materialist aspirational trade-off; rich husband, expensive car, private education for the kids, swimming pool to wear the bikini by…
Keith, that’s what I was saying, obviously. I was pointing to the fact that I realize my flinching is Talibanish; I realize there’s a tension; I realize I can’t have it both ways, or at least that it’s damn difficult.
“The sensible thing is to — within health and safety constraints — let people dress as they like and stop worrying about how it affects how other people think.”
No it isn’t. Because how people think about women has everything to do with how women are treated. It’s no good pretending it just doesn’t matter. There’s a real tension there, not an imaginary one.
Fathers for Justice
waits expectantly
Duh Ophelia. Not here. You have to do it in front of the ravenning hordes on CiF or GU.
Oh, shucks, mirax, I thought it would work anywhere. Darn.
Keith: “The sensible thing is to — within health and safety constraints — let people dress as they like and stop worrying about how it affects how other people think.”
OB: “No it isn’t. Because how people think about women has everything to do with how women are treated. It’s no good pretending it just doesn’t matter. There’s a real tension there, not an imaginary one.”
I wasn’t suggesting the tension was *imaginary*. I agree that there is a problem.
The problem exists because different people have different perspectives on what is, and is not, “proper” attire.
I was trying (but failing) to suggest that if *everyone* paid less attention to how people dressed, and more to what sort of person they were, the problem would decrease.
I was NOT suggesting that there is any realistic prospect of this happening on any sort of general, global basis.
Hope that clarifies the situation!
“The problem exists because different people have different perspectives on what is, and is not, “proper” attire.”
Well, no, I don’t think so, I think there’s a good deal more to it than that, and I’m not really talking about ‘proper’ attire anyway.
I mean, I would say one reason the, or a, problem exists can be summed up for instance by asking why it’s taken for granted that in skating, gymnastics and ballet men wear clothes and women wear bathing suits. Who made that rule? Why is it such a settled convention that in athletic activities of a certain kind and in performance art of a certain kind, women are supposed to be nearly naked while men are supposed to be fully clothed? Why do women almost never wear trousers for skating or gymnastics while men nearly always do? What is the meaning of that convention?
I’m always reading “let women dress how they want” but nobody ever seems to ask WHY they want to dress in a sexually titillating way. Yes, some of it is peer pressure and fashion mags, but isn’t the basic fact that they SEE THEMSELVES as sex objects, that’s the only kind of self worth some young girls seem able to conceive of. The answer is not to ban any type of clothing, but would it be possible to encourage girls to value themselves in other ways?
This is what I’m saying. Of course it’s not about banning, but it would be nice to encourage both sexes to value girls and women in other ways. I’m not going to hold my breath or anything, but I’m going to go on thinking it’s worth trying.
I was in a store today and I saw a piece of furniture labelled as a ‘boys’ toy chest’. Why? I guess because it was a ‘normal’ colour, i.e. blue and red, rather than pastel-pink… The day this society doesn’t have a problem with inequality between the sexes is the day that it is as normal for a 5-yr-old boy to wear a dress as it is for a 5-yr-old girl to wear jeans. C’est-a-dire, probably never. I’m raising my daughters to be ready to fight.
Yeah, or as a friend of mine likes to mutter darkly, when ‘Handsome and the Beast’ is as popular as ‘Beauty and the Beast’. She’s not holding her breath.