So: Don’t like Bitch Lab? Join the club, and don’t read her. Read the women she rips off instead. They’re better.
04-27-2006
Just go ahead and bitch
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[...] Right now, since I don’t want to make a massive post from hell, I’ll just address what Bitch | Lab had to say: I don’t think young folks believe it — though it may still exist — but there was pressure on feminists to wear a kind of uniform. Anyone who wore make up or a dress? She had to have a really good fucking reason to get away with it and it would only be something temporary — like making your parents happy for their yearly visit. Your car should be appripriately “green†or a Volvo. Certainly not a beat up Plymouth that I had to crawl into from the passenger side. [...]
Definition - A Feminist Weblog » Eyeliner and Essentialism in Feminist Theory
[...] Right now, since I don’t want to make a massive post from hell, I’ll just address what Bitch | Lab had to say: I don’t think young folks believe it — though it may still exist — but there was pressure on feminists to wear a kind of uniform. Anyone who wore make up or a dress? She had to have a really good fucking reason to get away with it and it would only be something temporary — like making your parents happy for their yearly visit. Your car should be appripriately “green†or a Volvo. Certainly not a beat up Plymouth that I had to crawl into from the passenger side. [...]
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Thank you so much for this post.
I’ve been attacking social constructionist theory with regard to gender and gendervariance from the “demonstrably untrue” angle, and sometimes from the “deeply unjust and burdensome” angle, but you’ve written a theoretical response.
1) There are also men who wear liner and heels, and more who would do so were it not for the pesky patriarchal dictates
2) Tsk-tsking other women for what they wear is pretty fucking patriarchy-derived in my book, not to mention creepy and annoying
3) If someone disapproves of my fashion choices and wishes to let me know that I flunk the feminism (or whatever) test because of ‘em, in the immortal words of Molly Ivins, “I have always felt free to say, in my politically correct feminist fashion, ‘Fuck off.’”
Oh, I should have been clear: I don’t think earlebecke was making judgments on the fashions themselves. I think she’s not keen on claims that people are doing it without being influenced by sexist ideals of attractiveness.
And, give me some time, I’ll tell you about what the het men do around here. Where there’s a lot more skin showing, these guys have been under pressure to do all kinds of stuff to look good. men have a lot more freedom to escape judgment and still beconsidered men, which women don’t have.
if I go out looking like a, uh, hag. i don’t look like a woman. A man just looks like a slob, which is, by definition, a man. :)
A fair and thought-provoking response.
I think we agree more than we disagree. :) I’m really not sure what the answers are and I realize that people being completely free of all outside influences is an ideal that’s not really achieveable, and…I’m not sure if it’s an ideal to shoot for anyway. I both embrace the idea that individuals need to be able to express whatever they feel their true self to be, while also recognizing there is no truly separate self, since we’re the product of so many things (idealogically, culturally, biologically) that are outside of ourselves. I don’t really claim to have the answers, but that won’t stop me from at least pointing out what I think are problems.
The only thing I really take issue with is feminist women who claim that women are completely free to make whatever choice they want and that social pressure doesn’t exist (in any area of life, but especially in regards to physical appearance) — when it obviously does. I don’t think it’s impossible to freely choose to do something which happens to resemble the dominant cultural norm for one’s own reasons…but I do think it’s difficult to reach that state, and I do think that many of the people whose immediate knee-jerk reaction is “WELL I’M NOT LIKE THAT SO THERE” are in denial or at least being disingenuous.
And where I differ from what I see from a lot of radfem bloggers who say similar things is that they often seem to be condemning the women who choose to do whatever they disagree with (wearing makeup, being submissive, dressing sexy, etc). I think it’s unfortunate free choice doesn’t exist, but I don’t think it’s wrong of people to do something that I wouldn’t personally do or something I see as problematic from a feminist standpoint. I really hope I didn’t come off that way.
@earlebecke
actually, when I read it again, i realized I should have been more clear about your views. I took the lazy way out and linked to your essay, without emphasizing that you didn’t want to make judgements about what women wore. Instead, you were complaining about the rather typically US response to get all individualistic: “*I* am not influenced by social structure.”
But this is, of course, a silly response, not just because it’s difficult to escape being influenced by the fact that, if you wore a bathing suit and, like my best friend J, didn’t shave, you’d have to hang out at the Memorial day picnic with my wasband having a hard time not staring because he was grossed out and me bitching at him saying, “For millenia men fucked women who didn’t shave.” (and silently to myself b/c who wants to hurt feelings: what about the hair on your back, dude! while you might find embarassing, no one questions your manhood! In fact, you can make jokes about your super-hairy manhood!)
anyway, my point would also be that, even if you are rejecting the dominant society’s views about hairy legs (or whatever) and saying ‘fuck’em’, then this is still being shaped by society.
you get the attitude of ‘fuckem’ in the first place by living in this society and coming to appreciate people who say fuckem. Hell, some women? I lust for them, my only fetish. I still think of the waitress, Maria, who could say ‘fuckem’ with the best of ‘em with a cigarette dangling from her mouth, eyes squintyfrom the smoke, telling me how to tell customers off with one line put downs.
hmmm. well, i’m rambling and the coffee pot is almost empty!
Thanks for the props! And thanks for this post, too. I love your analogy of peanut butter sandwiches and knapsacks. Sometimes I find it difficult to identify why social constructionism is so evil (even though I knowit is) and this helps a lot.
There’s a radical feminist lesbian academic at my uni who gives a lecture on lesbiansim as part of her “Sexual Politics” class. As part of the lecture, she would cite a list of the things that lesbians do not do: ie, wear make-up, short skirts, high heels, anything too butch, leather, rubber, vinyl, etc. It became something of a sport, I hear (this was before my time) for dykes on campus to turn up to this lecture every year wearing the proscribed outfits and stand up in a line as she said all this. Meanwhile, her uniform consisted of jeans and lavender/green/white baggy sweaters. It’s an almost ironic, hyperreal example of that fantasy of being outside fantasy/ideology.
[...] Right now, since I don’t want to make a massive post from hell, I’ll just address what Bitch | Lab had to say: I don’t think young folks believe it — though it may still exist — but there was pressure on feminists to wear a kind of uniform. Anyone who wore make up or a dress? She had to have a really good fucking reason to get away with it and it would only be something temporary — like making your parents happy for their yearly visit. Your car should be appripriately “green†or a Volvo. Certainly not a beat up Plymouth that I had to crawl into from the passenger side. [...]
[...] Right now, since I don’t want to make a massive post from hell, I’ll just address what Bitch | Lab had to say: I don’t think young folks believe it — though it may still exist — but there was pressure on feminists to wear a kind of uniform. Anyone who wore make up or a dress? She had to have a really good fucking reason to get away with it and it would only be something temporary — like making your parents happy for their yearly visit. Your car should be appripriately “green†or a Volvo. Certainly not a beat up Plymouth that I had to crawl into from the passenger side. [...]