If you haven’t seen it, piny does a good take down of a post about transwomen at a popular liberal blog. I noted to piny yesterday that, what was also interesting, was the way that criticisms of transwomen are class coded. They fail as women because they represent a failure to achieve middle class decorum and respectability: they wear too much make up, their clothes are too flashy, their breasts too large, their hair is too big, etc. Others critical of Jen were upset by that, excusing their behavior for various reasons, but also acknowledging that some people just have bad role models for gender performance.
I found it curious that, even among disputants, no one really noticed that they agreed on one thing: that big, brazen, taking up spaceness as a woman == failure. That a certain kind of failure to be a woman was agreed, by everyone no matter what side, as acceptably defined as a failure to be a proper woman. Which is, ultimately, about failing to get the dominant message of what the range of proper gender performance is. In this convo, based on working class women and some women of colors criticisms on this issue, the failure is coded in way to point at class. The failure is a failure to conform to the range of acceptably middle class and white performances of womanhood. Hips are OK, just not brazenly swaying hips or big hips. Breast are OK, just not really big breasts. Hair’s OK, just not big hair. Don’t wear lots of make up — which is typically coded as a working class behavior. etc.
On a somewhat related note, there was a discussion on the Women’s studies listserve about Ariel Levy’s book, Female Chauvinist Pigs. Someone wondered if there were any published (online or otherwise) responses to Levy’s chapter on bois. Anyone know?
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