kaityjoe-deactivated20140207 asked: I'm saying that when a woman decides for herself she finds certain traditionally 'feminine' things empowering (heels, makeup, bras, being a housewife, etc), talking over her and telling her how her choices aren't ~truly feminist~ is not feminist!
apparentlyevil-deactivated20150:
we do not decide what does and does not give us power in society
it’s not a matter of choice or feelings it is the reality of the social systems we live in
it doesn’t matter if you find something empowering - whether or not that thing gives women power is an objective fact, and furthermore if something gives one woman power but is disenfranchising to another, or is not available to another, that’s not feminist empowerment at all, that’s the way the patriarchy plays favourites with women who comply
I may feel empowered by high heels and makeup because it means I am taken more seriously in the workplace, but that means women who do not comply with these standards are inversely disempowered
so either:
a) feminism only empowers some women (the compliant) or,
b) choosing compliance is not a feminist action
“so either:
a) feminism only empowers some women (the complaint) or,
b) choosing compliance is not a feminist action”
Not only is this a false binary, it’s an extremely unhelpful one, because you’ve completely ignored the fact that patriarchal expectations for women are based on the inherent and interrelated devaluation of both women themselves and anything deemed feminine, such that avoiding one half of the stigma – say, by decrying make-up and motherhood – doesn’t magically exempt you from the other. The patriarchy devalues all women at a fundamental level, so that when you talk about how it can “play favourites” with compliant women and define their “compliance” only by their acceptance of certain traditionally feminine behaviours, you conveniently ignore the fact that another and equally common expression of patriarchal favouritism is to value women only insofar as they shun femininity and emulate masculine ideals. This is why the narrative of female exceptionalism, wherein women are rewarded for being “not like other girls” precisely because they publicly decry the frivolous trappings of traditional femininity, is an equally pernicious expression of patriarchal bias: it values women only insofar as they rise above the handicap of being women by trying to emulate men.
What this means, in essence, is that while the patriarchy might certainly “play favourites” with women who conform to traditional gender roles, it still ultimately devalues those women for confirming to this lower opinion of women generally – just as it devalues men who venture into traditioninally feminine spheres, or who exhibit stereotypically feminine behaviours, for resembling women. So if women who dare to find empowerment in traditionally feminine occupations are being inherently unfeminist for conforming to patriarchal expectations? Then so are you, when you let the patriarchy determine what types of womanhood you should or shouldn’t value, because you’re engaging in the automatic disparagement of a certain kind of unacceptable womanhood using parameters laid down by a patriarchal division of gender roles. The only difference is that you’re getting a pat on the head from a slightly different type of sexist – one who devalues women because of their foolish obsession with traditionally feminine things, rather than one who devalues women because of their uppity refusal to be feminine.
Because that’s how the patriarchy works for women: we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. Whatever rules we adhere to, whatever customs we subvert, so long as the patriarchy exists, there’s always going to be some sexist asshat lining up to tell us what good girls we are, for not being like those other girls, even if we never sought or wanted their approval. That being so, the most important thing we can do as feminists isn’t to slap other women down for doing something that some sexist, somewhere, might praise them for – it’s to state, loudly and clearly, that whatever it is we’re doing is for ourselves; to remind the patriarchy and its adherents that, even if we choose to practise monogamy, marry young and be stay at home mothers to a whole bunch of children, we’re not doing it for them, or to conform to anyone else’s notion of compliant, acceptable womanhood: we’re doing it because we have the right to choose those things, and because it’s what we want.
Which isn’t to say that we should completely ignore the context of our actions, either historically or in terms of how they impact on other women. No matter how fiercely we might argue for the feminist reclamation of traditionally feminine activities – like wearing make-up, for instance – or say that, in our case, we’re doing it for ourselves, as a form of empowerment, if the vast majority of us still end up doing the very thing society most wants us to do in a way which, to the casual observer, is indistinguishable from willing compliance with the traditional gender binary, then yeah: there’s a problem. After all, we’re all still the products of our cultural raising, and with so much baggage to sort through, it’s no wonder some things are harder to shed than others. But the way to try and fight back isn’t to police women’s actions and motives ever more fiercely from the opposite direction: it’s to refute the patriarchal assertion that traditionally feminine occupations and activities are inherently lesser so profoundly that they cease to be both stigmatised and gendered, and become merely different, gender-neutral options for ANYONE, of ANY gender, to choose from.
Because the thing about fighting the gender binary is that it, too, is fundamentally false. If the patriarchy tells us that the world is divided into two different boxes occupied by two different groups – Women in the Feminine box, and Men the Masculine box – then the way to defeat it isn’t to accept their premise by making feminism all about moving Women into the Masculine box and criticising anyone who tries to stay behind, or straddle the divide, or otherwise do anything to suggest that the Feminine box isn’t wholly worthless simply because most occupants of the Masculine box have always claimed it is. No: it’s to say, Matrix-like, that there are no boxes; that what we really have is, on the one hand, a bunch of personality traits, activities and occupations that can be combined in varying ways and, on the other, a diverse group of people to do the combining. I don’t want to build a future where women are only valued if they eschew high heels, eyeliner and short skirts, but one where such affectations are so divorced from notions of gender and worthiness that they’re equally marketed to and worn by men AND women as a matter of course.
But if we set feminism up in opposition to traditional femininity, then my future never happens, because the current occupants of the Masculine box have no incentive to stray outside their patriarchal parameters. All we end up doing is telling them the same thing they’ve always heard and, largely believed: that Masculine is not only better, but incompatible with Feminine. And if that happens – if feminism decides that the only way to escape the patriarchy is to demonise the feminine – then we’ve already lost; because even if we’ve forced a last-minute change in the game, we’re still letting them set the rules.
THIS IS BRILLIANT. Thank you Foz!!!!
this is a really good example of someone completely missing the point of a conversation and basically coming in at the end of it and saying “you’re wrong and here’s a list of points I agree with you on but I’ll make it look like we disagree by saying you believe things that anyone who spent more than 30 seconds on your blog would know”
so yeah thanks a lot for the gendercation Foz really looking forward to the bs that will end up in my ask as a result
Look, I’m sorry if the entire spectrum of your feminism and associated beliefs wasn’t evident to me on the basis of a single post - one I encountered after it was reposted by someone else, rather than as part of your blog - but I don’t think I’ve done anything but respond to what you’ve literally said. I haven’t “tried to make it look like we disagree” for shits and giggles, or out of some perverse desire to be contrary: you said a thing, and I disagreed with it. That’s all. That doesn’t mean I might not agree with you about other things, and if there’s some overarching context I’ve missed that explains how your remarks here mean the exact opposite of what they seem to say on their own, then I’d be happy to give it a read, but given that your post was both responding to a clear, specific statement from someone else and didn’t make any obvious reference to an existing conversation, it didn’t seem unreasonable for me to respond without looking through your entire blog for context cues for other ways to interpret it.
And for the record, I don’t condone anyone sending you stupid shit in your ask box. I get enough of that myself, and it’s not fun. But trying to blame me in advance for the actions of total strangers, because I responded to a thing you said? Yeah, no: it doesn’t work like that.
you didn’t respond to what I literally said, you responded to that imaginary anti-femininity post about how women shouldn’t wear heels and how the patriarchy doesn’t devalue femininity you know that one I wrote in your head
for someone who calls themselves a writer you sure as hell can’t read please don’t comment on any more of my posts your snarky “apology” and “pat on the head” horse shit has pissed me off beyond belief ugh fuck right off please
In response to someone arguing that “when a woman decides for herself she finds certain traditionally ‘feminine’ things empowering (heels, makeup, bras, being a housewife etc) talking over her and telling her how her choices aren’t ~truly feminist~ is not feminist”, you said:
“it doesn’t matter if you find something empowering… if something gives one woman power but is disenfranchising to another, or is not available to another, that’s not feminist empowerment at all, that’s the way the patriarchy plays favourites with women who comply.
“I may feel empowered by high heels and makeup… but that means women who do not comply with these standards are inversely disempowered”
and then concluded by positing an either/or between the idea that EITHER feminism empowers only women who comply by embracing traditional femininity, OR that choosing to comply with traditional femininity isn’t a feminist action.
That is literally what you said. Your words. Your context. If you didn’t mean to define compliance only as adherence to traditional femininity, that’s not evident from what you’ve written, because it’s the only example of “complaint” behaviour either you or the questioner provides. The questioner has directly challenged the idea that “traditionally 'feminine’ things” - her words! - is inherently unfeminist, and you have disagreed with her, concluding that “compliant” femininity is the opposite of feminism. Contextually, when you talk about how something that “gives one woman power but is disenfranchising to another… [is]not feminist empowerment at all”, there is zero reason for a reader to suppose you’re talking about anything other than the specific, traditionally feminine examples given in the original question: heels, makeup, bras and being a housewife. And even if your intention here was to reference everything and anything that might give power to some women but not others? That covers literally everything women might find powerful, up to and including feminism itself, because women are not a goddamn hivemind. Which is why, rather than assume you were saying something that made no argumentative sense, I inferred from context that you were referring explicitly and exclusively to traditional femininity.
When you first responded to me, you didn’t try to unpick or deconstruct what I’d written, or explain how I’d misinterpreted you: instead, you complained that what you really meant would be obvious if I read the rest of your blog. And that might well be true: the more we know about someone, the more we’re inclined to give their intentions the benefit of the doubt. But as I’ve said elsewhere, over and over and over again, intention is not a magical get out of jail free card that trumps the literal content of what you’ve written. If someone says something problematic while meaning to be supportive, then they’ve still been problematic, and if so, no one else is obliged to try and privilege their intentions over the outcome when assessing what was said.
Whether you meant to write something about how traditional femininity is anti-feminist or not, that’s what you’ve literally done. I’m not grasping at straws to interpret your words that way, I’m not making up some alternate version of your post and responding to it instead: contextually, that’s what happened. But if that’s not what you believe otherwise – if you intended to say something different – then I’m sorry, but the problem isn’t with my reading ability.
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