I promise we’ll get to blow jobs and corsets and heels directly, but let’s get there by way of football.
I like football. Unfortunately, football’s a piggish industry filled with awful men. “Sexism” often doesn’t begin to describe the attitudes, actions, and codes of players and coaches at all levels. With wave after wave of stories like the Katie Hnida and rape scandals at CU, anyone who watches football and doesn’t admit its flaws does so for one of three reasons: 1) ignorance, 2) a preference for sexism, or 3) denial.
You all agree football’s pretty fucked up from a feminist perspective, right? I should probably give it up. In fact, that attitude is what motivates reason #3 above: a number of men probably refuse to think about this stuff because they worry that acknowledging football’s sexism would mean they’d have to give it up.
Maybe you’d prefer it if all men, especially all feminist supporters, dumped football. But I doubt you expect it to happen. Given that, I suspect you at least want football fans to have an awareness of its failings and talk about them openly. By accusing the football industry of sexism, people expect to combat denial and ignorance, not empty the stadiums.
Why don’t some people understand the same thing is true of critiquing BJs, sporsets, and high heels?
Okay, maybe we can expect to dump the damn sports corset thing. It just came out and there’s a small chance that ripping it publicly will prevent people from purchasing one. Other than that, I doubt those who examine the root causes and/or effects of BJs and high heels actually expect the world to boycott them. They might prefer it, just like football haters might prefer its demise, but at a minimum, they at least hope to have an honest discussion of their shortcomings.
This is why I can’t abide comments like this from Bitch|Lab at Pandagon:
The problem is, she doesn’t do what everyone expects next, where she is supposed to stop giving blow jobs to a man she loves or stop participating in the patriarchy’s conditioned social roles.
Now, this came on a thread about a woman’s misunderstanding about her own oral rape, but B|L’s misfire perfectly illustrates a major falsehood to which people cling: criticizing an aspect of something you enjoy means I expect you to give it up.
The blogger ACG at Perfectly Harmless linked to Kyso’s post on RandomBird and the sporset, but her real target was BJ Inflamist Twisty, who took the sports corset to task.
ACG opened with this:
It’s time for me to come out and admit it. I’m a pro-choice, feminist, seventy-percent-of-a-man-doing-the-same-job-earning tool of the patriarchy. I support easily accessible birth control and sex education, I have no problem with gay marriage, I live on my own, I handle my own finances, and I am a tool of the patriarchy. Because I like looking cute, and that is just plain unacceptable.
Sigh. Boy, “I like looking cute, and that is just plain unacceptable” sure beats the strawfem, doesn’t it? Funny that ACG would later say:
But posts like Twisty’s only feed into the image of the Strawfeminist by attacking the significant percentage of women who firmly support feminist values but see no conflict between those values and basic aesthetic preferences.
For the record, Twisty delivered a concise, albeit damning, description of the roots of feminine appearance:
Femininity—that set of self-absorbed, self-defeating behaviors required of women by the dominant culture to ensure a ready-steady supply of submissive sexbot availability—is central to the empowerful woman narrative. Because there was never so hideous an abomination as a woman who can’t prove, through word, deed, and sportcorset, that she has successfully internalized the patriarchal message and is conversant in fulfilling male fantasy.
Whether you like looking feminine or not, it’s probably important to understand as much as you can about what that appearance may imply, who pushes it, and why it was started in the first place. Because the ugly truth is that it’s probably about as sexist as football. Femininity (or “looking cute” to use ACG’s words) is about conforming to the sexual framework established by men to fulfill their fantasies.
That said, I doubt Twisty expects you to throw out your heels and makeup (though she might prefer it). I’d guess she’s just expecting to raise awareness and combat ignorance and denial.
Even if she’s not, though, even if Twisty is the Strawfem Incarnate, setting fire to DSW Shoe Warehouses and throwing raw sewage on women who dare pass her in rouge, so what? You should still evaluate the truthfulness of her words. And don’t you think there’s at least something to the idea that femininity is rooted in fulfilling the male fantasy? If so, there’s no reason for you to be in denial about it any more than for a football fan to pretend the ugly side of the game doesn’t exist.
Look cute, but at least own up to its warts.
Thank you. That’s exactly the false dichotomy that’s been driving me up a wall about all the sporset discussions. I keep waiting for Twisty to post a followup: “Patriarchy Defeated by Sports Corset, We Can All Go Home Now.”
Is it wrong that I’d pay to see video of that? Okay, HOW wrong?
Ilyka,
That’s twisted and eeeevil!
[But that doesn't mean I want you to give it up.]
It’s what drives me up a wall about all of these types of discussions — sporsets, BJs, whatever. Ms Kate said this at Pandagon:
Feminists want social change, but I don’t think they want social control, especially control of what choices other women make. And as far as women’s agency goes, I’ll quote Twisty:
Something else that always bothers me in these discussions is that someone inevitably says (I’ve heard Bitch|Lab say it) that they find it insulting that some feminists would presume that they have never thought about the motivations behind the choices they make, that they’ve never thought of the implications of, for example, giving a blow job before. I’m sure that this is true for Bitch|Lab and other people who have been thinking like feminists for a long time, but there are other people out there (Random Bird, for example) who apparently haven’t. I consider myself to be a novice patriarchy-blamer, so I really appreciate reading Twisty and others rail on sporsets or blow jobs or whatever, because personally, I do need to think about these things more, and I like hearing other people’s perspectives. If these discussions irritate the more expert blamers so much, then perhaps they should stop reading these kinds of blog posts.
Amen, raging red.
I also flipped out over Ms Kate’s comment. The claim that questioning or critiquing something — in other words, challenging something’s value — equates to social control drives me nuts.
That’s what keeps the left honest — we examine our assumptions. And whether you agree with someone’s conclusions or not, shutting them down by claiming they want to ban your favorite little [insert object of desire here] just by pointing out something negative about it is more of a fundamentalist attitude. Blegh.
I still occassionally watch sex and the city, I do so by shutting my blaming lobe off first of course, because it’s mildly entertaining once you do so.
And as the saying goes “they can prise shit I enjoy inspite of the patriarchy out of my cold dead fingers.”
Is it wrong that I also kinda enjoy all these fights over theory and practice?
Also, I am of the opinion that nobody is really an expert blamer, we’re all novices and all need pushing and occasionally, someone to yell bullsh*t. Of course, I’m ‘imprinted’ on pyschology, so the idea that people have motives they aren’t consciously aware of is not a shocking insult, it’s just like ok, and the sky is blue.
Punkass Marc, I doff my gender-neutral-but-rather-cute-on-me hat to you.
There’s a weird conflation going on of “disagreeing with or questioning something someone does” to “judging and finding wanting all people who disagree.” Rational discourse should probably partake more heavily of the former than of the latter.
a major falsehood to which people cling: criticizing an aspect of something you enjoy means I expect you to give it up.
Exhibit A: Conservatives’ reactions to criticism of US foreign policy.
Or was that so obvious it wasn’t worth mentioning?
Heh, I should clarify: Of course we want them to give up neocon-style foreign policy. But they think we expect them to give up the whole country.
BTW:
I promise we’ll get to blow jobs and corsets and heels directly, but let’s get there by way of football.
Is that a quote from Mar-
AGH! I won’t finish that thought. I’m thinking you can guess the rest.
I have to shut off my blaming lobe just to get through most of the day. When I get home, though, that’s when I turn it back the fuck on.
Thank you. You said it much better than I could (though I tried damned hard. And got told I was anti-sex.)
You know, I engage in behavior and make choices that Teh Strawfeminists would despise. Yet oddly enough, I don’t get all that pissy when these “options” and behaviors are put under the microscope, the social forces behind them are discussed, and the implications of the choice, and the cultural imperatives to make such choices, are criticized. It’s not at all insulting to me. Maybe it’s because the people who are doing the analyzing are providing views and perspectives counter those peddled by the multi-billion dollar media, fashion, and porn industries.
Great point, Sheelzebub. The media/fashion/porn trio has almost total control of the message. All the more reason to call attention to the patriarchy’s invisible hand in those matters and challenge people’s assumptions (which are often born of that message).
Sheelze, you know what I think it is? I think when we get defensive, it’s because the behavior is something we know we really should stop and we haven’t worked up the courage. Now, what that behavior is might differ from person to person. As is well-noted at Pandagon, my biggest all-time CYA manuever was excusing the fact that I did the vast majority of the house work in my prior relationship. I wasn’t ready to admit that I’d caved, because if I admitted it, then I would get mad and that would have fallout and I wasn’t ready for it.
But I make other choices that are no doubt from sexist pressure, but in this case, they aren’t personally damaging to me and under analysis, I realize that I don’t want to give them up. The analysis unsurprisingly bothers me less if I think that I’ll just continue anyway. And it’s still very freeing. The BJ wars didn’t really bother me at all. I, like Bitch PhD, found the whole thing fascinating because I noticed a long time ago that BJs are miraculously framed as submissive even though you’ve got a dude’s dick between your teeth and that is indeed fucked up. But since I’d already noticed that, I didn’t sweat it because I’d squared away the image of the blow job and created counter space to proceed with caution and do it anyway in my own life.
There’s BJs and there’s Porn BJs. There’s high heels and High Heels. There’s no doubt that feminist analysis of high heels has caused the size of my shoes to drift down dramatically, but I still like a little heel. You make your peace with it.
I think Amanda nailed this dead to rights when she simply pointed this out (paraphrasing):
The problem isn’t about failing to reject conforming to patriarchal institutions, it’s about actively defending them as ‘harmless’ or ‘choices’ or ‘normal’ and attacking anyone who criticizes those institutions.
I have zero interest in looking “cute,” and pretty much have had for longer than you all have been alive (probably). On the other hand, I like my little old man to look cute. Fortunately, he can’t help it. Okay, all joking aside (not that I was), I totally enjoyed the whole Twisty/blowjob dustup. People get sooo serious! I admire Twisty immensely, and so does my husband.
Twisty is not only a blackbelt blamer, she’s also inclined from time to time to see what she can stir up, and there’s always someone to fall for it. She is of course right about the pervasiveness of the patriarchy. But since I can’t ever get away from it, I do my best, always, to subvert it. I could go on at some length about this, but suffice it (I hope) to say that there are people who enjoy giving blowjobs, and it is not true that no blowjob-giver has agency.
I say, with others on this thread, do what you want, but don’t be offended by other people’s ideas about it. Consider them; it’s the only way to learn.
You know, I engage in behavior and make choices that Teh Strawfeminists would despise. Yet oddly enough, I don’t get all that pissy when these “options” and behaviors are put under the microscope, the social forces behind them are discussed, and the implications of the choice, and the cultural imperatives to make such choices, are criticized. It’s not at all insulting to me. Maybe it’s because the people who are doing the analyzing are providing views and perspectives counter those peddled by the multi-billion dollar media, fashion, and porn industries.
That’s not true of all of the behavior and choices that real feminists want to put under the microscope, remember. Marginalized groups get called in for shallow, condescending, “analysis” too.
I don’t think all the defensiveness means that to examiner is onto something; I think at least some of it is legitimate.
Shorter Twisty/Amanda/Kyso/et al:
“Women of the world, cast off your chains!”
Shorter pseudo-feminist blatherers:
“These aren’t chains, they’re pretty jewelry!”
Also, I am of the opinion that nobody is really an expert blamer, we’re all novices and all need pushing and occasionally, someone to yell bullsh*t.
well someone obviously deserves an “Amen!”
“Maybe you’d prefer it if all men, especially all feminist supporters, dumped football”
PM, you implying that women who like football aren’t real feminists? Hmmm? Hmmm? lol I can say that it makes me happy but still get upset when all the scholarships go to guys with D averages who won the state championship instead of girls with A’s, so there ya go.
R. Mildred:
That’s how I justify listening to old Tubes songs. I draw the line at buying a Re Styles autograph on ebay, though. But maybe that’s just because I’m too broke for ebay. :/
Thank Donna Haraway or whatever god you give it up for, a sane, even humorous discussion of SPORSET ’06.
I like football too. I’m a blamer from way back and a woman, so this is a shameful activity for which I need to turn off my “blaming lobe” (™ R. Mildred). Though I wonder who gets more shit for it, a feminist woman or a feminist man? (Marc?)
“a number of men probably refuse to think about this stuff because they worry that acknowledging football’s sexism would mean they’d have to give it up.”
This is dead on, I think. Take something blatantly obvious, such as “those scantily clad women gyrating on the sidelines are both superfluous and offensive” and some will actually defend the indefensible. Me, I roll my eyes and genuflect to my TIVO. Which isn’t to say that the patriarchal institution known as cheerleaders isn’t harmful to women, or that I’m not willing to fight out and/or educate on why this is so. It just means I’m not going to stop watching football because of it and I’m not going to get upset if another feminist thinks I should.
i think the issue comes in because there are some people who think that because you anger the strawfeminist, you are a bad person. i’ve been told that because i sleep with men, that i’m a bad person and can’t be a feminist. if they’d said, hey, think about what you’re doing, i’d be grateful that they cared, and appreciative that they thought i could think for myself. but no, i was just told that i was bad and stupid and i obviously loved the patriarchy and was setting the cause back.
when you’ve gotten that enough times, it becomes hard to tell the difference between intellectual criticism and attacks.and it happens a lot because although those people are rare, they’re loud. Twisty does it for shit-stirring value, but I had to stop reading her because it just set off all those memories of being told i was worthless and evil. and i sure don’t need more of that.