I was going to put something like this in the big ass Hijab post I’ve been working, but it’s started bloating something horrible so I’ll just spell it out now in a seperate post because it’s a serious point that some people aren’t getting and I think I just figured out why.
First off, the point I was going to make was that the practice of Hijab, and all abrahamic faiths for that matter, are patriarchal in nature.
Fact.
The banning of headscarfs in french public schools is wrong.
Fact.
Now according to usual reaction (singular) to me calling anything patriarchal, those two views cannot be held at the same time, obviously, because by calling something patriarchal you are declaring it to be, now and forever more, something that must be destroyed and erased from existence, ergo I should be backing the French Headscarf ban to the hilt.
Except I’m anorexic.
I keep pointing that out and people keep misunderstanding what I’m trying to say by pointing it out, anorexia is patriarchal, I am anorexic, I am not even working particularly hard to rid myself of the damn thing either because here’s the thing: I like being anorexic.
yes there are times when the starvation diet is tiresome (literally), and times when I don’t really feel like exercising as hard as I do (as opposed to the times when I really want to exercise hard until my entire body aches*), but through it all I’m faced with this central fact; I like being thin, and toned with small, efficient muscles, and while I probably wouldn’t be hideous if I did start eating normally and exercising less, except by the standard of the anorexia fetishising fashion business, because I’m probably tall enough to pull off a normal amount of body fat, I still want to be anorexic because that’s who I am, I look like this, I want to look like this because I like it, it’s my body and my choice, and I choose to look like this.
But I don’t feel that me “liking” my anorexia to a certain extent is entirely valid, that sort of “oh I’m not addicted, I can give it up any time I want, I just don’t want to” is generally bullshit, but that’s still how I feel about my anorexia, and I can’t seem to find a way to dig at it so that I would make the choice to stop.
To understand why I’m saying this you probably have to understand my history with anorexia.
Waaaay back in early high school, I started to become self concious as hell, I was fat back then, and as I got more and more self concious I started to get really fucked up about my body image, I would see those big posters with the really skinny and breastless models on them and hate myself, same with TV advertisements. If you’re a regular reader you’ve probably seen me hate on stuff, but that’s only a diffuse portion of my full ability to hate, which I cultivated and turned inward during my highschool years, I hate all injustices and wrongness with the world NOW, and so all my vast mountains of hate get spread around quite thin.
Back in high school all of that, probably more because I absorbed alot of hate from my class mates as well, was focused at me, and eating.
It got so bad that I nearly didn’t get my high school diploma, because I started to skip school so I could exercise more.
I was the fat kid who secretly loved Gym, while at the same time never joining any sports teams because I didn’t like to admit that I liked to exercise or that I dieted, because that would be admiting that I was fat – and while it was obvious that I was, and obviously no one could possibly like me (as far as my reasoning went) because of my obesity (as I started to call it), I couldn’t say “I’m trying not to be” if only because many kids would have just pointed out that I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
And considering how many social rituals are centered around eating, this meant that I had always “just eaten”, or I had a really big meal earlier in the day, and this meant that I got the wonderful fun opportunity to watch people eat, and that is still a ridiculously gross experience, you don’t notice when you’re eating as well, because you’re only really interested in what you’re eating, but it appears to be a really icky sight, imho.
Anyhoo… I eventually did manage to get through high school, much thinner, but still convinced of my own piggy wiggy nature, so I kept it up, exercising more and more, eating less and less.
It was the third time I passed out, the time I ended up in hospital because I cracked my head on the curb when I fell (I’m told), when I finally realised that this was deeply fucked up.
No really, it only occurred to me then, but once I realised that I had a problem I could start dealing with it.
Except I have a slight problem with psychologists, namely that they cost money I didn’t have, and I also reasoned that if I could deal with it on my own I’d be better off for it.
Fortunately the techniques of zen buddhism seemed to be enough for my needs anyway; once I found out what the hell radical feminism’s concept of conciousness raising entailed I was elated, Zen Feminism! wonderful! And I used a similar system to cut away at my anorexia, just constantly asking myself questions, looking for the problem, what is the problem? Why am I doing this? What do I really want?
And the key problem I found was that I wasn’t starving and exercising because I wanted to be thin, but as a way to punish myself for not quite conforming, I was also really physically weak, which was a problem, but I found I liked to exercise, and while part of that was simply that I had punished myself, and thus didn’t need to punish myself again for at least a few hours, there was a part of myself that actually enjoyed the works outs, and really like running through a couple dozen forms – it was relaxing in a weird way, mentally, because my body was working and my mind was free to think and didn’t have to concentrate on anything really, it helped me wind down and relax afterwards.
So obviously it wouldn’t be a good idea to stop the exercising completely, just maybe wind it down a bit, but the starvation?
This was where it got a bit tricky, because I couldn’t really take a lot of time off work to work through my issues with food, nor could I risk going into a serious depressive cycle as a result of putting on “too much” weight, because I’d end up homeless again, and then the depressive cycles would have escalated and I would have ended up trapped into one of the bad ways people use to survive down there because I wouldn’t have even looked for alternatives, just taken all the crap society dumps on people at the very bottom of the ladder as my due for being me.
So I had to be thin to a certain extent, but it wasn’t merely societal pressure on women to be thin that was forcing me to not eat as much as the doctors all say is normal, but because an essential part of me being me – a functioning manic depressive – was reliant on me being thin and not eating.
But I couldn’t really starve myself as much as I was, I’d hit that wierd stage where I was seeing hunger as an addiction I needed to kick completly – obviously I needed to find a compromise between starving myself onto a drip, and putting on too much weight. Fortunatley I do have my slow ass metabolism, so I could go a day and a bit without eating anything, and still gain weight if I ate correctly on days when I can eat, but not so much weight that my thin focused aesthetic would start me hating on myself.
That was 3 years ago now, and it’s worked to an extent, I still have all sorts of issues I still need to deal with – I mentioned before how I still blanch when I meet fat people, and I am dealing with it, and by doing so I may one day even be able to give up this whole thing and accept my natural body weight – but I don’t care too much if it doesn’t, it’s not an end goal of any kind because I’m at a certain level of peace with my anorexia.
Now if Bitch|Lab reads this, she’s probably got a tiny little violin ready, so I’ll come to my point before she starts playing**: I am not saying, woe is me, but mighty are my genitalia orbs, mimic me to be a perfect feminist, no, what I’m trying to get across is what feminists mean when they say that something is patriarchal.
And what we mean is not “stop doing this immediately, it’s the wrongest thing since rugrats pr0n”, it’s “analyse what the fuck you’re doing so that you’re not complicit in the society wide abuse of women.” What’s always missed in these blogfights is that you have a bunch of people who get that zen-style self examination, and when they are criticised, will first of all examine, then act however they feel is appropriate, and a bunch of people who are so blinded by the neo-cons’ “DO AS YOU’RE TOLD” face that they react to any criticism as though the terms patriarchal or anti-feminist were equivalent to dog-rapist – a bland ad hominem attack against some behavior.
That’s why the whole “empowerment” brigade is so frustrating for feminists, we have people arguing that you can’t criticise anything, or else you’re a fundie bigot who’s trying to take people’s highheels away! It goes against eveyrthing that works for us, we need that criticism dammit!
Tangent!
Highheels are patriarchal: Fact. They’re gendered footwear that just so happens to mangle the wearer’s feet, that’s sexism, that’s oppression because highheels are practically manditory in certain areas of society for women – but if they were to become degendered, and something people were doing out of a real choice rather than because of social expectations and obligations – then they’d go from being patriarchal to merely stupid, but that’s just my personal opinion. But they do not exist like that now, and so highheels = patriarchal, you want to change that, get men wearing the damn things, or wear combat boots to a formal cocktail party, whatever, but if you can’t gel “wearing highheels (which are patriarchal)” with “being a feminist” then do something about it, geez, don’t whine at me for pointing things out to you.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that women who go in for this empowerment crap are lazy or stupid, the opposite, they go through suck intricate and complex hoops to justify their self harming behavior that I’m surprised their stomach acid hasn’t eroded their teeth already, simply that they lack the experience with self analysis – with conciousness raising – a criticism is an order, and invalidation of their entire sense of self because that’s how patriarchy has gotten them to worry about their pesky gag reflex – all they know is patriarchal attacks on their basic humanity, so they react like anything even close is the same thing, with the same intent, whereas the second wavers came from a position of all of them being royally screwed over to such a degree that constructive criticisms were neccesary and fundamental to feminism – and still the second wavers fucked up routinely and didn’t always blame hard enough.
But it’s not the same thing by any rate – feminists who criticise, who blame, know that you’ll pick up all sorts baggage as result of existing in a patriarchal society, they have, I have, Twisty has, everyone has, that’s what the whole “patriarchy as matrix” view is about, it’s all around us and we’ll be effected by it, even when we are seasoned blamers, kill the buddha that you can ever reach a point where it won’t affect you at all, it’s a hopeless goal, there’ll always be patriarchal bullshit, and there’ll always be something to blame.
And if that disheartens you, well fuck you, you coward, because it’s true, and just giving up, not even fighting… what does that achieve exactly? You fight, and you cry when it doesn’t seem like enough, but you keep on fighting because there is no other choice – Fuck you Patriarchy, you can prise my humanity from my cold dead fingers, not before.
But because it’s everywhere, you have to say “oh fuck that, is this important?” or “yes it’s patriarchal, but is it neccesarily Bad for me?”
Harken back to my first foray into this stuff, Twisty says “blowjobs are inherently patriarchal”, I say “No, this and this fucks with certain patriarchal assumptions that go with blowjobs, and in fact the idea that blowjobs are inherently passive or submissive acts performed upon women is itself patriarchal.”
That’s what’s meant by labelling something “patriarchal”: Look At It Closer! One of the things that offended me with the initial blowjob post by twisty was the implication that feminists would do something without analysising it deeply for sexism, misogyny and fucked up patirarchal flakiness, it’s the most fundamental part of being a feminist – you’re always ready to blame, and after you blame, you figure out how to react to the knowledge that something is patriarchal, do you continue to do it anyway? Do you sun it completely? Do you take the hard assed route and decide that even if you do like it, and you can work it without it being a form of oppression, it still adds to the patriarchal culture and needs to be shunned.
So to return to the previous topic; Anorexia is Patriarchal. Do I need to eradicate it entirely? No. Is controlled anorexia entirely bad? No. Do I tell people it’s not patriarchal though? No, because it really is, no matter how much it’s valid for me, it originates from patriarchal automisogyny and saying it’s an entirely good thing is bullshit – if I believed it was good I’d start working to rid myself of it today because I don’t buy comforting lies even when I’m telling them – and that doesn’t invalidate my choice in any way, in fact it validates my choice, because I’m choosing it fully aware of what I’m choosing.
Choice is nothing without it being an informed choice, RandomBird was a wonderful example of a woman making incredibly uninformed choices that fucked her over, it’s one thing to merely go to the gym as a way to boost your ego, it’s another to do so wearing a frickin corset, it’s one thing to suck cock, it’s quite another to berate yourself for being born with a gag reflex.
No you don’t have to have a sense of self esteem that requires stupid self harming clothing to be worn in front of men, no you don’t have to like giving head – especially if you fuck guys, it’s not like the male orgasm has ever been a rarely occurring event or anything – somewomen have really sensitive gag reflexes, and while they can train that out if they want to – they don’t have to.
But maybe you want to, or maybe your tongue and a finger of fellatio are all you really need to give a guy a blowjob, I can’t decide that, I am I, you are you.
But if I call something out, don’t get defensive, I’m not expecting you to give it up wholesale, in all its forms, forever and ever, nevermore, I’m expecting you to think about it, hey I may even say it in a way that offends you, but even that can be useful, how are you being defensive? Why does that offend you?
Because I’m not going to buy that “let’s all just hug and never point out that anything that anyone else does has issues surrounding it”, especially when you or they are making it more than clear that they haven’t put two licks of thought into their choices.
I summarise this views of feminism as such: Measure twice, cut once.
And to keep up the theme from Molly’s (via), anyone got any other questions?
* Seriously, not being sarcastic here, nothing makes me quite as horny as a really hard exercise session that leaves me aching all over. Really.
** because she’s patriarchally bad at playing the violin. ;p
Holy shit. And I mean that in a good way. I’m going to go back and reread this. But for right now…
I’m wondering exactly how it was that we were all on different channels for SexWars2006 as i read this, and while I think such differences are not dispensible or less real than commonalities…i do think there’s some shared ground. I still don’t entirely follow your conclusions on how criticism operates in a culture like this, but I’m interested by your analysis of how choice functions.
Thanks for this.
Over and over and over again, I’ve noticed that it’s not actually a War Over Sex. It’s that a few high-profile types on either side have built little personality cults, and then they draw fairly meaningless lines in the digital sand. It’s been much more like watching Heathers than listening to anyone “debate.”
There’s a lot of thought provoking stuff in this post. I’ll be rereading it for sure. I feel like a really learned something useful. Thank you.
I’ve been through a lot of psychological messiness the past few years, and one of the things I’ve learned is the importance of coming to terms with my dysfunctions in much the way you talk about dealing with Anorexia. They exist, fighting tooth and nail doesn’t work, so you have to work around them, mitigate the most harmful elements. In time you learn new things that help further with the mitigation and things gradually improve.
I think, mostly, it’s offensive because I think feminism should be connected to social change, to collective action. Most of what goes on in the blogosphere really is disconnected from it. And, as such, because we don’t form communities over what I’ve called “transitional objects” (comes from my work building consciousness raising in other venues), then we have no external object to unite us, let alone any commoness as a group — beyond the core that forms around each particular blog.
I also think that it’s a problem to start off assuming that feminists haven’t thought through the issues, which you mention.
you and I agree on a lot, but we speak different languages and, as my latest love object (Janet Halley) is making me see, I just have other commitments that conflict with feminism and require that, sometimes, I put claims by subordination theory feminism on the backburner because it doesn’t give me a good theory/practice for addressing the particular problem I happening to be thinking through or working on.
There are some things I just don’t give a crap about. Oh, so wow shoes are patriarchal. And? Everything is patriarchal, so the analysis always seems to become trivial — if it’s not tied to any conversation about what to _do_ about anything. “Oh: I just thought you should know that those shoes are patriarchal, but my feminist position and feminism isn’t important enough that you should actually _do_ anything about it except that you _should_ always say that they are patriarchal. Never talk about high heels without mentioning patriarchy.
Okey Dokey. Taht’s the message I hear — and yet I really don’t think you mean that Rmildred. So, I hope you can take this as a challenge to figure out how to say it — with feeling. :p
Veronica — isn’t there a bathroom wall or something where you can name names? heh.
Sly — I agree, but I do think there is a big difference in so far as there is a strong belief that individual action is where it’s at on one side (not necess Rmildred or any big blogs really) and collective action is the way to go on the other. And, there’s yet another group who think that individual action isn’t enough but are despondent about collective action because of what that has entailed in the past: dogma, top-down organizational structure, etc. etc. It’s not just ordinary USers who are politically apathetic, it’s feminists too. (politically apathetic in terms of thinking beyond episodic forms of participation — like voting — since other forms of political action seem like to much work, are bullocks, waste of time, too far out radical, etc.)
I posted about two women’s studies texts I had earlier this week. One focused completely on chaning as an individual, the other focused on changing consciousness and engaging in action such as forming a sexual harassment task for ce, etc.
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/fem/sarachild.html
OK, I have a question. (yeah, I know, I asked one at Pandagon too, I’m a question-y girl, mmm kay?)
What’s a good response to people who insist that “patriarchy doesn’t exist,” other than “your brain is made out of frog juice and cranberry sauce”?
I know, I know, it doesn’t get more overly simplistic than, “give me one sentence proving the existence of patriarchy.” But I feel like telling them off isn’t the best choice, and saying “FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING WORTHWHILE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK, YOU IGNORANT TWIT,” isn’t, either. It’s just that whenever I hear a patriarchy-denier, they just come across as so unaware/privileged that I just don’t know where to even begin to respond, other than saying, “wwejhlsdjkgbhjbhfsjbfhkgaaaaaah.”
Any ideas?
Damn it, R. Mildred, that’s it. You’re going in the pantheon.
I don’t want you to give up anorexia because it’s patriachal, I want you to give it up because it’s very harmful physically and mentally in a league that I think is well past head scarfs, high heels, and make up. I say this as a former anorexic because I know for myself that anorexia has left a much more significant impact on me than any of those other objects that are deemed to be tools of the patriarchy. When those objects are correlated to higher suicide rates and serious physical problems, then I will want such users to give them up as well irrespective of their patriarchal nature.
I think the mental/emotional issues associated with anorexia prevent a person from being able to choose it as a lifestyle in a fully aware way. As shown in this part:
The issue to me is not that anorexia is patriarchal, but that it’s addictive. These days instead of being anorexic I’m what could be called a controlled alcoholic (parallel to your controlled anorexic). I’m not really making a choice to continue (or stop) drinking. I just keep it at levels where I can still function in life to most degrees because the idea of stopping terrifies me even though I know I drink too much. For what it’s worth the drinking and anorexia are probably related to my similar situation as a functioning and unmedicated person with bipolar II. For me to stop wouldn’t be a choice like wearing flats, it’d be a whole new lifestyle adjustment because I am addicted. Admitting that you’re addicted doesn’t validate it as a choice.
I do agree that analyzing why a person chooses to use patriarchal tools and participate in partriarchal activities is very important, but my history with anorexia and addiction keeps me from thinking that anorexia is on the same level. Regardless of my opinions on this particular matter, your honesty and candor are what make you one of my favorite bloggers.
What’s a good response to people who insist that “patriarchy doesn’t exist,” other than “your brain is made out of frog juice and cranberry sauce”?
It depends on what you mean there, if it’s someone saying that “Patriarchy is just a crazy conspiracy theory” then point out that it’s just a freaking label for all the sexism and misogyny that exists in society, get over it. if on the other hand they’re saying that there is no sexism in society, point out that 1 in 4 women are sraped on college campuses, that 30 out of 50 states in america still do not accept that it’s rape for a man to fuck his wife while she’s unconcious… and just continue beating the view point back wiht little facts like that, and if they just don’t care about that stuff and still declare that we live in an egalitarian society or whatever Kosimandius and Ann Coutler believe, kick them in whatever passes for their testicles, and walk off because they’re not actually listening
The issue to me is not that anorexia is patriarchal, but that it’s addictive.
I realised that too when I was trying to get my anorexia under control, but the question I then asked was “So? It being addictive is the least of the problems here”, it’s like with B|L and the shoes up there, but like with that, once you realise that it is addictive or patriarchal, then you can actually say “so? I can live with that” rather than whipping out stupid justifications, which in the case of anorexia all surrounded the central concept that “fat people = Bad”
Gettin rid of that concept was the first thing I started sorting out and as it’s one of core reasons why anorexia is patriarchal, because it denies the humanity of fat women and pressures other women into being anorexic, it’s important to see that it is wrong in the first place – and that’s what calling something patriarchal means – this has issues, analyse it.
Take leg shaving, shaving your legs is not an inherently oppressive act, but the question must be asked, because patriarchy is everywhere blah-di-blah, “why am I shaving my legs?” and if you decide that you’re shaving your legs merely as a result of society urging you to shave you legs rather than because you want to shave your legs (or some other bad reason) the Next question you must ask yourself is “How do I react to that?”
And the thing is, how people react to it, what is a good reaction for them, is gonna vary, and I’m sure you, B|L, would be the first person to tell me off for positing universal reactions to patriarchal behavior, hell, that’s what this entire fucking sex wars thing IS really, people trying to stop everyone else from forcing their reactions to patriarchal oppression upon people for whom that reaction is not really valid. See my initial blowjob post.
You want to know what I say people should do about something that’s been declared patriarchal? I say people should figure out what that means to them, without also resorting to the faulty logic that “I like this, therefore it is not patriarchal”, because liking/living with something and patriarchy are not mutually exclusive concepts.
I wouldn’t tell you off, I would point out that I think it’s utterly ridiculous for anyone to actually claim she does something *for* herself as if her self is somehow detachable from the world in which she lives, as if she carries around a special knapsack where all her true desires are and if she’d could just get past all the patriarchal garbage hiding that little knapsakc of special snowflake desires — vloila — she could pull a preference out of a knapsack and say, “mine all mine.”
Why would someone keep their sense of identity in Jeff Goldstein’s alleged child?
Look, think of it like sexual preference, people preffer to fuck (or not) people of a specific gender, in a specific way yes? But some people, due to social pressures, choose to fuck people of the (as far as their actual personal preference goes) incorrect gender, in non-preffered ways, due to huge social expectations that emerge as part of several oppressive systems, yes?
Extend that concept to other behaviors. What choices are you making as a result of oppressive systems? What due to the person you actually are? then start subtracting what is neccesary to survive from what is preferable and then working like hell so that everything balances out in such a way that no body gets screwed over, and that survival is not, I repeat not, entirely dependent on fucking ourselves over until we end up like Maureen Dowd, Dawn Eden or Condileeza Rice, while at the same time leaving every other women bleeding from the crotch in the gutter.
Thanks for writing such a great post about such a personal topic. I can relate to your struggles with anorexia but from a different point of view. A few years ago I was about 30 pounds overweight and I hated it. I didn’t hate it because I felt ugly I just don’t like how I feel when I am carrying around too much weight. It didn’t have anything to do with patriarchy.
So I started exercising more and eating less in order to lose the weight and success! I managed to lose it all. Except for the last ten pounds. Which is typical of most dieters but in my case it is rather deliberate.
I have noticed a change in the way people, OK men, treat me when I am thinner. I get more attention and it makes me feel self-conscious. When some asshole is gawking at my tits or my legs I am filled with rage. When I am fat, nobody looks. When I am skinny, they do. I am reminded that being an attractive woman can be a terrible thing. Like all women I have been heckled on the street for having tits or had them grabbed when I had no desire for it. When I stepped on the scale and realized that I weigh the same as I did in high school I was not happy or proud of myself. I panicked! I really want to be thinner because I have more energy and I like the way I look. But I don’t want to be treated differently by men.
So I have a case of anorexia in reverse. And reading your post made me realize it. Maybe I will stop over-eating in an attempt to keep that last ten pounds. At least I am painfully aware that I have a problem at all. All I can say is that reading this post is the first time I gave it any thought.
Hey. I’m gonna say I disagree with you on this. I suffer from anorexia as well. Anorexia is a mental illness, so it can’t really be “patriarchal” in my opinion. True, females outnumber males, but many eating disorders in males are on the rise.
Also, in my case, the Hollywood media played no role- the only female figures I saw in my youth were 16 bit figures in video games that were not clearly defined in their body shapes
I read only a half of your story.. It’s hard to me to end this ‘cos I come from Poland so I’m not really good in English. But I one question to you…. What did you do to eat less and less? I have some problem like You had… I don’t want be anorexia but I want to be thin. I’m waiting for mail from you. I’ve hope that you will write to me. See ya
It was very interesting reading this blog as being male I felt challenged throughout to both confirm or deny patriarchy. Being what one could consider a heterosexual white middle class male I am aware it is people of my classification which hold the cards and are to blame for the oppression of women.
I remember my sister getting irate when we were watching a Marilyn Monroe film as she felt that MM was the beginning of these sensational pin ups which have led to this image obsessed culture that we currently reside in. I think it is maybe the typical male drawback of ‘knowing’ but not ‘understanding’ the problem. I knew ‘women were being oppressed by this patriarchal society etc’: you only have to turn on the news to see the elder more authoratative man (who’s sexuality is neutralised) and his co-host, the sexy, leggy and sophisticated Natasha Kaplinsky (in England) who would be despite her intellect nowehere without her appearance. This infact is a good thing to say to people who deny patriarchy because it is so visual and blatant (and not as crude or fallible as 1/4 of college girls are raped).
I agree with BlL’s article that women have to overcome and topple male supremacy – I mistakenly thought that this change was being brought about with more women becoming CEO’s and more men becoming anorexic and reading lifestyle magazines – sounds like a joke when I write it now. When women become these aggressive CEO’s, corperate bosses, Prime Ministers(Thatcher) – are they standing up for feminisim? Do they try and crusade for the rights of other women? Or do they by functioning as men do effectively transit from their gender?
The question of semantics. How are we to define what it is to be a ‘woman’ of for that matter a ‘man’. Asides from the obvious equal opps which need to be addressed – this notion of something deeper inside reminds me of something I read about Ganesh (Hindu elephant god) – he is in the world but not of the world – if a woman shaves her legs, wears high heels and gives blowjobs does it make her a sellout of the feminist cause? There are expectations of everybody – and those who do not fill expectations are discriminated against – this is in all spheres of life but in sex for instance men are also under pressure to perform and satisfy – these are the nuances of interpersonal relationships and maybe a trend but are certainly not the work of a grand conspiratorial design by men to oppress women in the bedroom.
Parrot Lad,
I can’t speak for R. Mildred, but I don’t think she meant that anyone was a sellout to the feminist cause.
Contrast your question:
If a woman shaves her legs, wears high heels and gives blowjobs does it make her a sellout of the feminist cause?
With her statement (above):
What I got from R. Mildred’s post is that 1) identifying something as patriarchal refers to the behaviour, not to the person. So if someone points out to me that colouring my hair is an act of submission to the cult of feminine beauty and diverts my income from sensible things like food and books to things that support an industry that exists in order to perpetuate patriarchal standards of beauty and keep women spending money on appeasing the male gaze, they’re referring to my actions, not to my devotion to the cause of feminism.
And they’re correct about my actions, more or less. I’ve absorbed patriarchal notions about beauty and colour my hair because I prefer the way it looks when it’s coloured and that’s patriarchal yep youbetcha.
If I were a better, harder-assed feminist, I’d let my hair go grey and cut it short, probably. As it is, I accept that in this, I am a flawed, weak, and (as Twisty would probably have it) hypocritical feminist.
Does that negate the value of my contributions to sexual health education, my work to raise the salaries and freelance rates in my female-dominated industry, or my writings on feminism in my own blog? I really hope not.
What I don’t do is respond to a post about hair-dyeing being a manifestation of the pervasiveness of the patriarchal beauty myth by saying “But I’m a feminist and I dye my hair, it’s my choice, it makes me feel pretty and empowered, and better able to use my
femininefeminist wiles to get my way, and so hair-dyeing cannot be patriarchal, ’cause then I wouldn’t be able to do it, you big meanie!”Moving into the bedroom, what a feminist conscious demands of us (women and men, I think) is that we examine our relationship and sexual dynamics for the expectations engendered by privilige and the “traditional” roles between the sexes. Do we find ourselves feeling like we’re “expected” to put out? Like sex is the coin we pay for affection? Like our beauty or appearance are key contributions we make to the relationship? Do we find ourselves thinking that we are “owed” sexual favours? Do we understand that “no” is always an acceptable answer? Can we honestly say that we’re giving as much as we’re demanding?
That’s not all of it, but IME it’s a decent place to start.
Every woman negotiates her way through the patriarchy. Far be it from me to tell her how to do so.
Thanks for your reply, I thought your response to sex was spot on. I am still having trouble with this notion of patriarchy however – this idea of ‘negotiating her way through patriarchy’ sounds rather ominous. Does that mean every action a woman takes she is negotiating with patriarchy – that it is all encompassing?
Forgive me, because I am interested and wish to learn about this topic which I can’t say I really know anything about – so I don’t mean offense – but at the moment it feels as if there is evidence to support patriarchy in places – but without breaking it down into more clear definitions its just an umbrella for misandry – as you Jennie talk about your female dominated industry I feel encouraged because surely it is the role of feminism to make women feel they are independant and free to do anything they choose – and if something stops them – they’ll fight it – but by referring to ‘patriarchal standard of beauty’ I feel as if you are talking about something quite unsubstantiated and almost mystical – I’m probably way off the mark and need a simple explanation – but I’m learning and it can’t hurt to convert me.
Does that mean every action a woman takes she is negotiating with patriarchy – that it is all encompassing?
Pretty much, yeah.
Sorry. But the patriarchy’s been around in one form or another for millenia, so it’s had time to get its tentacles into pretty much everything.
The patriarchy is not MEN. It’s a system that favours privilige, power, and freedom (where freedom can be loosely defined as “access to choice”) for rich, older, white men more than for anyone else, and restricts privilige, power, and freedom for everyone else, to a greater or lesser degree. To paraphrase Twisty, it’s a system of power that has rich honky men at the top and poor women of colour at the bottom. It’s not a conspiracy so much as a bunch of ways of doing things based on some fundamental assumptions about The Way Things Are. We can’t just change the fundamental assumptions and keep the systems based on them, we have to look at every system, and either tear it down or alter it to fit the Way Things Are Now.
There’s not a lot of room for misandry in there, in my view. I’m fighting a bunch of systems, not men.
The all-pervasiveness of patriarchal systems doesn’t mean anyone has to fight the damn’ thing. People can keep on upholding the patriarchy—I can’t stop ‘em. Doesn’t mean that a feminist need to spend every moment of every day asking “Is this a patriarchy-supporting behaviour?” First off, the answer is probably “yes,” and second, she’d never get anything done at all.
So let’s look at beauty standards:
In western culture at the moment, there is a pronounced bias towards thin, young, and “feminine” in our icons of female beauty.
We may argue that older women are beautiful, we may argue that women of all sizes are beautiful, we may admire women present as more “mannish,” but overwhelmingly, the women who are presented to us as beautiful are young, thin, and clearly female. Why do you think this might be? Could it possibly be that young women are seen as more fertile, more impressionable, easier to control, and more “ripe for the picking”? Could it possibly be that thinness is difficult to attain (in today’s western culture), indicates that a woman has leisure to exercise, attend yoga classes, and care for her body? Could it be that we need to mark women as “feminine” in order to point to a number of other “feminine” qualities: meekness, docility, motherliness, etc., etc.,—qualities that men find unthreatening?
How often, in movies or on TV, do you see an older leading lady and a younger leading man, depicted as an appropriate match for each other? How often do you see an older leading man and a hot young leading lady? How long was Sean Connery considered sexy and cast as an action hero? Do you think Angelina Jolie is going to have nearly as long a shelf life?
If we tell women that it’s really important for them to be beautiful, that beauty is one of the most defining qualities for them, and their most valuable commodity, then we make beauty something very difficult for most women to attain, we’re going to make a lot of women really insecure. They’re going to spend time and money and energy trying to be beautiful, young, and thin. This is going to divert a lot of time they could spend on their careers, their artistic endeavours, whatever. This is going to make them more poor. This is going to make them believe that they have less to offer when they’re no longer young, and they’ll be less demanding and less threatening in consequence.
And that is a very simplistic view of why it’s a patriarchy-supporting action when I colour my hair. (I’m not even going to go into how the money spent on hair colouring went to support an industry that survives because women are insecure about their looks.)
Converted – I thouroughly and wholeheartedly agree – in fact I’ve had conversations which are basically identical except that we were talking about it from the marx vs capitalism, class structures etc – I feel quite stupid for not understanding but thankyou kindly for explaining it to me: particularly in such a concise and eloquent way.
It’s a system that favours privilige, power, and freedom (where freedom can be loosely defined as “access to choice”) for rich, older, white men more than for anyone else, and restricts privilige, power, and freedom for everyone else, to a greater or lesser degree.
This is brilliantly put; and I totally resonate because these are ideas I have for a long time held self evident (as you all obviously have too) except I was using a different vocabulary – I can only say I was ignorant of the true definition of patriarchy, and confused it for an anti-male slogan -which I even agreed with up to a point – except I could only be my own enemy up to a point. Nevertheless – thanks again Jennie.