Look, here is my thought on the Elena Kagan issue:
She doesn't publicly identify as a lesbian. OK? Let's drop it. Every time there is a swell of squawking speculation about the undisclosed (homo)sexuality of a public official, it makes me feel really weird. It heavily underscores the fact that queer people are still considered freakish anomalies with a monolithic agenda and no right to privacy.
This brings up something I've been wanting to talk about recently. Let me reiterate: queer people do not have a monolithic agenda or identity. I understand wanting some representation in the public sphere; I understand the desire for queer public officials to be out, proud, and fighting for queer rights/promoting queer visibility. But let's be real. It is very, very hard to shoulder the responsibility of being visibly, publicly queer; and there are many interpretations of what constitutes "queer rights".
I think for all of us, there is such pressure to be a model queer first and a human being second; and a model queer is:
- nonthreatening
- upstanding
- conventional
- exactly the same as a straight person with the sole exception of matching genitals in the bedroom
- haplessly queer (IE "I was just born this way")
I get it, you guys. I do. We've been painted as deviant, repugnant, abnormal, promiscuous, man-hating (lesbians) or Not Real Men (gay men), ineffectual, ugly, a threat to children, a threat to families, diseased, predatory. The sex we have is Not Real Sex (especially dykes; like, can it even be sex if a flesh dick isn't involved?! It's the sexual equivalent of veganism- "Wait, so what can you even EAT?!"). The relationships we have are Not Real Relationships. We are not complex beings; all we are is our queerness, and it is depraved.
So says dominant culture. And I see a lot of queer folks reacting to these assertions by living lives as Exemplary Queers. We Are Just Like You, they say. We Are No Different. We Were Just Born This Way, Just Like You Were Just Born Straight. They strive for upward mobility. They prove that queers can be conventionally attractive, too. That rather than seeking to tear them asunder, queers want nuclear families and children of their own, too. That their relationships are just like straight relationships.
In short, their goal is assimilation.
It is not my place to claim that this goal will not work for them. But it is not my goal, and it won't work for me. I don't choose to entertain the question of What Causes Queerness, and I think that relying on the "I was just born this way and can't help it!" trope too heavily does us a disservice, whether it is true or not. The 'cause' of my queerness should not have any impact on anyone else's willingness to treat me like a human being. I watched a video recently that a friend shared in which a queer girl stated that if she had a choice, she'd choose to be born straight. Now, I understand that what she probably meant was "I would choose to not have to live in a world in which I am hated for being who I am," but I thought it was very telling, and very sad. And I think more of us need to be willing to say that we wouldn't erase our queerness if given the chance. I may be hated for being queer, but I do not hate myself. I do not want to be folded into the straight world, enveloped, until my queerness disappears. It is not who I am entirely, but it is part of who I am, and I will not twist and compress it into something that is more palatable to those who hate queerness.
In short, I do not want to be erased.
I do not care about proving that queers can be conventional, too. I am more interested in critiquing convention. I am not interested in being a Designer Dyke. I am interested in questioning beauty standards (both straight beauty standards AND queer beauty standards, because they are factually different), not adopting them with a queer twist. I am interested in questioning consumption as identity, not in asking, begging, fighting to be acknowledged as a potential consumer. (I will come back to this one, because I would like to write an entry about a film I saw at the Davis Feminist Film Festival that dealt with this issue in a way that dissatisfied me.) I am more interested in extending legitimacy to various social units than in reaffirming the nuclear family headed by the married couple as the only legitimate one. (queer folks, we have been creating and choosing our own families since time immemorial. these bonds are unique. they are part of our culture. why are we so quick to abandon them when the marriage carrot is dangled in front of us?)
I am not exactly the same as a straight person in every respect except for my sexual orientation. That theory works about as well as colorblind or genderblind or any other -blind theory, for me. I think it is appealing because it is simple, and because queer folks are made to feel less than human so often; but life is complex and human beings are complex, and experience is a powerful force. My experience as a woman-born, woman-identified person living in a misogynist, patriarchal culture is different than that of a male-born, male-identified person. People of color experience white supremacy in a different way than white people. Saying that queer and straight people are fundamentally the same is a denial of our experience as an oppressed class of people. This is not a value judgment. This is an acknowledgment of difference.
I would like to see as much effort put into healing our community as we are putting into these causes that are, in my opinion, assimilationist. Assimilating is practical, more convenient than radical reform, and also just...the genuine desire of some people (though it is hard for me to accept this, because it isn't as though we are presented with much choice in the matter). But it should be an option, not a mandate. Not our only means of survival. Which is why I truly do believe that the mainstream queers upon whom I am a poor reflection NEED my radical ass. As much as I need them. We need each other. They need radical queers to keep fighting for the right to be recognized as legitimate human beings without denying our difference. We need them because they fight for the things that some of us do want- like marriage, which I will frankly never, ever fight for because I do not want it and I believe it is destructive. I have to acknowledge that not every queer person is radical and that my agenda can't be every one's agenda, no matter how right I think I am (and I really, really, REALLY DO think I am right. Really a lot. But, you know, so do they. We can and should keep having conversations about this issue, but we may just have to call an impasse an impasse at some point. I'm not gonna kick them out of the queer club for choosing something I wouldn't choose, and I do hope they will start treating me the same way.)
...you know, my main flaw as a writer is that I never have a snappy conclusion. I guess because I view all of these things as ongoing conversations that will never have a pat ending. I love a pat ending, but they rarely have a place outside of fiction. t...the end.
12.5.10
6.5.10
double dare ya
Something interesting happened to me on my way home from the gym last night.
I was dressed in typical, fairly unisex gym clothing (shorts and an undershirt). On the off chance that anyone who doesn't know me personally is reading this, I have a generally low-maintenance uh, look; my hair is extremely short (I cut it myself with a buzz cutter), I don't usually wear makeup, don't shave my legs, etc. Basically I choose to eschew all of that costly and time-consuming maintenance that we are meant associate with femininity.
As I walked home from the gym, I saw a young man draped over the door of a car, speaking to a woman inside. As I passed, he laughed, loudly and sarcastically catcalled me, and then said, "SHE LOOK LIKE A MAN!!" and continued laughing.
(Uh, just as a reminder: I look this way on purpose, and do not base my self-worth on my ability to appeal sexually to men, so this wasn't the devastating experience it might otherwise have been; my feelings weren't hurt or anything, so no need to be like "I'm so sorry that happened!!!" etc. I'm not sorry it happened at all! For reasons which I will try to make clear.)
My immediate reaction was to think, "My god. The blatant ways we try to police one another's gender expression and sexuality in order to reinforce our own."
Prior to him noticing me, I noticed him. His body language was overtly masculine; he was peacocking for the woman in the car, towering over her as she sat in the driver's seat, leaning into her space in a way that was simultaneously casual and meaningful.
So here he was, caught in this moment of extreme heterosexual posturing, and suddenly I came into view. His reaction was SO visceral that I have to believe I was read as a threat. Of course I was. I am a woman who is not playing by the established rules of femininity. This indicates two things:
1) I am possibly intentionally withholding sexual availability from men; at the very least, I am clearly not invested in this moment in garnering sexual attention from men, which is a violation of the heterosexual feminine mandate
2) I am encroaching upon his masculinity with my masculinity
That last one. Oof. Of course he reacted by derisively pointing out my transgressive gender presentation! Masculinity belongs to men! All else equal, relative to women, men are free; their freedom derives from their masculinity and their masculinity is an expression of their freedom. Regardless of how you feel about femme identity, I think we can all agree that presenting as ultrafeminine (as it is culturally defined) takes a fucking lot of TIME and MONEY and EFFORT. Women's shoes and clothing is EXPENSIVE. Makeup is EXPENSIVE and takes time to apply. Shaving your legs and armpits and whatever else you may shave takes a lot more time and costs a lot more money than not shaving. Women's haircuts are EXPENSIVE and women's hair tends to take longer to style than men's. etc, etc, etc.
As a woman who does none of these things, I get to hear a lot of women telling me why they could never do x or stop doing y. These justifications tend to center around not wanting to be perceived as masculine or as sexually unattractive to men (or censured by other women; "if I have to do this, YOU should have to do this, too"). Giving up these markers of femininity frees up time and money and effort, but the cost is great. We are daily reminded that as women, our value lies in the approval of men, since men have more social power than we do; and that we are valued most when we are most feminine. The best bauble. If we are willing to be decorative first, we will be highly prized by the average heterosexual man.
(I am deliberately generalizing here because this is a blog post, not a book; but books can and have and will be written about the many ways this scenario is impacted by class, race, age, sexual orientation, able-bodiedness, etc. all worthwhile and important things to consider.)
Choosing not to be a bauble is threatening to men who are invested in maintaining the status quo. A woman who chooses not to be merely decorative and not to place value upon being objectified is a threat to those whose first-class status relies on her second-class status. And so we police one another. So a man derides a woman who presents as even slightly masculine, or who has not done enough work in his estimation for him to consider her a viable sexual option. So women tear one another down in an attempt to form an alliance with the men who occupy that coveted position of relative power and freedom.
And that is why working on this project was important to me.
We are policed by individuals as well as by cultural messages which are dispersed quite blatantly via advertisements. Advertisements convey and reinforce social law and allow others to profit from our acceptance that these are absolute truths rather than constructed meanings open to critique and even rejection. This is nothing short of tragic. These are not theoretical battles; the impact of these social edicts is tangible and inescapable. I am not infrequently told that I should lighten up, calm down, not think so hard or so much, relax, stop being so serious, etc, etc, etc. Truthfully, sometimes I would love to be able to afford the luxury of not thinking about these things perpetually. Every human being wants to rest now and then. But there is always some peacocking social enforcer lurking round the corner, all too willing to remind me that I can never forget, relax, let my guard down, think less.
And so.
(Side note-This marks the end of this blog as a service learning project, but I do think I will continue to discuss feminist issues here in the future.)
I was dressed in typical, fairly unisex gym clothing (shorts and an undershirt). On the off chance that anyone who doesn't know me personally is reading this, I have a generally low-maintenance uh, look; my hair is extremely short (I cut it myself with a buzz cutter), I don't usually wear makeup, don't shave my legs, etc. Basically I choose to eschew all of that costly and time-consuming maintenance that we are meant associate with femininity.
As I walked home from the gym, I saw a young man draped over the door of a car, speaking to a woman inside. As I passed, he laughed, loudly and sarcastically catcalled me, and then said, "SHE LOOK LIKE A MAN!!" and continued laughing.
(Uh, just as a reminder: I look this way on purpose, and do not base my self-worth on my ability to appeal sexually to men, so this wasn't the devastating experience it might otherwise have been; my feelings weren't hurt or anything, so no need to be like "I'm so sorry that happened!!!" etc. I'm not sorry it happened at all! For reasons which I will try to make clear.)
My immediate reaction was to think, "My god. The blatant ways we try to police one another's gender expression and sexuality in order to reinforce our own."
Prior to him noticing me, I noticed him. His body language was overtly masculine; he was peacocking for the woman in the car, towering over her as she sat in the driver's seat, leaning into her space in a way that was simultaneously casual and meaningful.
So here he was, caught in this moment of extreme heterosexual posturing, and suddenly I came into view. His reaction was SO visceral that I have to believe I was read as a threat. Of course I was. I am a woman who is not playing by the established rules of femininity. This indicates two things:
1) I am possibly intentionally withholding sexual availability from men; at the very least, I am clearly not invested in this moment in garnering sexual attention from men, which is a violation of the heterosexual feminine mandate
2) I am encroaching upon his masculinity with my masculinity
That last one. Oof. Of course he reacted by derisively pointing out my transgressive gender presentation! Masculinity belongs to men! All else equal, relative to women, men are free; their freedom derives from their masculinity and their masculinity is an expression of their freedom. Regardless of how you feel about femme identity, I think we can all agree that presenting as ultrafeminine (as it is culturally defined) takes a fucking lot of TIME and MONEY and EFFORT. Women's shoes and clothing is EXPENSIVE. Makeup is EXPENSIVE and takes time to apply. Shaving your legs and armpits and whatever else you may shave takes a lot more time and costs a lot more money than not shaving. Women's haircuts are EXPENSIVE and women's hair tends to take longer to style than men's. etc, etc, etc.
As a woman who does none of these things, I get to hear a lot of women telling me why they could never do x or stop doing y. These justifications tend to center around not wanting to be perceived as masculine or as sexually unattractive to men (or censured by other women; "if I have to do this, YOU should have to do this, too"). Giving up these markers of femininity frees up time and money and effort, but the cost is great. We are daily reminded that as women, our value lies in the approval of men, since men have more social power than we do; and that we are valued most when we are most feminine. The best bauble. If we are willing to be decorative first, we will be highly prized by the average heterosexual man.
(I am deliberately generalizing here because this is a blog post, not a book; but books can and have and will be written about the many ways this scenario is impacted by class, race, age, sexual orientation, able-bodiedness, etc. all worthwhile and important things to consider.)
Choosing not to be a bauble is threatening to men who are invested in maintaining the status quo. A woman who chooses not to be merely decorative and not to place value upon being objectified is a threat to those whose first-class status relies on her second-class status. And so we police one another. So a man derides a woman who presents as even slightly masculine, or who has not done enough work in his estimation for him to consider her a viable sexual option. So women tear one another down in an attempt to form an alliance with the men who occupy that coveted position of relative power and freedom.
And that is why working on this project was important to me.
We are policed by individuals as well as by cultural messages which are dispersed quite blatantly via advertisements. Advertisements convey and reinforce social law and allow others to profit from our acceptance that these are absolute truths rather than constructed meanings open to critique and even rejection. This is nothing short of tragic. These are not theoretical battles; the impact of these social edicts is tangible and inescapable. I am not infrequently told that I should lighten up, calm down, not think so hard or so much, relax, stop being so serious, etc, etc, etc. Truthfully, sometimes I would love to be able to afford the luxury of not thinking about these things perpetually. Every human being wants to rest now and then. But there is always some peacocking social enforcer lurking round the corner, all too willing to remind me that I can never forget, relax, let my guard down, think less.
And so.
(Side note-This marks the end of this blog as a service learning project, but I do think I will continue to discuss feminist issues here in the future.)
30.4.10
Vikings and Spartans and Naked Ladies, Oh My
I'm sure I don't even need to express my general feelings about Axe and its ad campaigns. This particularly egregious ad spot calls our attention to the Axe Undie Run Challenge, in which college students across America (but mostly conventionally attractive women) eagerly donate the clothes off their backs (literally) to charity.
Notable items:
- Far more semi-naked women than men in this advertisement. All women are, as mentioned, conventionally attractive; a good portion of the men featured are not conventionally attractive, and reveal far less skin than the women (clothed men are placed prominently next to unclothed or undressing women)
- Men are seen dressed up as Spartans, Vikings, and...Zorro. Women can't be costumed plunderers (or masked heroes), apparently.
- Dumbed-down voice-over. Because men are stupid.
- Obvious heterosexist slant. Because queer men don't exist.
- Use of the phrase "up in this bitch," which is a gendered slur used to dehumanize women.
You know it has to be pretty bad when it makes me long for an Old Spice commercial.
29.4.10
Manly Men: Lite Beer Edition
Miller Lite Ad
I think this ad is really interesting because it uses a woman as the voice of misogyny. The female bartender is scornful towards the beer-ordering male patron who doesn't appreciate REAL beer (which we're meant to believe is a masculine trait), telling him that when he's ready for a real beer he should "put down his purse" (ie rid himself of traditional signifiers of femininity) and order a Miller Lite. Presumably we're meant to be okay with this incredibly blatant anti-womanism because it is...coming from a woman. The message to both men and women is that women (and feminine men) have no appreciation for a good beer; in a bar setting, this translates to femininity being inherently shameful and embarrassing. (Though I should note that the female bartender does not have a masculine appearance; perhaps to make up for her aggressive persona, her appearance is hyper-feminine) This is another example of an advertisement based on the notion that Manly Men don't want any Girliness girling up their manstuff.
I think this ad is really interesting because it uses a woman as the voice of misogyny. The female bartender is scornful towards the beer-ordering male patron who doesn't appreciate REAL beer (which we're meant to believe is a masculine trait), telling him that when he's ready for a real beer he should "put down his purse" (ie rid himself of traditional signifiers of femininity) and order a Miller Lite. Presumably we're meant to be okay with this incredibly blatant anti-womanism because it is...coming from a woman. The message to both men and women is that women (and feminine men) have no appreciation for a good beer; in a bar setting, this translates to femininity being inherently shameful and embarrassing. (Though I should note that the female bartender does not have a masculine appearance; perhaps to make up for her aggressive persona, her appearance is hyper-feminine) This is another example of an advertisement based on the notion that Manly Men don't want any Girliness girling up their manstuff.
26.4.10
This one is from the UK; normally I try to choose advertisements from the United States, but in this case I think the cultural messages at play are relevant.
The advertisement takes us on a journey through a woman's life, from infancy through old age. Throughout most of the advertisement, she is placed in the context of a family- in fact, is the center of the family. As the commercial opens, we see her plucked from her crib by a women in stereotypically feminine clothing (whose face we do not see- we know her as a maternal entity, but nothing more) and set down to play. The child wears a frilly-sleeved pinkish top with flowers and butterflies on it (in other words, extremely gendered clothing). She crawls through a tunnel, and emerges at the other end, older and wearing a red and white gingham dress (also extremely gender-specific clothing). As she climbs up into her school desk, we catch a glimpse of her pencil container - pink. Many of the other children in her classroom are raising their hands; she is not. We are then taken to a birthday party given in her honor- she wears a red dress, blows out candles atop a pink and white cake. I have to say, this birthday party looks INCREDIBLY fancy- teapot, petit fours, all sorts of teeny, adult-looking snacks. This is no working-class affair, I assume. We then move to a scene in which young adults celebrate some occasion in what looks to be the hallway of a college dorm. She's not wearing a dress, but she IS kissing her boyfriend; our heroine is definitely straight. (props, I guess, for including SOME people of color at this point, though they are definitely background characters, even by background characters' standards).
Next, of course, we see our heroine getting married in a somewhat formal-looking ceremony (white dress for the bride, suit for the groom). The couple moves into a home (we see the woman opening the refrigerator and catch a bonus shot of her wedding band) and as she pulls back from the fridge, pizza slice in hand, we note that she is pregnant. There is a scene depicting two children and the woman and her husband together in the living room, and then we move to a scene with the woman in the kitchen yet again, talking on the phone and baking something with her daughter (the son is nowhere to be seen). As she gets older, we see her in the kitchen AGAIN, grabbing a pitcher of some sort of beverage to bring out to the family. At the end of the commercial, she is seen with her husband taking her grandchildren out to play.
Did she do anything with that college degree we assume she received (at least, that's what I figured the celebration in the dorm was about)? Who knows. All we really know is that her life followed an extremely well-worn path: school, love, marriage, THEN kids (heaven forbid kids come before marriage), then kids' kids. Her life is defined by her role in her family (which, for those of you who were paying attention, includes lots of time in the kitchen). We're supposed to feel like we have followed this woman on the journey of her life, but we really know almost nothing about her except that she is a wife, a mother, a grandmother.
And we all know how many products wives and mothers and grandmothers need to purchase to successfully care for those families, right? Hmm.
23.4.10
So, this is the Lane Bryant lingerie ad that ABC and Fox allegedly refused to air. Apparently, ABC and FOX have nothing against large women being portrayed as sexy; it's just that they HATE ladies running around in skimpy outfits. Their viewers deserve better than such tastelessness.
I mean, You'd never catch anyone running around in negligible clothing on ABC's Desperate Housewives.
or The Bachelor.
Or Fox's So You Think You Can Dance.
I could go on, but you guys deserve better than such tastelessness, right?
18.4.10
The Bechdel Test
This is one you may have seen making the rounds on feminist blogs of late: Feminist Frequency's video about the Bechdel Test. I've been advertisement-focused on this blog thus far, but the lack of substantial female representation in entertainment media is definitely something that bears scrutiny. The Bechdel Test was created by Alison Bechdel, who wrote and illustrated Dykes To Watch Out For and Fun Home. A movie or television show passes the Bechdel Test if it
1: Contains two or more women who have names
2: These woman talk to each other
3: These women talk to each other about something other than a man
Doesn't sound too rigorous, does it? You may be surprised by just how many movies and television shows are not able to pass this test. This lack of representation is a huge problem! It renders invisible women in general, specifically women with interests other than men (like, for example, non-heterosexual women! And let me tell you- as a queer woman, not having any real representation in the media definitely DOES have an impact on me, and I definitely DO feel invisible much of the time). Throw race into the mix, as The Angry Black Woman has in her blog post here, and the dearth of representation becomes even more marked.
Food for thought.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)