Nov 16

To the Morons who wear Make-Up

First, there’s the ageism you’re perpetuating: make-up is intended, to a large degree, to make one look younger.  In many respects, younger is better, but in many respects, it isn’t (and anyway, make-up merely gives one the appearance of being younger).  True, at some point in time, being old is completely the pits, but hey, that’s life, deal with it – without delusion or deception (or implied insult).

Second, if make-up were merely intended to (attempt to) make one beautiful, well, I suppose there’s no harm in that – the world can always use a little more beauty.  However, I despair at the pathetically low aesthetic standards in use if a blue eyelid is considered beautiful – let’s at least see a glittering rainbow under that eyebrow arch!  Further, I despair at the attention to beauty of skin if at the expense of beauty of character.

However, make-up is intended as much, if not more, to (attempt to) make one sexually attractive.  (To some extent, I suppose physical beauty is sexually attractive, but that suggests a very narrow definition of beauty: a dog running full-out is beautiful but not, at least to me, sexually attractive.)  (It also suggests a very narrow definition of sexual attractiveness.)  I’m thinking, for example, of reddened (and puckered) lips – what is that but an advertisement for fellatio?  Consider too the perfume (especially if it’s musk rather than floral), and the earrings (earlobes as erogenous zones), and the bras that push up and pad – all are part of the woman’s morning grooming routine, her ‘getting ready’ (that phrase itself begs the question ‘Ready for what?’) (‘Sex!’).

Now there’s nothing wrong with being sexually attractive per se.  But there is something wrong – something sick – about wanting to be bait (sexually attract-ive) all day long.  Especially when those same women complain about the attention they receive for their sexual attractiveness – the looks, the comments, the invitations (can you say ‘sexual harassment’?)  Not only is there a serious self-esteem problem here, there’s a serious consistency of thought problem here.

Third, combine the first point with the first part of the second point and we see another problem: make-up endorses the ‘(only) young is beautiful’ attitude.

Combine the first point with the second part of the second point: make-up endorses the ‘(only) young is sexually attractive’ attitude.

Add the shaved legs and armpits (and eyeliner, for that big baby doe-eyed look?), and we see we’re not just talking ‘young’ as in ‘twenty years old’ but ‘young’ as in pre-pubescent (only pre-pubescents are hairless, only pre-pubescents have such smooth skin).  And that’s really disturbing – to establish/reinforce the sexual attractiveness of pre-pubescents.

Why is it (we think) men find young women, girls, sexually attractive?  I doubt it’s just the ‘heathy for childbearing’ thing.  Because actually, it’s not healthy for girls to bear children, and it’s not even possible for pre-pubescents to do so.  (And it’s not like the men follow up in nine months to claim their progeny.)  (But then I’m assuming rational behaviour here.)

I suspect it’s the power thing.  Men can have power over, feel superior to, children more easily than adults.  So in addition to encouraging child sexual abuse, women who shave their legs and otherwise appear/act prepubescent are reinforcing the ‘sex as power’ instead of ‘sex as pleasure’ attitude (though of course I guess for many men power is pleasure).

Last, compounding all of this is the custom that only women wear make-up.  Which reinforces the whole patriarchy thing: the women are sexual objects while the men are sexual subjects.  (‘Course, without make-up, and the loss of about 20 pounds, and, well, major surgery, most men couldn’t cut it as sexual objects anyway.)

Nov 07

Swedish Cinemas using the Bechdel test!!

Check it out here!

 

[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]

Nov 01

What happens when men do the cooking and the baking?

Used to be women did the cooking and the baking.  Then men starting getting into it.  And in theory, I have no problem with that.  In fact, I’m all for making everything gender-unaligned.  But now that men are in the kitchen, suddenly it’s important.  So important it’s being televised.

And my god, the drama!  (And they call us drama queens.)  The tension, the conflict… Chefs (yes, men are chefs; women were just cooks) scream with self-righteous anger at their minions, they rush around with great urgency making sure every sprinkle of cinnamon is just right, because, well, it’s so frickin’ important.

The phenomenon defies logic.  Drama, therefore importance?  No, because then the toddler screaming about his toy truck in the shopping mall would rank right up there with nuclear disarmament.

If anything, Continue reading

Oct 24

The Pill for Men

‘Outrageous!’  That was the word used way back in ’85 in response to the expectation that men take a contraceptive that had a side-effect of reduced sex drive.  Hello.  Let me tell you about the contraceptive pill for women.  Side-effects include headaches, nausea, weight gain, mood changes, yeast infections, loss of vision, high blood pressure, gall bladder disease, liver tumours, skin cancer, strokes, heart attacks, and death.  Oh, and reduced sex drive. (Thing is, and get this – do not pass go until you do – taking the pill is, for many of us, preferable to getting pregnant.)

But, you know, Continue reading

Oct 17

The Wife

The Good Wife, The Trophy Wife, The First Wives Club…why in the 21st century do women continue to be so frequently identified as wives?  That is, identified in relation to men?

We don’t see a similar proliferation of tv shows and movies with “husband” in the title.  The word is emasculating.  It would be especially so if it were in the context of “The Perfect Husband” or “Julia’s Husband” or some such.

Why don’t people see that “wife” is just as bad, just as subordinating?

(They do.  That’s why the male writers, directors, and producers use it so often.)

 

(On a somewhat related note, I once read with amazement the synopsis of a movie that went something like “A man’s wife goes missing from their house and …” — why didn’t they just say “A woman goes missing from her house and …” ??)

 

[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]

 

Oct 14

Ladies, It’s Your Fault – GREAT video!

Check out this GREAT video!  “Ladies, It’s Your Fault!” 

Oct 10

Marriage: A Sexist Affair

Marriage, by its very (traditional) definition, is a sexist affair: it involves one of each sex, one male and one female.  And I suppose this is because, traditionally, the purpose of marriage was family: to start a family, to have and raise children.

This view is fraught with questionable assumptions, glaring inconsistencies, and blatant errors.  I’ll give one of each: the connection between having and raising children is not at all necessary, hence the ‘one male and one female’ is not at all necessary; if the purpose of marriage is to have a family, why do couples who do not intend to have children nevertheless marry – and why don’t couples routinely divorce once the children are raised; the marriage contract goes well beyond family concerns – indeed, it barely approaches family concerns – one pledges to love and honour one’s spouse, not one’s children.

Notwithstanding the very mistaken connection between marriage and family, I’d like to suggest another reason for the sexism in marriage.  Assuming that marriage entails love, and love entails ‘looking after’, sexism makes things ‘easier’.

Consider this: Continue reading

Oct 04

School Crossing Signs

You’ve seen the signs I mean – silhouette figures of two children about to cross the road: one boy, one girl.  (How do we tell?  One’s wearing a skirt.)  (That’d be the girl.)  (Really, do most girls still wear skirts to school?)

So, yes, let’s emphasize sex.  Boy and Girl.  Ms. and Mr.  Nothing else matters.

And nothing else is possible.

Note that the boy is taller. ‘Oh, but they are.’  Not at that age! Taller suggests older which suggests more mature, wiser.  And just in case you miss this not-so-subtle suggestion of male authority, look, he has his hand on the little girl’s shoulder – guiding, protecting, patronizing.  It will be there for the rest of her life.

Just to make sure of that, we have this social understanding that in a couple, the man should be two or three years older than the woman.  Such an arrangement gives the illusion, and the excuse, of the man being in a position of authority over the woman – after all, he’s older.  (But since, as they say, women mature two years ahead of men, such an arrangement merely ensures the two are ‘equal’.  If they were the same age, they’d see in a minute that the woman should take the lead, being more mature intellectually, emotionally, and socially.)

And to really really make sure the message of male authority gets through, mothers encourage their boys to be the man of the house.  So a fourteen year old boy comes to consider himself more knowing, more capable, than a woman twice his age (his mother).  Is it any wonder that at eighteen, he assumes he’s more knowing, more capable, than all women?

Now I confess that if the crossing sign had things the other way around, a taller, older girl guiding a younger boy, I’d protest the nurturant mommy-in-training role model.  Which just goes to show we can’t win.  As long as we insist on pointing at everything and saying ‘male!’ or ‘female!’  As long as we live in an apartheid of sex.

The ironic thing is that the signs point the way to (or from) school, the institution at which we supposedly become educated, enlightened.  Looks like we just learn how to colour – in pink and blue.       (In black and white.)

 

[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]

Sep 23

Testicular Battery and Tranquilizer Guns (what the world needs now is)

Given the relative vulnerability of men to sexual assault (all it takes to disable them is a swift forceful kick, or, at closer quarters, a good grab, pull, twist – almost anything, really) (whereas women have to be partially undressed and then immobilized), given the relative vulnerability of men to sexual assault, it’s surprising that we hear far more often about rape than – well, we don’t even have a special name for it.  Testicular battery?

Since most women are physically capable of such an assault, the reason must be some psychological social inhibition.  And, of course, this is so.  Girls are not permitted, encouraged, or taught to fight; boys are.  All three.  Women are socialized to see men as their protectors, not their enemies.  Men are – well, this is the interesting bit: men used to be socialized to see women as in need of protection, and so would never dream of raping them (well, okay, they’d dream of it – perhaps often and in technicolor – but there was a strong social stigma against assaulting the fair sex: boys were shamed if they ever hit a girl, and if you ever hit your wife, let alone another woman, well what kind of man are you?), but feminism got rid of such patronizing chivalry.

And rightly so.  Unfortunately, it has yet to make its replacement, self-defence, as commonplace.

There’s another problem.  We’re afraid that if we hurt them, they’ll come back (when they can walk again) and kill us.  Which is why women’s self-defence should include a small tranquilizer gun.

(‘Course they might still come back and kill us.  After all, to be decommissioned by a woman!  It would be a new kind of honor killing…)

 

[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]

Sep 17

Message to Amy Farrah Fowler: LEAVE HIM NOW.

(Thought I’d better post this one before the new season in case she DOES leave him!)

 

Is anyone else really really disturbed by Amy Farrah Fowler’s character on The Big Bang Theory?  She is so intelligent, has a Ph.D., is a neurobiologist, and yet she stays in a relationship with Sheldon Cooper, the most infantile, the most arrogant, the most selfish person ever.  That in itself is boggling.  But – the relationship.  It’s not.  How low does her self-esteem have to be for her to think she can’t do better?

Maybe, though, she’s right.  Eliminate the 99% who aren’t as smart as her.  Of those, eliminate the ones who are already married.  Then eliminate the ones she’s not likely to ever meet.  Is there anyone left?

But wait.  Why does the guy have to be as smart as her?  How bad does the world have to be for it to be true that no man less intelligent than her will have the maturity to want her, to love her?  Maybe her choices really are Zack, Sheldon, or no one.

Well, given that – it’s a no-brainer, Amy!  A life lived alone is far, far better than a life intertwined with someone who ignores you, who belittles your interests (neurobiology is not nearly as important as theoretical physics), who belittles your achievements (remember the time she was published in a major journal?), who knows what you want (because you’ve come right out and told him) and still does not give it to you (romance, sex).

II’ve actually started fast-forwarding through the Sheldon-and-Amy scenes because they’ve become just too sickening to watch.  ‘Emotionally abusive’ is the phrase I’m looking for.  (And who is it who thinks that’s entertaining?)

 

[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]

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