Stereotypes

Today, once again, I saw another feminist reference a stereotype of feminists used against her to discredit her. Who it is doesn’t really specifically matter, because it was the same old tired type of stereotype I see used against feminists all the time – an implication that feminism neccesarily means not shaving off body hair and being “fat” (which according to many anti-feminist men I’ve encountered, means anything over a size 8.)

And you’ve probably seen this many times, unless you’ve been living under a rock. A woman speaks up for her rights and sooner or later someone comes along and yells, “Shut up, you hairy-legged, fat, man-hating dyke!” And the woman who made the statements is supposed to be immediately put on the defensive. “I’m not fat! I shave my legs every day! I like men!”

On a wider cultural level, this has morphed into the “nice, pretty feminist” defense and the “lipstick lesbians”. “See, we are pretty, we shave, we diet and exercise, we wear makeup. We care about being pretty. We wear stockings and dresses. We LIKE dressing up. We enjoy being feminine. We have a boyfriend/a husband/lots of boyfriends/lots of male friends. We are therefore safe from your criticisms, which are totally without basis.” This sort of defensiveness, particularly when the accusation has become old hat yet is untrue, is easy to understand.

But there are feminist women (and non-feminist women, for that matter) who do not shave their legs or armpits, who are overweight or fat and are not dieting, who are lesbians or even feminist seperatists. Anti-feminist agitators know this and hope to catch a few women in their net as they throw out these blanket accusations.

What is the message conveyed by the frequent practice of anti-feminists making off-topic ad feminem attacks on women’s appearance or personal relationships while ignoring what they are actually talking about? I see two here, although perhaps they really are the same.

The first message is that if you are female, your appearance is the most important thing about you. If a fat woman who does not shave her legs or wear makeup speaks eloquently and brilliantly about how we can help raped and abused women and children, all most people will see about her is that she is fat and doesn’t shave or wear makeup. They don’t care what she said – or perhaps more accurately, they dismiss or are even antagonistic to what she said because of her appearance. She has transgressed against society’s rules for women’s appearance. It does not matter is she is fat due to genetics or disease; it does not matter if she objects to animal testing done on most makeup products or is allergic to almost all makeup or feels spending money on makeup is a form of luxury spending she feels is overly consumerish and spoiled; it does not matter if she breaks out into a rash every time she shaves and so has decided to stop. She is trangressing against women’s place in the world and must be smacked down. An interesting exception to this rule comes into play, however, if the woman obviously follows a strict interpretation of a patriarchal religion. If her refusal to wear makeup or shave her body are framed as submission to a male God, a male priesthood, and her husband or father, she is immune from criticism on this basis.

What this tells us is that wearing make up, removing all socially offensive body hair, and struggling to keep our weight within societally sanctioned norms are all seen as methods of control. A woman who is thin, removes every hair not growing on her scalp, and who wears makeup daily is perceived as being someone under control, non-threatening, non-rebellious, still somewhat under control of the patriarchy. (Note the emphasis on perceived – I am not suggesting that every thin woman who shaves and wears makeup is not committed to feminism – although the mere fact that I have to include that disclaimer shows how divisive the accusation is, for divisiveness amongst women is one toxic effect of these type of verbal jabs.) A woman who does not do these things because she accepts that her body is under the control of a male god is not criticized for it because she is still perceived as being under control of the patriarchy – she is “safe”.

There are so many layers to this. Pornography and how the male gaze has been conditioned to expect certain things about women’s appearance is one layer – the idea of women as objects or trophies to be judged on their appearance. The Republicans, during their last convention, had a speaker insult Democratic women for being unshaven, non-makeup wearing and “ugly”. Democratic men responded by showcasing girlfriends and wives who were slender and hairless. PETA uses societal standards of beauty against women they dislike and exploit thin, white women’s bodies for publicity purposes as seen here and here. Ann Coulter – whose status as a slender, white women who conforms to societal expectations of women almost certainly contributes to her success – is slammed by men on the left for being “too thin” or for possibly being a man due to having a prominent larynx. Meanwhile, men on the right defend her as being “beautiful AND smart“! There is little doubt which of the two adjectives is more important to them – consider which one is always listed first.

It is true that there are societal standards of appearance for both men and women. But the amount of effort required by women to keep up an “acceptable” appearance is much greater than that required of men. In order to be generally socially acceptable in appearance, men are required to wear clean, unstained, unwrinkled clothing, brush their teeth, comb their hair (if they have any), be clean shaven or have a trimmed beard and moustache, weigh less than 300 pounds, and wear deodorant – and this is only for formal situations. When a man is not going to work or any formal function, a number of these things will be overlooked.

But a woman must do all of these things and more. Women who wear a size 12- weighing perhaps 160 – can be vilified as “fat” by complete strangers and are expected to feel bad about themselves, stop eating “so much”, and go to a gym. Men are not expected to wear makeup daily to be attractive, but women are. Women are expected, due to the increasing ubiquity of the practice in porn, to shave all or part of their pubic hair. Women are expected to shave their legs and armpits. Failing to do any of these costly and time consuming processes on a regular basis is referred to as “not taking care of yourself.” It is considered grounds for street harassment and romantic rejection. A woman who does not conform is blamed for not being taken seriously or for being treated badly.

The problem is – when women do perform these acts of conformity, they aren’t treated well anyway. Street harassment does not disappearwhen a woman keeps her weight down and dresses like a model – the harrassment merely changes from “hey you fat ugly bitch!” to “hey hot mama, come sit on my face!” Ann Coulter is, as demonstrated by her male fan club above, seen as primarily a visually attractive woman. They clearly like what she is saying, but her appearance is more important to them than her words. How many political campaigns do you see who use a conventionally attractive female actress to gain publicity? Are they selling their concept or her body? Is she really being listened to, or is she just being used as bait to get men’s attention? Being used as bait does not make you powerful – consider what happens to live bait when one goes fishing.

A woman’s appearance should have absolutely no bearing on whether or not one takes her politics seriously. The fact that it does shows that controlling women’s appearance – and thus, controlling their bodies and their lives – is a central concern to the patriarchy.
The second message conveyed by the standard ad feminem attack – that of lesbian-baiting or accusing the writer of misandry – is related but uglier and more convoluted. The assumption behind this accusation, whether or not it is true, is that men’s needs and desires should be the top priority of all women at all times. Lesbian women offend against this by refusing to make men’s sexual desires a priority to them at all, whether this be by choice or by inclination. Women who do not constantly qualify every discussion of rape or domestic abuse with “and remember, this happens to men too” are accused of man-hating because they put the majority of victims of these crimes – women – before the minority of victims – men. “Individualist feminists” have become popular among libertarian men because while they purport to focus on the injustices done to women because “men and women deserve equal treatment under law”, the home page of the forerunning “iFeminist organization” is comprised almost entirely of links meant to help men, stories about how men get the short end of the stick, stories purporting women to be liars, and praise of sexualized images of women.

To suggest a woman’s first priority should NOT be that of her husband, her boyfriend, or men in general is obviously stilll a radical idea which society cannot handle. Merely failing to put men’s interests first will earn a woman an accusation of “man-hater” or “dyke”. Men are so accustomed to being the primary benificiaries of every government policy, every law, every social convention and marketing campaign, that to be asked to take second place even in such places as a feminist’s personal blog or a women’s studies class triggers their outrage. They then demand entry, demand attention, demand women waste their time and energy explaining and qualifying and backtracking and apologizing and being “polite” and sweet and nice and dainty and ladylike – in an attempt to assuage their male egos. Only once a message is watered down to ineffiacy or stated so generally that almost no one can argue (”Rape is bad!” “The patriarchy hurts men too!” “Both men and women can be victims of domestic violence!”) will they lend their support. Often, then after demanding the message be tailored to suit them in order to gain their stamp of approval, they will point to their support of this issue as evidence of their “feminism”. And if you question or challenge them on this, you are labelled a “radical”, a “divider”, and of course, a “man-hater”.

If prioritzing my concerns about the human race puts first the concerns of women, because they are not only the class of people who bring children into this world, but are also expected to do most of the work most basic to human survival; including caring for those children so that they survive into adulthood, house work, providing food (both in terms of cooking it and growing it (did you know that women comprise 72% of the estimated 1 billion migrant farmers and 80% of all farm workers in Africa?) – while at the same time they are often denied education; an equal voice (or any voice at all) in “their” government; an equal voice (or any voice at all) in “their” religion; a right to their bodies, be that the right to use contraception, abortion, to have sex or refuse sex on their own terms, to avoid being beaten or killed or to fight back against those who assault them – then yes, I will put women first. I will put these concerns before men’s whining about how boys are being discriminated against in school because they don’t want to follow the rules that the girls are following; I will put these concerns before men whining that they are discriminated against in divorce court by being told to hand over a percentage of their income to children they fathered, or that they are discriminated against by not being given primary custody of a child of whom they were never the primary caretaker; I will put these concerns before the concerns of men who feel it is more important they have glossy magazines filled with images of women they consider to be “eye candy” than it is that the women in the porn industry are abused and raped and coerced into the industry a frighteningly large percentage of the time. If this is what makes me a radical feminist, I am proud to be a radical feminist. If you think that makes me a man-hater, what does it say about you that you think men’s convenience should trump any concern’s about women’s worldwide subjugation? If you think “lesbian” is an insult, maybe you should question why you think all women should be willing to meet your sexual needs. If you whine that I should instead be a “humanist”, go back and read the preceding paragraph and tell me what is not “humanist” about addressing the most major form of injustice in the world.

In short, the second message is a denial of women’s humanity and autonomy, and a denial of reality – it is saying that women’s torture and murder and abuse at the hands of men should be ignored or glossed over in order to avoid offending men. This ties in with the first message in this – that women are always expected to be soothing and non-threatening, even when talking about how they were raped or how their sisters or friends or mothers or daughters were raped, beaten or killed – that there is no excuse for women to fail to attempt to please men at all times, no matter how much men fail to care about women.

Failing to live solely to please men is a radical act – their outrage whenever they are not catered to is proof of this.

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