Notes From My Boner: “Natural” beauty

190 thoughts on Notes From My Boner: “Natural” beauty

1. There are guys who say that who actually prefer a woman with visible imperfections, some of them for really really icky reasons. There is the belief that trans women (yeah…all of them) have had cosmetic surgery to look like Kim Kardashian and Halle Berry in all shades and nicely proportioned bodies so an imperfection is “reassuring.”

   There are plenty of black men who say they want a woman wearing her natural hair but it has to be a certain texture, if her hair is too kinky she must wear locs or she’s just too damned natural for him.

   There are men who say ” I need a woman with curves” and want someone who has a less than 28 inch waist with big breasts thighs.

   Then of course there are the guys who think telling a woman they dont know and have never seen before that she’s pretty is going to make her feel better, as if all her self esteem needed was a fake stamp of approval from him. Why him? Because balls.

2. It was linked indirectly, but I think this response really needs reiteration:

   http://einsteinonacid.tumblr.com/post/23945701794/i-really-tried-to-capture-his-facial-expression

3. There is the belief that trans women (yeah…all of them) have had cosmetic surgery to look like Kim Kardashian and Halle Berry in all shades and nicely proportioned bodies so an imperfection is “reassuring.”

   Yes, I’ve heard that logic: any woman who’s too perfect must really be a “man.” Such deep thinkers!

4. Dear girls,
   DON’T BE INSECURE
   you don’t need make-up & nice clothes
   you’re all fucking beautiful
   …
   of course, if you weren’t beautiful by whatever standard I am imposing right now
   then that would totally be a legit reason to be insecure
   amirite?
   …
   so yeah
   good thin you are beautiful
   fucking beautiful
   just so we’re clear
   …
   will you please give me what I want now that I’ve been all explicitly supportive and shit?
   like… buy things from me?

5. Ah, yes. I always want to ask these guys if their idea of “natural” beauty includes things like my “naturally” gigantic Mediterranean unibrow that I regularly take a hedge trimmer to.

   I also like to imagine a role reversal: Madame du Barry telling King Louis “no, no, darling, leave off the albumen face whitening and carmine today, I like a natural look!”

6. Kim Kardashian and I get mixed up all the time. I get really tired of all these people asking me for my autograph.

7. @Donna,

   Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t “natural beauty” narratives sort of inherently transphobic? As in, if transfolk are beautiful, it’s not natural, and if they’re natural, they can’t be beautiful? I can’t put my finger on why it feels like it’s really gender essentialist, even when it isn’t directed solely at women (which it is, in this case, but).

8. I’ll be honest; I used to have the “natural beauty” attitude. Granted, I’ve never said that women should not wear makeup, or that women who wear makeup are insecure, but I never realized how problematic that attitude is in general.

   You learn something every day, like they say.

9. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t “natural beauty” narratives sort of inherently transphobic? As in, if transfolk are beautiful, it’s not natural, and if they’re natural, they can’t be beautiful? I can’t put my finger on why it feels like it’s really gender essentialist, even when it isn’t directed solely at women (which it is, in this case, but).

   I would say so. To quote the Cover Girl slogan: “Maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s Cover Girl.” In other words, “natural” beauty (as opposed to store-bought beauty) is something one is “born with”–it’s innate, genetic, and immutable. Most trans people, however, have to work hard to look they want they want to; they are not “born with it.” Until I finish certain medical treatments, for example, I can’t look the way I like without wearing foundation to cover up my 5 o’clock shadow (or “tr**ny makeup” to use the “natural beauty” terminology).

   So yeah, “natural beauty” narratives are transphobic and gender essentialist. They are also fatphobic, racist, and lookist. With one hand, the patriarchy creates these narrow beauty standards that only a few women can attain “natually;” with the other hand the patriarchy punishes women who do what they’re supposed to and buy consumer products in an attempt to “artificially” attain those ideals.

10. Have you ever heard of all those European venus figurines from the around the late Paleolithic era? I always saw that as proof that my delicious body type is natural. To view mass media, s***, just to go out on the street, you would think my sacred figure is not natural beauty, but heinously self-disfigured! They say people who look like me can get diseases! I say, who is immune to disease?!!
    Yo, I am so sick of a constant focus on what women’s bodies should supposedly look like!! It is like enough already– now telling me to be “naturally beautiful”, well for f***s sake I’ve been trying forever…

11. I can’t look the way I like without wearing foundation to cover up my 5 o’clock shadow

    Heck, I’m a cis-gender woman, and this is true of me, too. And that’s not even getting into my newly developed, doctors-don’t-know-why, disfiguring skin disorder.

12. In other words, they want you to be a woman who doesn’t exist.

    Yeah. What would be tiresome is if they tried to turn that into some bogus medical diagnosis and made it about “health”.

13. I clicked on a few of those ‘celebrities without make-up’ links.

    There’s no way half of them are going completely without make-up. Maybe they don’t have the professional grade detailing, but there’s a least foundation and some attempt at a hairdo (also, all the things that don’t need to be done everyday, such as the shaped eyebrows and the hair care/highlights/cuts).

14. Heck, I consider myself to be doing “nothing” face-wise, but I still:
    – shampoo and condition every two days
    – brush and style my hair every morning, and again every evening
    – shave my legs
    – shave my armpits
    – use deodorant
    – use perfume
    – pluck facial hair out with tweezers
    – use facewash

    The no-maintenance look doesn’t actually require no-maintenance. Not ever.

15. I think that a lot of normative-thinking straight men, even if they themselves prefer women with no make-up and even if they intellectually understand that beauty norms are all socially constructed, have still internalized “make-up = pretty” to a large degree. Or at the very least, they’re strongly aware that there are a lot of other men for whom “make-up = pretty” describes their taste in women. I myself enjoy wearing and experimenting with make-up a lot (in fact, I’ve been getting a ton of mileage lately off that “look like you’re wearing no make-up” guide Caperton linked mockingly, but I didn’t buy any new products, I modified it slightly with things I already had), and it has very little to do with men. However, I have noticed that my make-up has been somewhat of a threat to the type of man I described to begin with. I dated a few men over the years that were sort of like this, who didn’t have much to say about my make-up until someone else (usually another man) would say, “Wow, your girlfriend’s gorgeous!” and that’s when things would get weird between us. (Usually they’d break up with me before they outright ordered me to stop wearing make-up, because they were very progressive that way.) In the case of at least two of these guys, I got to see photos of their ex-girlfriends, all of whom not only wore no make-up but didn’t really style their hair or wear accessories either. I think a lot of these men have “women who wear make-up must be insecure in reverse”- it’s more like women who wear make-up make THEM insecure.

16. @Mandella Nelson

    You are refering to the Venus of Willendorf (although there are lots of others thats the most famous one) which funnily enough is another example of unnatural beauty beauty standards, or maybe more accurately a unobtainable beauty ideal, since in the prehistoric nomadic culture that created it women wouldn’t be able to maintain that body shape very easily if at all.

17. In other words, “natural” beauty (as opposed to store-bought beauty) is something one is “born with”–it’s innate, genetic, and immutable.

    Yes, that’s what I thought. Thanks for clarifying, Becca.

18. @#9 It was Maybelline that had that slogan. I used to hate those ads so much.

19. @#9 It was Maybelline that had that slogan.

    Oh wow. . .you’re right. Well that’s embarrasing. Damnit.

20. Cover Girl’s was “easy, breezy, beautiful: Cover Girl.” Which I feel like is also probably oppressive somehow. So at least I wasn’t slandering their good name.

21. “I prefer girls without makeup.”

    Translation: “I prefer girls who don’t need to wear makeup to look the way I want them to look.”

22. Sometimes I feel like this whole “natural” vs “make up” thing is just another “good girl” v “bad girl” thing. Another Madonna/Whore complex.

23. Cover Girl’s was “easy, breezy, beautiful: Cover Girl.” Which I feel like is also probably oppressive somehow. So at least I wasn’t slandering their good name.

    It wasn’t the slander that shocked me, but the fact that you didn’t remember the Maybe/Maybelline connection flies in the face of evenrything I know about advertising/marketing.

    On the subject of make-up, it can become addictive. When we had cameras introduced into the radio studio at the last station I worked for, they had a make-up artist give us lessons on how to do our own ‘on-camera’ make-up, and we all went a bit overboard with it. It’s rather difficult to look at yourself on screen looking younger and not be tempted to continue tweaking.

24. Of course the same men who would be horrified to see a woman without makeup who had a zit or circles under her eyes would never dream of using makeup or a skincare regimen themselves. In our society, women have to be flawless, but men can just kick back and relax cause women arent visual and armpit hair is sexy when its got a y chromosome attached. *eyeroll*

25. I tried to go makeup free for awhile. All of a sudden, people who I saw on a daily basis but rarely spoke to would come up to me and say “Omigosh, are you sick? You look so TIRED!” It got really annoying, so back with the routine. Caperton has it right; no makeup means they want you to be genetically “flawless” AND THEN bare-faced.

26. “Take, for instance, the Internet’s critical obsession with celebrities without makeup, apparently having forgotten that that’s what their boners keep telling us we’re supposed to look like, right? Fresh-faced? Natural?”

    I do think women’s natural faces should be socially acceptable. Sure, sometimes you have zits or wrinkles or circles under your eyes and its not exactly beautiful, but men aren’t expected to spend all this money, time and effort covering up and improving their flaws. A man’s natural face, even with flaws, isn’t considered a sign that he’s unkempt and doesn’t care about his looks. It’s perfectly acceptable, even on a date or a job interview. To look at not just makeup ads but anti-aging product ads, etc, you would think all men have naturally flawless skin. It’s terribly sexist, whether you personally wear makeup or not -it’s not the choice that’s a problem, it’s the pressure on women to make a certain choice, the one that demands extra work and time, money, etc, while men don’t have to care.

    The fact that plain faces, armpit hair, leg hair, and now God help us all pubic hair are so widely considered unacceptable for women but fine for men is sexist bullshit regardless of what grooming you personally prefer.

    Just consider the reception you’d get if you asked him to have hot wax poured on his private parts and ripped off so he could be pretty and “clean” for your ogling and fucking pleasure.

27. There’s also the whiff of dudes not wanting to have to deal with “girl stuff” in this. They want their ladies looking like the arm-candy they’re meant to be, but they don’t want to have to have make-up or girl-things in the bathrooms, and they don’t want to wait for us to get ready. Insisting on “natural beauty” means that not only do we have to do all the things we do to keep beautiful, but we have to hide the fact that we’re doing it.

28. Hypothetical: So if a person is opposed to the use of makeup and body modifications (inc ear piercing, tattoos, everything and anything etc.), is that person necessarily transphobic just because of that?

29. Hypothetical: So if a person is opposed to the use of makeup and body modifications (inc ear piercing, tattoos, everything and anything etc.), is that person necessarily transphobic just because of that?

    Is clothing also a problem for you? contact lenses? Jewelry?

30. No.

31. BHuesca,

    If you’re (general you) thinking of SRS when you’re referring to body modifications, and classing it in with an ear piercing or an ankle tattoo, then yes. Yes, you are necessarily transphobic.

    I’m kind of baffled how you arrived at “transphobic” from “don’t like makeup”, though.

32. Hypothetical: So if a person is opposed to the use of makeup and body modifications (inc ear piercing, tattoos, everything and anything etc.), is that person necessarily transphobic just because of that?

    Well it goes deeper than transphobia. It’s simply not your place to ‘oppose’, as you put it, other people doing things with their own body. You can think these things unattractive or not want to use them yourself but ‘opposing’ other peoples use of them… that’s iffy.

    And also I don’t really know much about transphobia but I’d say yes it is transphobic to oppose the use of makeup/cosmetics, because this is going to disproportionately affect trans people because they are more likely to need to use make up to achieve a look that they’re comfortable in.

33. ok thank you for your answers!

34. BHuesca, isn’t that body policing, which has implications for all women?

    Also, I’ll add that the Paleolithic fertility figures aren’t unique to Europe, and the idea that they would be probably promotes the understanding that “civilization” is uniquely Western in origin. Which is not so much the case, right wing rhetoric aside! I know that my own white ladyness hasn’t been a fabulously civilizing influence.

35. LotusBecca: It’s not enough to just be beautiful, you also have to be easy and breezy.

36. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pile on, BHuesca. I’m a slow crappy typist!

37. The fact that plain faces, armpit hair, leg hair, and now God help us all pubic hair are so widely considered unacceptable for women but fine for men is sexist bullshit regardless of what grooming you personally prefer.

    Just consider the reception you’d get if you asked him to have hot wax poured on his private parts and ripped off so he could be pretty and “clean” for your ogling and fucking pleasure.

    This made me think of something. I apologize in advance if this ends up being off-topic or inappropriate: I sometimes read here but rarely contribute and I am still often confused about etiquette, Feministe being not Feminism 101 space, etc.

    I used to work as an escort and it’s always interesting to me how mixed the power relations were in that sector. Because many discussions on the boards, and many etiquette sections of independent websites stated rather categorically that if the client wants oral attention to his nether regions, he’d better be at least well trimmed. And if he has hair there, it’s his problem – but he is only getting limited care, even though he is paying money.

    And from what I have seen, most men thought it was fair. Yes, they would never pour wax over private parts, that’s for sure. But many shaved religiously before the appointment and had much better grooming than men I dated in my personal life. Of course, some clients had horrible hygiene too, and most were simply average…

    But as I said, I always found it very interesting how a sizeable number of people challenged the stereotypes. Here you have a sector that is supposedly all sexist, imbalanced and sometimes misogynistic. And yet at the same time, at some levels, there were many clients who would go farther in terms of understanding of reciprocity and equal standards that many “civilian” men. They took pride in being “pretty” and clean and making it as easy for their sex worker as possible, even though popular culture says somebody who pays would never bother to do any of that.

38. I’m sure it’s been said, but you guyssss, that guy from outer space is totally doing Blue Steel!!

39. LotusBecca: It’s not enough to just be beautiful, you also have to be easy and breezy.

    Which plays into the “You have to be beautiful, but by Gord, don’t actually let people think you are putting EFFORT into it!”

    So yeah, Cover Girl. pfft.

40. Hypothetical: So if a person is opposed to the use of makeup and body modifications (inc ear piercing, tattoos, everything and anything etc.), is that person necessarily transphobic just because of that?

    Even if not actively and intentionally transphobic, they’re certainly being cissexist, given the disproportionate impact of such opposition on trans people who have body dysphoria. And on trans women who have to wear makeup — not just to help them be reasonably happy with the way they look for their own comfort and self-confidence, as important as that is, but to allow them to be perceived as women and blend in as such, which can obviously be crucial for reasons of safety and to avoid harassment and discrimination. There was a time, early in my transition. when I was so terrified by the idea of being seen in public without makeup (because I was afraid that my history would then be obvious for all to see) that I wouldn’t even go to the trash room directly across the hall from my apartment without putting on lipstick first.

41. The guys who don’t like makeup are probably a little too in love with the idea of an “essentially feminine” person, and don’t like how makeup shows the markers of femininity to which they’re attracted to be constructed and have nothing to do with anyone’s “essential” or “real” nature.

    That’s why you hear about makeup being “fake” and no-makeup being “natural”. Enlightened dude’s don’t want to be attracted to your makeup! They want to be attracted to the “woman within”, what’s “underneath” the makeup.

42. Hypothetical: So if a person is opposed to the use of makeup and body modifications (inc ear piercing, tattoos, everything and anything etc.), is that person necessarily transphobic just because of that?

    I consider that a bit ablist as well. My mother has vitiligo, and her non-pigmented skin covers half of her face. There is no way she can go out into the public sphere without makeup on without getting weird looks and taking a huge hit to her self-esteem.

    Because of that the whole don’t wear make-up thing REALLY pisses me off.

43. There’s also the whiff of dudes not wanting to have to deal with “girl stuff” in this. They want their ladies looking like the arm-candy they’re meant to be, but they don’t want to have to have make-up or girl-things in the bathrooms, and they don’t want to wait for us to get ready. Insisting on “natural beauty” means that not only do we have to do all the things we do to keep beautiful, but we have to hide the fact that we’re doing it.

    Which plays into the “You have to be beautiful, but by Gord, don’t actually let people think you are putting EFFORT into it!”

    Just like how women are expected to stay thin (presumably by dieting or at least being careful about what they eat) while appearing as though they can eat whatever they want.

44. A better option, if this young fellow actually means well, would be to point out to other guys how obnoxious the recent Just For Men commercials are, and then once you’ve got agreement, point out that that’s like a tiny sliver of what women get bombarded with.

    IMO, obviously.

45. A better option, if this young fellow actually means well, would be to point out to other guys how obnoxious the recent Just For Men commercials are,

    Are you talking about the ones that treat men going grey like an invading alien enemy, and they celebrate because grey hair has finally been defeated?

46. [45] Those ones yes, but the one that made me yell at the TV (granted, I do this fairly often when watching TV, which is part of why I don’t watch a lot of TV) was the one where the little girl says “Daddy, it’s time.”

47. When I was a teenager (90s), I remember constantly reading in magazines like teen and seventeen advice along the lines of “don’t wear too much makeup, because then boys will think you have something to hide!” I always hated this so much because I would think, what if you are like me and you *do* have something to hide? (I had cysitc acne due to PCOS.) I wondered what boys were supposed to think of me. And of course, now I see the even more dangerous ideas behind this advice, like what you do/not do to your body should be to please men.

48. A little concealer, some tinted primer, light mascara, light eye shadow and a dab of blush and you can have the natural look too!

    That “natural” look is a look one achieves with make up. That’s why it’s called a look and not a state.

    I’m so sick of those ” what men really think about your hairstyle” and “what make up look do men really like” and “what do your clothes tell men about you” shit. I’ll concern myself with the messages my hair, makeup and clothing tell men when they concern themselves with the message my mouth tells them.

49. OK;
    So, I’m a guy. My ex used to say things like “I need to do my makeup, I look horrible” or “I need to put my paint on before I can go out”. I sometimes mentioned that it wasn’t really necessary, and that she was fucking beautiful the way she was. To my eyes, even with eye-liner stains halfway down her cheek she looked totally gorgeous without exception. I never had a problem with her wearing makeup, but I didn’t like how she was calling herself ugly and so on if not having the perfect makeup on.

    Problematic?

50. We’re not going to have to through the whole thing about how telling someone you know well and/or have a romantic/sexual relationship with that you find them attractive is totally different from random dudes on the internet telling women what kind of looks they like, are we? Because that thread was truly epic.

51. Is it sad that my first thought was, “Wow, nearly 50 comments before that came up,” but in a happy way?

52. IS it really socially unacceptable for a young person who is a woman to go without makeup? If so, I find this nowhere near as shocking as the idea of hairless ladyparts as a social norm, but shocking nonetheless.

    Signed,
    somebody who used BITNET in college

53. When I was a teenager (also in the 90s) a friend of mine (who was pretty conventionally attractive) was told by a boy she liked that she was really “natural” and she was extremely flattered. Some time later she questioned my use of medication to control my acne because it wasn’t “natural”. My response was that I’d rather not have acne thanks. This “natural” crap has been going on for ages. You will have to pry my eyebrow brush and shadow and under eye concealer out of my cold dead hands.

54. Sometimes there is a spate of men complaining in the free commuter paper in our city about how rude it is to do your makeup on the train.

    One letter spelled out the logic quite explicitly: “When you’re putting on makeup you’re doing it to create an illusion. When you put it on in public you’re ruining the illusion.” I won’t point out why that’s stupid and sexist.

    But it’s interesting. I think that visible makeup bothers some men for the same reason that guy was bothered by seeing women put on makeup. It makes it too visible to them that femininity is a process and takes work, and that bothers them because… well, I’ve never understood why that bothers them. But it’s clearly very important to them that their illusions aren’t ruined.

55. Also, here is my heartfelt plea for cancellation of the whole notion that everyone needs to feel beautiful. I just want to go through my days feeling generally content with myself. Don’t tell me I need to feel beautiful too. Only some people are physically beautiful. That’s really ok.

56. It wasn’t the slander that shocked me, but the fact that you didn’t remember the Maybe/Maybelline connection flies in the face of evenrything I know about advertising/marketing.

    LOL. Thanks for this Steve. Twist the knife in a little bit more, why dontcha?

    Oh, and good points on Cover Girl, Tony and Andie.

57. @EchoSixSix

    Okay, I’m going to jump on this one too.

    Echo, I’m sure you already know the answer to your question. You just haven’t thought about it enough yet.

    I’m sure you already know that context is important whenever interpreting anything said or written. Well, just to let you know: I know that. Caperton knows that. EG knows that. Feminists in general know that.

    If you’ve never actually sat down and read a good feminist essay on a given subject, try this one: Objectification – Martha C. Nussbaum.

    (I’m having trouble with the link – Google for: Common Sense Atheism Nausbaum Objectification pdf)

    Nussbaum talks about the distinctions that can be made around sexual objectification, objectification itself and what it means, what it means to treat someone as an object, and also the different contextualization that could shape and alter our critiques of sexual objectification, to the point of considering seriously whether or not there may be contexts in which sexual objectification is a good thing.

    I still don’t know if I agree with Nussbaum or not – but it was a very interesting essay all the same. And it was chock full of context.

    Having established that everyone here is on the same page regarding the importance of context in interpretation, your question is answered.

    In the context of a woman with whom you’re in a relationship, if the subject is raised in such a right way, and you’re taking her perspective and feelings into account… Then no, such a comment is not problematic.

    In the context on a random guy on the internet who chooses to address all women everywhere on the subject? Yes. The comment is problematic.

    Context is important in interpretation.

    You already knew that.

    But you either suspected we didn’t know (we do), or you just hadn’t connected the dots yet.

    As a very small example of one of the problems with boy-in-outer-space, consider the implication:

    Girls, don’t feel insecure. Because you’re beautiful (by my subjective standards). [Directly Implies that:] Of course, if you weren’t beautiful (by my subjective standards) then that would be a totally legitimate reason to feel insecure, so you’re sort of right to stress about it in the first place.

    That’s just one of many problems I could cite in the case of boy-in-outer-space.

    As for what goes on between yourself and your girlfriend – or myself and mine – context is king.

    I think I’ll close by citing something Greta Christina says often whenever she closes a blog post on the subject of something horrible someone has said about her appearance:

    And I’m now going to issue the standard request that I always issue when the #thing that #menhavecalled me is some version of “ugly”: Please, unless you’re a personal friend or someone I’m having sex with, don’t try to make me feel better by saying that I’m not ugly. If I write about fashion or post the hot pic of myself in the Skepticon calendar, you can say nice things about how I look… but please don’t do it here. I’m not calling this out to garner reassurance about my appearance. I’m calling this out to show people the kind of shit women routinely deal with. I have a thick skin, and I don’t get my feelings hurt by sexist jackasses calling me names. That isn’t the point.

    The point isn’t that I’m not ugly. The point is that it shouldn’t matter.

    Note again the emphasis on context. Personal friend or lover? Sure, in Greta’s case reassurance or compliments are okay from such people. But she doesn’t know me. It would be inappropriate for me to comment, regardless of whether my comments would be positive or negative. Because my opinion on that subject doesn’t matter.

58. It seems to me that if makeup being mandatory for women is a problem for women who hate makeup, and makeup being exclusive to women is a problem for men who would *like* to wear makeup (among other things, men get vitiligo and acne too…), but makeup being mandatory and exclusive for women is useful for trans women as a gender signifier, there is kind of an impasse there, and I’m not sure what to think about that.

59. i have a love-hate relationship w/ makeup myself—i love the way eye makeup looks on me, but i have hay fever all year round, so its also a pain in the ass—still working on a way 2 resolve my dilemma

60. a friend of mine . . . was told by a boy she liked that she was really “natural” and she was extremely flattered.

    It isn’t exactly in the same context, of course, but more than one non-trans person, upon finding out my history — or after seeing me for the first time after my transition, years ago — has told me how “natural” they think I look, as what is clearly the highest compliment they think they can pay me. It’s right up there with “you look so real!” as a comment for which I’m expected to be grateful.

    And of course I’m flattered and happy to be told by people to whom I disclose my history that it doesn’t change how they see me, and that they continue to perceive me as what I am. I would, however, prefer it if they didn’t convey that to me in a way that didn’t draw the real/natural vs. fake/artificial/constructed distinction, implying that trans women (unlike cis women) are in the latter category, and that the nicest thing one can say to them is to tell them that they “look” like they’re in the former.

61. Please excuse the double negative in my previous comment, which should have been something like “I would, however, prefer it if they conveyed that to me in a way that didn’t draw the real/natural vs. fake/artificial/constructed distinction,” and so on.

62. It seems to me that if makeup being mandatory for women is a problem for women who hate makeup, and makeup being exclusive to women is a problem for men who would *like* to wear makeup (among other things, men get vitiligo and acne too…), but makeup being mandatory and exclusive for women is useful for trans women as a gender signifier, there is kind of an impasse there, and I’m not sure what to think about that.

    Hmmm. Well here’s what I think in relation to that, just speaking for myself as an individual trans woman. Yes, there’s some small part of me that’s grateful that there are rigid gender norms. When I conform nowadays to the norms of my target gender, like when I wear makeup, it is easier for me to be percieved as a woman, and I like that.

    But whenever I step back and look at this from a deeper level, my view on it completely changes. If there hadn’t been rigid gender norms, then I could’ve expressed myself the way I wanted to all along from the youngest age–wearing makeup, wearing dresses, whatever–and people would have accepted it. As it was, I had to suppress my desires and preferences because when I did express femininity I usually got mocked. So while it’s nice for me to get to be wearing makeup now as an adult, I think it’s clearly better for all people if they can wear whatever they feel like without anything being “exclusive” or “mandatory.” I’d like to see an infinite number of acceptable ways to look like a woman and an infinite number of acceptable ways look like a man and an infinite number of acceptable things to be besides a woman or a man.

    Oh and also–I like makeup, but I know of trans women who hate it just as much as some cis women do.

63. My life experience, and some reading has convinced me that there is an objective standard of beauty. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I’m not invested in convincing anyone else. I’m particularly interested in the work of Dan Hamermesh.

    That is why I love this comment from Tamara:

    Also, here is my heartfelt plea for cancellation of the whole notion that everyone needs to feel beautiful. I just want to go through my days feeling generally content with myself. Don’t tell me I need to feel beautiful too. Only some people are physically beautiful. That’s really ok.

    Whenever this topic comes up, my first thought is that we as a society need to stop placing so much value on a genetic lottery outside our control, and value people for their choices. Their character, their work ethic, their loyalty, their authenticity, the traits that we choose to nurture in ourselves to live fulfilling lives. We tell fairy tales to children where beauty confers virtue and virtue confers beauty, and this messaging needs to stop. I effing hate the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign because the message shouldn’t be; “You can be beautiful even if you’re chubby,” the message should be; “Beauty is not important because it’s not some semaphore to the world about what kind of person you are”.

64. I know of trans women who hate it just as much as some cis women do.

    I’m sure that’s true. And I also know of trans women who claim to hate it, or brag about not needing it, or about how quickly they can apply it, as an “I’m more real than you are” kind of thing. Which, obviously, annoys me greatly.

65. This just reminds me of that tedious “HILLARY CLINTON GOES OUTSIDE WITH NO MAKEUP: LIBERATED OR LET HERSELF GO?” controversy, which was annoying not only because every media outlet ever misinterpreted her comments about not caring what the general public’s opinions of her appearance were as some kind of confession that she personally had no interest in her appearance at all but also because every accompanying “no makeup” photo was a picture of Clinton wearing what was clearly makeup. I mean, I was under the impression that “not wearing makeup” did’t include things like wearing mascara and lipstick (which, you know, makeup), but apparently this is not in fact the meaning of that phrase in English.

66. @kungfulola

    whether or not there is an objective standard of beauty is beside the point for me—attraction and beauty dont necessarily go hand in hand

67. is anyone else here familiar with the concept of “beauty fatigue”—that is, when everyone is gorgeous and barbie-like, it kinda gets boring?

    there’s a british cooking show that i just adore, called “two fat ladies” and its the exact opposite of the glitzy, polished look of american shows—i never realized just how fatigued i was of all that glitz and practiced charisma til i watched an episode of “two fat ladies ” all the way thru—-the two women on the show are nowhere near conventionally beautiful, yet they are happy and even—gasp!—flirt with men!!—–scandalous!!!

68. maggiemay

    I feel like British TV gets away with having not “conventially attractive” women being all sexy and awesome and stuff a lot more than American TV. Like Billie Piper in Diary of a Call Girl, don’t get me wrong I personally find her very attractive, but if they redid an American version of that I feel like they would pick someone who looks more like… Megan Fox.

69. “So, I’m a guy. My ex used to say things like “I need to do my makeup, I look horrible” or “I need to put my paint on before I can go out”. I sometimes mentioned that it wasn’t really necessary, and that she was fucking beautiful the way she was. To my eyes, even with eye-liner stains halfway down her cheek she looked totally gorgeous without exception. I never had a problem with her wearing makeup, but I didn’t like how she was calling herself ugly and so on if not having the perfect makeup on.”

    Not problematic.

    But you know, you have to remember the social pressures on her that create the situation, too. And also that she may well be correctly perceiving the situation that if she doesn’t do the right social dance, people *will* look down on her.

    OK to think it, OK to say it, but only–IMO–with acknowledgement of context.

70. @umami

    One letter spelled out the logic quite explicitly: “When you’re putting on makeup you’re doing it to create an illusion. When you put it on in public you’re ruining the illusion.” I won’t point out why that’s stupid and sexist.

    …

    Wut?

    It continues to throw me that men think and say crap like that.

    Especially because if one says it, probably others think it without saying it.

    Fracking hell.

71. Meh. Any objective indicators of beauty would have to be so general as to be fairly useless in predicting what any individual would find beautiful–or so a lifetime of thinking “What? Why?” whenever catching sight of someone generally thought to be beautiful suggests to me. As to the idea that beauty doesn’t matter because it doesn’t communicate who you are, well, yes and no. Looks certainly are a means of communication. How I do my hair, how I dress, how and whether I am wearing make-up–those are choices, and they are choices I make that construct an image with cultural resonance and significations. It actually is an expression of the person I am.

72. Guys, try this little idea on for size: What an individual wears is that individual’s business. If they are natural, it is because they want to be. If a person wears makeup, it’s because s/he wants to ( that day, at thst time). It’s an option, like jeans or pants.
    You have no right to force another person to spend money to subsidize your aesthetic preferences. This includes expensive, more “natural” cosmetics instead of discount counter.
    Nobody owes you beauty. You’re not entitled. Whether you are a mindless ableist who used social pressure to cover my port-wine birthmark with expensive makeup, or the woman on my job who told me I must be too cheap or poor to wear it (nope, just didn’t give a damn about you all), get it through your thick dense skulls: The fact that some folks won the genetic lottery does not make them a superior subspecies, and the rest of us do not have to spend a fraction of a minute or cent to imitate or emulate them.
    Apologies for the rant, but their attitudes are cumulative.

73. Well, I definitely agree that personal appearances are relevant and are a means of communication. However, beauty is a different issue isn’t it? Surely all beauty conveys is “I got lucky in the genetic lottery”. And um, yes, after 37 years I am pretty aware that I didn’t and can we move on now?

74. I guess I’m just not sure that that’s what beauty means. In my experience, beauty means that it gives someone pleasure to look at you, which is why perception of beauty can change not just from person to person, but over time with one person as well. If we’re using beauty as shorthand for “socially approved ideal feminine appearance,” then yes, I’m on board, except that I don’t think people who have it won a genetic lottery as far as my judgment of appearance is concerned (the ones who make big money off it, of course, have won a different kind of lottery).

75. I agree with your definition but I don’t see how it argues against my point. My point was that the whole focus in our society on whether someone/anyone is pleasurable to look at is bogus. We may disagree on what counts as “beautiful” but I want to move on from this approach in which we validate people by saying they are beautiful.

    So, to BIOS I would say not only, I don’t care whether you think I’m beautiful but also, I don’t need to be thought beautiful. I am fine with not being thought beautiful.

    I want my daughters (who are gorgeous, obviously) to grow up not caring whether anyone at all thinks they are physically beautiful.

76. See, that’s where we disagree. Because I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want people we care about or people we find beautiful to find us beautiful, too. I don’t think it’s inherently a bad desire. I don’t think that desire is the root of the problem. I want the people I care about–or whom I find attractive–to take pleasure in my presence, visually and otherwise.

77. See, that’s where we disagree. Because I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want people we care about or people we find beautiful to find us beautiful, too. I don’t think it’s inherently a bad desire. I don’t think that desire is the root of the problem. I want the people I care about–or whom I find attractive–to take pleasure in my presence, visually and otherwise.

    I concur.

78. I resent the hell out of it when I have to wear make up to be considered presentable. It’s a caricature of what a woman looks like when she’s vulnerable or having sex.( Large eyes, flushed checks, dewy skin.) I don’t want to walk around mimicking some dudes idea of what a vulnerable sexualized woman looks like.

79. Okay. I agree with what you’re saying so perhaps my interpretation of the word “beautiful” does differ from yours. I agree that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be found attractive and it’s normal and so forth. I want my partner to keep finding me attractive. But, when I think of beautiful I see it is a higher standard than that. “Beautiful” as opposed to “pretty” or “striking” so, to use your definition, there must be various degrees of being pleasurable to look at. So, Jude Law is beautiful (top 0.5%), but Ryan Gosling is less attractive than that, but still pleasurable to look at.

    So, I guess I like people to think I’m alright looking and I want my partner to think I’m physically attractive but I don’t need him to think I’m more physically attractive than 95% of the population. I know that’s not why he loves me anyway. So, it’s a matter of degree. What offends me about the cultural messages is that apparently we need to be assured that we are sparklingly, glitteringly, beautiful. As opposed to just attractive.

    I really hope I am managing to convey this, cause I do agree with your responses so I know it’s that I am struggling to express myself.

80. So, Jude Law is beautiful (top 0.5%), but Ryan Gosling is less attractive than that, but still pleasurable to look at.

    HOW DARE YOU! Ryan Gosling > Jude Law!!!!!

81. But you know, you have to remember the social pressures on her that create the situation, too. And also that she may well be correctly perceiving the situation that if she doesn’t do the right social dance, people *will* look down on her.

    This.

    Example. My SO has asked me why I wear make up, to which my reply is usually because I think it’s fun and it makes me feel good… Keeping in mind some of the underlying social reasons. He has stated that he thinks I look great either way, but is also clear that my decision to wear make up is mine alone and he would not try to sway me either way, because I’m not wearing it FOR him, but FOR me.

82. Truth: What make-up I wear says more about me than the cheekbones and weird nose I got from my gran. My bone-structure has nothing to do with my personality, taste or interests. My choice of make-up and clothes, on the other hand, conveys a message. Sometimes that message is “easy, breezy”, sometimes it is “Maleficent (only not green)”. Some days I feel socially agressive, other days I want to blend in. To wear make-up gives me a wider range of faces to present to the public. To wear un-natural make-up (neon eyeshadows ftw!) gives me a tool to subvert I natural, compliant feminine ideal I am not comfortable with.

    TL;DR? My face is mine. Stay the fuck away from my eyeliner

83. On the subject of “ruining the illusion”, as I stated above, the illusion is that femininity is an essential part of each woman. We all know, however, that gender is performative, not essential, and when some men see a woman putting on makeup, this fact of gender is laid bare. This woman’s essential femininity is revealed to be illusory, something that they put on and take off.

    I want to emphasize that when I talk about the performative nature of gender, I’m not saying that gender is always conscious, or voluntary, just that it is produced through the repetitions of particular actions.

    Like Pheeno said above, it’s a look, not a state.

    You could take this further to say that seeing the illusory nature of femininity causes men to question the essential nature of their own masculinity, which would make them feel insecure in their own identity as “man”. And if they’re not essentially male, might they be a little bit female…?

84. We all know, however, that gender is performative, not essential, and when some men see a woman putting on makeup, this fact of gender is laid bare. This woman’s essential femininity is revealed to be illusory, something that they put on and take off.

    I want to emphasize that when I talk about the performative nature of gender, I’m not saying that gender is always conscious, or voluntary, just that it is produced through the repetitions of particular actions.

    DLL, I hesitate to disagree with you for fear of being accused again of singling you out for persecution. So I will try to restrain my ill-natured self, and remain as polite as possible!

    I would greatly appreciate it if you could avoid generalizations about we all supposedly know or don’t know. At least, unless you’re going to be considerably more specific about the terms you use. Had you limited your generalization to gender expression, including everything from “gendered” makeup and clothing to “gendered” assumptions about particular interests and occupations, I would have agreed with you that gender expression is largely performative, and that the coding of different forms of gender expression as “masculine” or “feminine” is arbitrary, artificial, and culture-specific.

    But “gender” is a term that’s a lot broader than just gender expression. For example, if you’re talking about “actions” in terms of specific traits and behaviors and manifestations of personality, of course the labeling or coding of particular traits and behaviors and personalities as masculine or feminine is also largely arbitrary and artificial, regardless of whether it may be true that certain of them are more common among men than women or the reverse. It’s a truism that the differences between any two people are likely to be far greater than the overall differences between men and women as groups. But that doesn’t mean that everyone’s personality traits and behaviors — as opposed to the gendered coding of them — are entirely performative, or produced only through repetition. If I had ever made a significant effort to perform masculinity, I probably would have had to do so through learning and repetition. But any suggestion that (for example) trans women all have to learn to perform a “feminine” gender (beyond things like clothing and makeup), through repetition or otherwise, would be incorrect. Some have to. Some don’t. And some don’t bother. The same is true of cis women.

    And I’m not even going to talk about gender identity, which is also part of “gender,” except to say that I strongly disagree that it’s necessarily performative.

85. It seems to me that the ideal “natural makeup” also has a bit of a racist bent to it at times.

    Naturally flushed cheeks? Rosiness doesn’t show up on very dark skin naturally, but I guess you can still paint it on anyway and make it look “natural”.

    Accentuate the eyelid crease? Nearly impossible for hooded or monolid eyes… but I guess there’s eyelid tape, fork and glue, and blepheraplasty for that.

    Refine the nose using shadow tricks? But how does one accomplish this “properly” when their nostrils point the “wrong way”, or they just plain don’t have a bridge?

    How about the frustration of knowing that a line carries many foundation colors, but your local stores refuse to carry anything but varying hues of beige? Or the high-end counter with the latest technology to effortlessly and seamlessly apply undetectable coverage, but effectively put up the “No Coloreds” sign because they only bothered to create four shades?

    Yeah, this whole “natural look” thing does not apply to all ethnicities equally, that’s fer damn sher.

86. It seems to me that the ideal “natural makeup” also has a bit of a racist bent to it at times.

    Yup.

87. Donna L, I completely fail to understand the distinction you are trying to make between gender and gender expression.

88. So I’m a guy who would probably never make a statement like this because out of context it seems blatantly disingenuous and it implies that looks are important. Seems like most of us agree on that.

    But that’s also why I was always skeptical of Operation Beautiful. They’re practically the same thing: distributing notes to unknown women/girls telling them they’re beautiful. I suppose you can say it’s different if you’re confident the message was left by another female, but I don’t see why. It’s disingenuous either way because there’s no real reason to think the sender would find the anonymous receiver visually appealing. (e.g. what if someone who doesn’t have to work hard to look good leaves a note for someone who does?) And it still puts the emphasis on the way women/girls look, as opposed to other traits.

    Since so much of the feminist blogosphere was so enthusiastic about Operation Beautiful at the time I figured I was obsessing over factual accuracy, as I can tend to do. But it seems like the reaction is very different, almost the opposite, when men are the messengers, even though I see no reason it should be, and that upsets me.

89. Donna L, I completely fail to understand the distinction you are trying to make between gender and gender expression.

    I’m not. The distinction I made was between gender expression and gender identity, both of which are aspects of gender. To you, “gender expression” seems to comprise the entirety of gender. Which it doesn’t. And even with respect to gender expression, I was trying to suggest that not all manifestations of expression, personality, behavior, etc., even if they’re gender-coded, are necessarily learned or “performative.”

90. The distinction I made was between gender expression and gender identity, both of which are aspects of gender.

    Exactly how do you separate expression from identity?

    And even with respect to gender expression, I was trying to suggest that not all manifestations of expression, personality, behavior, etc., even if they’re gender-coded, are necessarily learned or “performative.”

    If they are not learned, from whence did they come? What method of construction of the self do you see to be substantively different from the idea of “learning” or establishing through repetition of action?

    Do you believe in pre-discursive structures that entail certain “manifestations of expression, personality, behavior”?

91. DoublyLinkedLists, speaking only for myself, I would not feel comfortable telling a woman who was male-assigned at birth that gender identity and gender expression are the same, learned thing. I would feel like I was telling somebody about stuff that this person knows a whole lot more about than I do.

92. Exactly how do you separate expression from identity?

    It seems obvious to me. I see no qualitative difference between my gender identity and, for example, my sexual orientation. Or my “identity” as being left-handed. All are distinct from — albeit related to — any expressive manifestations thereof, and the performative nature of particular manifestations. If you can’t accept that there’s any difference in the naturalness vs. performativity of my writing with my left hand vs. writing with my right hand, then we don’t have anything to talk about.

    In addition, it’s hardly my job to start explaining Trans 101 stuff, let alone to debate it with you. Especially since you’re clearly not receptive to it in the first place. Find somebody else.

    Nor am I interested in getting into a discussion of Michel Foucault. Or his theories. (Or anybody’s theories, since “theory” in general, with respect to gender and otherwise, has historically been used as a weapon to attack trans people and deny their genuineness.) Or a discussion of whether everyone really is a blank slate. With respect to gender identity, sexual orientation, personality, handedness, or anything else. Discussions like that bore me, intensely.

    Again, I’m not disputing the fact that the gendered labels applied to particular personality traits — and, all the more so, to external things like clothing and makeup — are constructed and artificial.

93. Or a discussion of whether everyone really is a blank slate.

    No, they aren’t. …Discussion over? ;p

94. Or the high-end counter with the latest technology to effortlessly and seamlessly apply undetectable coverage, but effectively put up the “No Coloreds” sign because they only bothered to create four shades?

    This reminds me a bit of the movie Pleasantville; people who became “colored” started wearing makeup to hide their color and conform with the gray standard. They applied makeup to achieve the “natural” gray look. Alternatively they were shamed as colorful hussies.

95. Oh yes! How dare I respond to you with questions about what you said when addressing my comment! it’s not your job to explain things to the person who you made the decision to engage in a disagreement. Whatever.

    If you don’t want to talk about “theory” with me, then don’t engage me in discussions about theory.

    Your distinction between the “external” and “internal” is artificial. Your distinction between “natural” and “performative” is also artificial.

    You weren’t born with handedness, because you weren’t born with any real motor control. You weren’t really even born with the ability to hold your head up. It was something you, me, and everyone else learned by performing actions that reinforced a certain pattern of future actions.

    Any attempt to say otherwise is exactly the method through which the requirement of essential identity is perpetuated.

    I’m so sorry my disagreement “bores you intensely”.

    Maybe next time you shouldn’t engage with me on a topic that you find so boring.

96. Donna, I’m so sorry you end up doing so much heavy lifting in every damn thread. You have the patience of a fucking saint. I’ve always thought that a t-shirt reading “Get Your Theory Off My Body” would be a great accompanying piece to the pro-choice one about laws.

    DLL, may I kindly suggest reading Julia Serano’s (not perfect, but still excellent) book Whipping Girl before insisting that Donna justify her existence to you for your own intellectual embiggenment?

97. You weren’t born with handedness, because you weren’t born with any real motor control. You weren’t really even born with the ability to hold your head up. It was something you, me, and everyone else learned by performing actions that reinforced a certain pattern of future actions.

    Sophistry, and I think you know it. Yes, I was born with handedness. I did not have the ability at the time to express my handedness. But left-handed expression was inherently more “natural” to me than “right-handed” expression. I could have performed right-handedness a million times, and it would never have been as easy for me as left-handed expression was from the beginning. And if you weren’t choked with cis privilege, maybe you’d understand how disrespectful you’re being by denying even the possibility that a gender identity different from the way one was assigned at birth is a real thing, which can manifest itself no matter how hard one tries, and how many years one spends, attempting to persuade oneself that it isn’t real, and trying to conform the internal to the external — a distinction that according to you doesn’t even exist.

    Your problem is that you’re bringing your argument to ridiculous extremes, making it ridiculously easy to refute.

    Why don’t you start frequenting GenderTrender or RadFemHub? I’m sure you’ll find many people who entirely agree with you, Meanwhile, go f**k yourself. I didn’t “engage with you” on your theories about pre-discursive reality; I engaged with you to ask you — politely — to stop making generalizations about what “we all know.” Because we obviously don’t.

98. Also: I’ll have you know that my son lifted his head the very first day after he was born. But I guess he wasn’t born with head-liftingness; he must have learned that by imitating all the other babies in the nursery.

99. You weren’t born with handedness, because you weren’t born with any real motor control. It was something you, me, and everyone else learned by performing actions that reinforced a certain pattern of future actions.

    Please, explain to me how several years of painful ‘training’, which included physical and emotional abuse, didn’t reinforce my ability to be right-handed to society’s satisfaction.

    Not born with handedness indeed. -_-

    Not being born PERCEPTIBLY handed – as in, doing things at birth that require the kind of enhanced control that only the dominant hand can perform – is not the same as being born without handedness.

    I think you kind of made Donna’s point for her. Just saying.

100. You weren’t born with handedness, because you weren’t born with any real motor control. You weren’t really even born with the ability to hold your head up. It was something you, me, and everyone else learned by performing actions that reinforced a certain pattern of future actions.

     Funny thing: My grandfather, born without motor control though he was, showed signs of left-handedness at a young age. Of course his family had to nip that in the bud by forcing him to use his right hand for everything. So instead of writing with that unnatural hand, he ended up with terrible handwriting, a learning disability, and a speech impediment. Turns out forcing someone to perform actions to reinforce future actions can be both ineffective and terribly damaging.

101. You make great claims about the state of your being when you were born despite the fact that you have no way of confirming these things.

     You seem extremely angry with me, but I don’t really understand why.

     I’ve “always” known I was gay. It’s not something I think could have been changed through conscious external intervention, or something I could change even if I wanted to. It wasn’t a “choice” that I made at any point.

     But I’m not about to say I was “born that way” because that doesn’t make any sense to me. That avenue reduces to the inevitable requirement that my DNA is gay, or I had a hormone imbalance that made me gay. I think some essentialist “naturalist” explanation being required for me to justify my identity as “real” is just as oppressive as the requirement that my identity be “straight”. The choice is between thinking that my DNA is gay, or that somehow during my socialization something happened to make me feel essentially homosexual.

     It’s not more “real” if its in my DNA, and it isn’t less “real” if it was a consequence of my interaction with other people and through my linguistic development.

     If you were so concerned with my statements regarding what other people think, you would stop making baseless assumptions about my attitudes and what I “know”.

102. Comment in mod about my having been abused due to “wrong” handedness, and that the whole “not born this way” argument about handedness is a load of assfluence. tl;dr what Caperton said.

     Donna, I’m so, so sorry that this shit is being chucked at you again. (offers hug)

103. But I guess he wasn’t born with head-liftingness; he must have learned that by imitating all the other babies in the nursery.

     Donna, it was all that head-liftingness he observed in the womb. Clearly. Jeez, we have to explain everything these days, don’t we?

104. The “gender is all learned performance!” people really blow my mind sometimes. If it’s all socialization, considering the incredible mountain of shit societies tend to pile onto gender-variant people, by that logic undesirable gender performance would have been oppressed out of all of us centuries ago. Especially considering the harshness that routinely falls upon “effeminate” men in the name of preserving their “correct” gender expression.

     I wish there was some way that these dudes could be required to wax Foucauldian about the “artificiality” of their own damn genders for awhile before being allowed to wank all over everyone else’s for intellectual sport.

105. Also… the amount of left handed people to right handed people has always been about 10% left 90% right.

     If handedness was just the result of people picking a hand and then keeping on using that one then we’d see much more random amounts of people with different handedness over time? Left handed people used to get a lot of shit for being left handed. If being left handed were really just a learned thing, then everyone back then would have just learned to be right handed and had no problem.

106. Especially considering the harshness that routinely falls upon “effeminate” men in the name of preserving their “correct” gender expression.

     Yo, I am one of those men, but whatever. Keep imagining who you think I am. Nothing oppressive about assigning me an identity based on my opinions.

107. You make great claims about the state of your being when you were born despite the fact that you have no way of confirming these things.

     And you have no way of confirming the contrary. It’s my burden why, exactly?

     Of course, I didn’t start out wanting to get into the “born this way” issue at all. All I intended to do was point out that there’s a difference between gender expression and gender identity. Which would still be true whether a variant gender identity was something one was born with, or developed because of an overbearing mother and weak, shadowy father. Or, wait, is that homosexuality?

     In any event, I have no problem with your believing whatever you choose to believe about why you’re gay, or right- or left-handed, or anything else. What you’re seeking to do, however, is dismiss other people’s understandings of themselves, which make just as much sense to them as yours does to you.

108. @Donna L

     If you can’t accept that there’s any difference in the naturalness vs. performativity of my writing with my left hand vs. writing with my right hand, then we don’t have anything to talk about.

     Is this the normal definition of what “performative” means?

     I would have said that writing would be a performative expression regardless of which hand you were using. You seem to be using the word with the connotation “artificial” or “learned” and not just any systematic gender expression (natural or not).

     NB, I would agree with the rest of that post including

     It seems obvious to me. I see no qualitative difference between my gender identity and, for example, my sexual orientation.

     I do not see any qualitative difference there either, and I am not sure Doublylinkedlists does either. Perhaps she thinks homosexuality is socially constructed also?

109. All I intended to do was point out that there’s a difference between gender expression and gender identity.

     And i disagree with this. I don’t see a difference. Apparently that turned me into an ignorant cissexist transphobic gender conforming dude.

     I’ll have to let my essential self know of its new configuration.

110. The choice is between thinking that my DNA is gay, or that somehow during my socialization something happened to make me feel essentially homosexual.

     Is there a doctor of dialectics in the house, FFS?

     Also, you could point me to where I made any assumption about you besides being a dude, because I sure am having a hard time finding it!

111. You seem extremely angry with me, but I don’t really understand why.

     Really? I think I’ve restrained my anger-expression rather well. Only one four-letter word in all my comments combined! Wait, are you implying that you’ve detected some kind of internal anger distinct from my expression of it? But how could that be?

     Seriously, this is like the time you accused me, in substance, of singling you out for persecution. I promise you. I don’t, and I’m not. And I think the only time I’ve ever expressed “extreme” anger here was in that thread where some jerk whose name I’ve already forgotten accused me of deficient reading comprehension for having dared to suggest that an article he linked was transphobic. Now, *that* made me angry!

112. You weren’t born with handedness, because you weren’t born with any real motor control. You weren’t really even born with the ability to hold your head up. It was something you, me, and everyone else learned by performing actions that reinforced a certain pattern of future actions.

     Sophistry, and I think you know it. Yes, I was born with handedness. I did not have the ability at the time to express my handedness. But left-handed expression was inherently more “natural” to me than “right-handed” expression.

     Would it be incredibly forthright of me to point out that we seem to have strayed from the original topic?

113. And i disagree with this. I don’t see a difference.

     Well with all due respect who cares what you see and don’t see with regards to the difference between gender expression and gender identity? Chances are a trans person who has had to deal with this stuff in her life probably has a better understanding than you of it.

114. As a transhumanist, I can comfortably reject the natural-beauty idiots for their actually illogical luddism AND the dominant culture for changing the norm to something that often looks kind of weird, is artifical without being artful, and is too hard to apply for something which is expected to be done on a daily basis.

     For that matter, my masculinity is kind of artificial (although it is an innate property of my mind.). It takes at least a little time and inconvenience to put together. When I just throw on my clothes and whatever, I don’t feel particularly masculine, let alone even vaguely attractive.

     @DoublyLinkedLists: Do you mean femininity as some pyschological property to the beholder or to the one who is femenine, or do you mean a specific culture’s standards as to what is or is not feminine.

     What looks good to any subset of people, looks good to that subset of people. Some people may be able to create ‘what looks good’ with less or even zero artificial effort.

115. DLL, I like Judith Butler as much as the next ex gender studies student, but Performativity theory, while very useful as a critical tool, certainly doesn’t explain the totality of gender. It’s problematic, for instance, in fully understanding cognitive elements of gender and sexuality (which is what I understand Donna to be referring to with the term “gender identity” rather than just the speech act of identification), which can often be incongruous with visibly performative (ie. expressive) features of a person’s gender/sexuality. (cf the closet).

     The assertion that gender is something one does rather than something one has is vital in describing gender expression, but it isn’t the whole story, and it feels like you’re prioritising treating Performativity as a Grand Unified Theory over the features of actual people’s lives. The punchline here is that if your theory isn’t actually describing people’s experiences, it’s time to critically examine the theory, not their experiences.

116. It’s problematic, for instance, in fully understanding cognitive elements of gender and sexuality (which is what I understand Donna to be referring to with the term “gender identity” rather than just the speech act of identification), which can often be incongruous with visibly performative (ie. expressive) features of a person’s gender/sexuality. (cf the closet).

     To me this isn’t a problem, but a result of their constructedness of the concept of gender, that one can both “pretend” one while “being” another.

     Which one is true? Which one is “real”? Are you really claiming an essentialist viewpoint on gender and sexuality? What is your alternative?

117. “And i disagree with this. I don’t see a difference.”

     It means that if I choose to wear my hair short and decide on men’s clothing, it doesn’t make me any less of a woman. It means that if we put you in a wig, it doesn’t make you a woman instead of a man. It means that I can be a woman in a dress, but choose to forego the make-up without affecting what my gender identity is. My expression of said gender may be more or less feminine depending on the day. You can wear make-up, but it’s unlikely that would make you suddenly change your gender identity. One can be something without expressing it. If there was ever a time in your life when you did not express that you were gay, your sexuality wasn’t magically different, but you had a different expression of it.

     Gender expression is more complicated than “I am a woman” or “I am a man”, because there are thousands of ways one may choose to express one’s gender, and they often change over time. Expression. Identity. 2 different things. If your gender identity and gender expression match in a way that is comfortable or obvious to you, that’s fine, but it’s not necessarily that simple for other people. Pretending that it must be, and being nasty at or judgmental of people whose own experiences are different than yours is that classic expression of cis privilege.

118. DLL, thank you for all you’ve had to put up with. I’m with you one hundred percent on this thread.

119. ^^In other words, you don’t get to decide that they are just the same thing always and that’s that, any more than straight people get to decide that being gay isn’t a real thing.

120. The only problem DLL is that there’s actually a fair amount of scientifc evidence that things like gender identity and sexual orientation are, in fact, largely inborn. So that’s what I’m going to go of off. . .scientfic evidence. Not how some person on the internet speculates Judith Butler’s theories might apply to all things.

     So yeah, your claims don’t have any credibility with me, or seemingly, many of the other posters here. Like I said, evidence would help,

121. DLL, thank you for all you’ve had to put up with. I’m with you one hundred percent on this thread.

     And you’re also morally opposed to makeup and tattoos. Clearly, you’re a sensible person all-around.

122. Which one is true? Which one is “real”? Are you really claiming an essentialist viewpoint on gender and sexuality? What is your alternative?

     Where in that did I suggest anything to do with essentialism? What I said was that we can identify distinctions between expressive elements of gender and cognitive elements of gender, even when the two substantially inform and influence eachother, and that this backs up Donna’s claim that ‘gender expression’ and ‘gender identity’ are different from one another. Whether one is more “real” that the other is entirely irrelevant, because your claim is that there is no difference between the two and that’s what I’m disagreeing with.

123. Lotusbecca, no I’m not. It was a hypothetical. Like I said.

124. To me this isn’t a problem, but a result of their constructedness of the concept of gender, that one can both “pretend” one while “being” another.

     Which one is true? Which one is “real”? Are you really claiming an essentialist viewpoint on gender and sexuality?

     In other words, according to DLL’s rigid theoretical construct, it’s impossible to “be” X while “pretending” Y,” or to know the difference between reality and performance. I guess that means that when someone is acting in a movie, they *are* their character, and can’t ever claim that they’re really themselves. Because there’s no difference between being and performing. Barbra Streisand *was* Yentl!

     A gay man in the closet, performing heterosexuality, *is* heterosexual! Conversos in early 16th-century Spain or Portugal *were* Christians, no matter what they were actually thinking or saying to themselves while they performed as such.

     Which means that during the period I was continuing to present as a man while I was at work, even after I had been transitioning medically for more than 4 years and presenting as myself most of the time outside work, I *was* nonetheless a man. My belief that I was actually a woman was essentialist and incomprehensible. Who can conceive of such a thing?

     I notice that DLL has stepped back from his “handedness” argument, absurd as it clearly was. I think he was afraid somehow that if he accepted that, his entire theory of Performativity as Everything might crumble.

     But at least he has BHuesca to thank him for putting up with the nasty trans woman and her allies.

125. Which one is true? Which one is “real”? Are you really claiming an essentialist viewpoint on gender and sexuality? What is your alternative?

     Not speaking for anyone else, but I certainly am holding the a soft essentialist position.

     I think for example sexual orientation is mainly biological and intrinsic rather than socially constructed. Unless I am mistaken that is actually a fairly mainstream position.

126. PS: Both are real, and both are viewed with greater priority/authenticity than the other by different people/groups. I’m not going to make a truth claim because, strangely enough, it’s not the kind of question truth works well for.

127. And Li, I agree with you, and don’t understand why it’s so controversial to assert that there’s a difference between gender identity and gender expression, and that there’s more to the concept of “gender” than gender expression alone. It all seems extremely obvious. In fact, until today, it never occurred to me that anyone would dispute that they’re two different things.

128. And i disagree with this. I don’t see a difference. Apparently that turned me into an ignorant cissexist transphobic gender conforming dude.

     Do you honestly not see the difference between gender expression and gender identity? I mean, I’m wearing pants and a tank top right now, so I’m a guy, I guess? And the other day, I wore a fur coat and became a fox. The fuck are you talking about, dude?

     I guess that means that when someone is acting in a movie, they *are* their character, and can’t ever claim that they’re really themselves. Because there’s no difference between being and performing. Barbra Streisand *was* Yentl!

     WAIT WHAT ARE YOU SAYING THAT WASN’T A DOCUMENTARY

129. Lotusbecca, no I’m not. It was a hypothetical. Like I said.

     OK, well forgive me. I thought it might have been one of those “I’m definitely not like this, but see, I have this friend who is really into robot porn. . .” type situations. So I’m glad to hear you’re not morally opposed to makeup or tattoos. That would have been pretty dumb if you were.

130. Though I should clarify that just because I don’t necessarily view gender expression and gender identity as requiring a decision as to which is more ‘truthful’, I actually recognise that it’s useful in the “actually want to live a liveable life” stakes for people to prioritise one. Hence I have no problem whatsoever with Donna deciding that her gender identity always trumps her expression or that being the one she experiences as more authentic, just as I don’t have a problem with people deciding that their sexual behaviour trumps their sexual attractions in describing their ‘true’ sexuality.

     (deciding is the wrong word here, btw, but I couldn’t think of better terminology).

131. Donna, I think part of the problem is that the act of identification can often be a form of gender expression. Obviously when you’re talking about gender identity you’re not just talking about the speech act of identification, but the term is loaded to some extent which is why I referred earlier to cognition specifically.

132. DLL, thank you for all you’ve had to put up with. I’m with you one hundred percent on this thread.

     And you’re also morally opposed to makeup and tattoos. Clearly, you’re a sensible person all-around.

     This is my all time favorite thing ever.

133. To think i used to be popular… *sigh*

134. Donna, I think part of the problem is that the act of identification can often be a form of gender expression. Obviously when you’re talking about gender identity you’re not just talking about the speech act of identification, but the term is loaded to some extent which is why I referred earlier to cognition specifically.

     Exactly. My gender identity was what it was for a long time before I ever expressed it to anyone. Identity is not necessarily the same thing as verbal identification. Which, in turn, is not necessarily the same thing as gender expression. Hence the common inclusion in anti-discrimination laws of protections for both gender identity and gender expression.

135. I don’t even think gender expression needs to necessarily be pretending or even really performance. Some women express their gender through long hair and fingernails, some through summer dresses and high heels, some through their gate and vocal patterns, some through their interests. Choosing to wear heels but never make-up, or have it come naturally to walk with a womanly hip-swagger but never show cleavage, or whatever it is — these are gender expressions that may or may not be “pretending” at all, yet have no effect on the gender identity of the woman in question.

136. To me this isn’t a problem, but a result of their constructedness of the concept of gender, that one can both “pretend” one while “being” another.

     Which one is true? Which one is “real”?

     Speaking as a woman who performs as a man most of the time, this isn’t a hard question. I mean, it’s kind of implied by the construction of “pretendng” vs. being, as you put it, no? I *am* a woman–that is what I deeply feel myself to believe–but I *perform* as a man, for now, because everyone who knows me thinks I’m a man and I haven’t broken the news to them yet. But the point is they’re wrong, and I know myself better than anyone else does.

     I don’t understand why this is so hard.

137. roro80, just as a clarification, “performance” when we’re talking performativity theory and gender is being used in its broader “something you do” sense rather than the “theatre/pretending/costuming” sense. ie the meaning in “the doctor performed surgery”.

138. Yes Li, I understand. I do realize that most of my examples of gender expression are very obvious examples, but my point was that gender expression can be something different than gender identity even if you’re not trying to pretend to be a different gender than how you identify. I was trying to show through obvious examples that expressing one’s gender is more complicated/nuanced than “I am a woman so I wear dresses” or “I am a man so I wear pants”. It seemed that DLL was trying to boil everything down to something that simple, and therefore was missing the difference between identity and expression.

139. I find there are two “natural beauty” kind of guys.

     One is the kind of guy who I respect–he admits women who wear makeup aren’t his type. I don’t like men who dye their hair certain colors or wear certain clothes, it suggests a mindset I don’t share. I don’t care if you love crocs with socks or your bright blue mohawk, I support your right to do it but I’m not interested.

     The other kind of guy is controlling. He hate the idea that you control how you look, that you have any abilities he can’t best you in or force you to serve him with. How DARE you wear makeup! It’s because you’re trying to sleep with other men! It’s because you hate me and you’re trying to make me unhappy by changing your appearance! It’s because your stupid and shallow–only I can save you!

     Whenever a guy tells me he’s not interested in makeup, I assume a preference. When a guy tells me he hates it–I honestly think abuser.

140. Sophia, the ‘realness’ of performative gender here stems from the fact that it’s the one with the greater relational impact on other people.

     To take an example from outside just gender, if someone were to start posting misogynistic/racist comments on this thread in order to troll, even if they were saying things they didn’t believe to be true, then I’d prioritise the comments they actually made in that, because actions can be real and have real impact on other people independent of intention. Sometimes what we conceive ourselves as being isn’t as relevant as the way we act.

     There are a whole bunch of reasons why I tend to trust which of the two other people want to prioritise in understanding themselves (and I’d suggest that most people would probably actually pick both for different aspects), but that’s the reason you we don’t necessarily automatically view someone’s self conception as more ‘right/wrong’ than their actions.

141. To think i used to be popular… *sigh*

     You were never that popular. No offense. Suzie’s been talking behind your back during lunch for a while, and Tommy’s been spreading rumors about what you really did for Spring Break.

142. Tamara, sorry I’ve taken so long. I just want to say that I understand better what you’re saying now, and I agree. The expectation that we should all be looking our “best,” shiny and glittery, at any moment, regardless of our own priorities and feelings, is utterly oppressive. I was thinking more of the way my best friend is beautiful–as far as I’m concerned, she’s more beautiful than both Gosling and Law. It’s not that I can’t tell the difference between her all dolled up and her going on three hours of sleep because the baby kept her up all night; it’s that those things don’t affect the way I perceive her beauty. That’s more the kind of thing I was thinking of.

143. And, just catch up, yeah, whatever Butler may say, there’s difference between identity and performance–we are biological creatures, with immensely complex neurological and hormonal systems that interact with what we learn in incredibly complicated ways. The idea that gender is purely performative is far too simplistic and erases the experiences of trans people, and the idea that there could be no pre-discursive identities or understanding is the typical lit-crit privileging of linguistic communication; as somebody who has spent a good deal of time with pre-verbal people, they have individual personalities separate from what they learn and see modeled around them.

144. as somebody who has spent a good deal of time with pre-verbal people, they have individual personalities separate from what they learn and see modeled around them.

     Thank you. That’s one of the things I was trying to say, but you said it much more clearly. I don’t understand how anyone can spend a lot of time around little babies without realizing that they do, in fact, come with different personalities!

145. To an extent it’s not even what Butler may say, it’s what Butler said 22 years ago when Gender Trouble was published. Time (and theory) marches on.

146. You were never that popular. No offense. Suzie’s been talking behind your back during lunch for a while, and Tommy’s been spreading rumors about what you really did for Spring Break.

     😀

147. “Don’t look like you’re wearing too much makeup; wear enough to look like you’re not wearing any.”

     To my great pile of Plays to Write When There’s Enough Time it appears may be added How Quinn Morgendorffer Came to Rule the World, if I can get more than the title and a vague idea that it will feel similar to Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You.

148. angie unduplicated, no need 2 apologize 4 the rant, i totally agree

     natalie, i think U R right, the british R not nearly the beauty snobs americans are—thanx a lot, hollyweird

     fuck natural beauty, my daughter’s a goth and im an old metalhead—makeup and hair color are for outrageous fun, not 2 “cover grey” or put on the “acceptable” mask

     as for male hotness, my pick is janick gers

149. See this shitstorm in here, people? Next time someone asks where the WOC are, the trans women, the lesbians, or people with (and who admit to having) physical disabilities/mental illness, the non-NT people, low-SES , or any other marginalised people.

     Next time someone asks that – point them here.

     Show them how women are mansplained to by condescending jerks, how WOC are routinely told they’re overreacting, how people who belong to the native populations of their country are told to be grateful to the colonisers who stole everything, how trans women have to have 101 on constant repeat.

     Show them how PWD/PWMI are TABsplained over, and told that the social model of disability has the answer, that reliance on Big Pharma (for those lifesaving drugs) is problematic, that ableist language isn’t a problem, that mentioning disability or MI as a reason someone can’t commit to [current fashionable ‘ethical’ lifestyle] is making excuses, that fat women and poor women should just stop being so damned fat and poor, should eat organic food and get better jobs, and on and on and on.

     Next time someone points out the homogeneity here, or asks “How can we bring more [minority group] into feminism?”, show them this thread, the soda one, any post where pheeno is accused of manufacturing issues that totes do not happen in the US today guys, where macavity is outright told “Shut up, you talk too much” because, as a skeery marginalised person straddling many axes of oppression, she should sit in a corner and listen to the (usually)straight and childless, white Americans tell her how it is.
     How long should Donna put up with transphobes JAQing off in the form of “Just playing Devil’s Advocate”or “it’s purely hypothetical, but…”?

     How long until the current crop of racists, men (of the mansplaining, dudebro, “as a man I think…”, ‘notes from my boner’ type, not people who are able to comment intelligently without jizzing privilege everywhere), transphobes, homophobes, classists, ableists, colonisers, American exceptionalists, and fat-shamers run off people who are willing to be open, to educate, to cast a different light on certain situations?

     How long this time until the echo-chamber of privilege shuts out amazing people, simply because they’re critical of the institutional prejudice and harm that enriches your lives while extinguishing theirs?

     The burden should ALWAYS be on the oppressors, not the oppressed.

     How the hell can we achieve equality and dismantle patriarchy, if we’re throwing out any troops that don’t meet the arbitrary colour/race/nationality/weight/physical and mental ability/wealth/location/sexuality/gender identity/assignment at birth tests set up to exclude the vast numerical majority of people. We can’t make misogyny extinct if it’s part of the armoury.

     1. @wendy and mandella nelson—-i think the venus of willendorf is supposed to be an exaggerated representation of pregnancy?

150. Hey, PartialHuman, I think I love you and would like to do your taxes ♥

     Honestly, the vitriol that Donna and pheeno put up with… ugh just ugh. Especially considering they’re both really sweet women, it kind of baffles me how often they’re being called names, here. D:

151. Yes; they are two of my favorite commenters. I always learn from them, and even if I start out disagreeing, I almost always am rethinking my position by the end of one of their comments.

152. Partial Human, agree 1000%. I would like to ring bells for your comment, so every Feministe reader can find it.

153. Partial Human @ 149 : YES.

     I’ve been a lurker for years, commenting rarely (like, once a year) and just recently starting to comment a little more… as someone with a ton of privilege, I’ve learned so much, and still have so much to learn; the patience and goodwill here shown to the ‘phobes and mansplainers is astounding. And undeserved. Almost every thread, it never fails, I see the shit hit the fan and the same people are always going out of their way and expending their energy to open eyes.

     It’s just such a damn shame.

154. Especially considering they’re both really sweet women

     It’s all the pepsi I drink 🙂

155. Thanks Partial Human for summing things up (I just hoped you breathed during your typing!).

     Pheno, Macavity and Donna, I would like to add my voice to that of the other commentators and thank you for always providing interesting and informative comments which always make me reconsider my positions. Please continue to contribute to the debate – you are reaching some of us.

156. Just to add to what everyone else is saying: PartialHuman, wow. That is one of the most eloquent, insightful, to-the-point comments I’ve ever read on the internet. I want to put it on my refrigerator with the title “The Intersectionality Manifesto.”

157. Partial Human +100

158. It’s all the pepsi I drink 🙂

     Zing!

     khw, everyone, and especially whoever commented on my own blog and gave me awesome motivation: thanks so much, you guys. ^__^

159. @Wendy #16

     You are refering to the Venus of Willendorf (although there are lots of others thats the most famous one) which funnily enough is another example of unnatural beauty beauty standards, or maybe more accurately a unobtainable beauty ideal, since in the prehistoric nomadic culture that created it women wouldn’t be able to maintain that body shape very easily if at all.

     I think the fact of the existence of venus figures shows that at least some prehistoric women were able to attain this body-type because how else were prehistoric tribal people to know what the f*** it looks like to have that shape at all? Otherwise, it is quite an imagination early humans must have had! But hey I’m no anthropologist by no means.

160. Looks like I ruined feminism! Whoops!

161. I hope this isn’t too much of a re-derail, but there seems to be a bit of a false dichotomy here on the handedness issue. It isn’t really “you’re born that way” or “it’s all easily learned.”

     I had a right-handed tendency from an early age, but when I was 7, I wanted to be ambidextrous. In my young mind, I took for granted (with a nature perspective) that I would always retain my right-handedness, but I also believed (with a nurture perspective) that I could simply add left-handedness by practicing with my left hand.

     So I began writing with my left hand, and I neglected to keep writing with my right hand. What ended up happening is I now write with a pencil/pen (or paint with a paint brush) using my left hand, and I now cannot do those things with my right hand any more. But if I write on a chalkboard (holding the chalk differently than I would a pen), I write with my right hand. Everything else (scissors, chopsticks, sports), I’m still right-handed in.

     A friend of mine has a father who displayed early left-handed tendencies, and he was forced by his parents to become right-handed. He is right-handed now, but he stutters. When she was young, he began forcing her to be right-handed as well, until he noticed her beginning to stutter, and then he stopped, so she’s developed as left-handed (which her tendencies were anyway).

     I know some people who are left-handed but will still play a right-handed guitar. And then you have some musicians (Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix) who are left-handed and also play a left-handed bass/guitar.

     Handedness is not simply “you’re born that way” or “it’s all learned.” I learned left-handedness, but maybe I’m an anomaly. Maybe it’s easier to switch from right-handedness to left-handedness? Maybe it’s more about choice–if you choose to take on a different handedness instead of someone forcing you into a different handedness? I don’t know. But it’s not simple, and neither is gender stuff.

162. Even though I’m right handed, i “naturally” cartwheel on the left. Must be my innate cartwheel-handedness

163. I know some people who are left-handed but will still play a right-handed guitar. And then you have some musicians (Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix) who are left-handed and also play a left-handed bass/guitar.

     Well except that you use two hands to play guitar, and neither is necessarily more important than the other, so there’s nothing innately left or right handed about left and right handed guitars. The majority of left handed guitar players play a ‘right handed’ guitar.

164. Heck, I consider myself to be doing “nothing” face-wise, but I still:
     – shampoo and condition every two days
     – brush and style my hair every morning, and again every evening
     – shave my legs
     – shave my armpits
     – use deodorant
     – use perfume
     – pluck facial hair out with tweezers
     – use facewash

     The no-maintenance look doesn’t actually require no-maintenance. Not ever.

     I’m not sure what is the no-maintenance look supposed to look like.

     Here is my routine, which I do consider to be no maintenance. It’s not trying to achieve a certain look however:

     -shampoo and condition every 3 weeks
     -finger brush my hair every morning, brush with a brush every 2-3 days, no styling as my hair is 3 feet long and semi-straight, so it just goes downwards. No ‘dos’, no tying it up.
     -shave my legs once a week
     -shave pubic area once a week or two
     (no armpit hair to speak of, but I’ll mention it, I’d prolly shave it if I had some)

     That’s it. No make-up either. If I use make-up, it’s to please my boyfriend who likes the look. I personally find it weird. This happens once in a blue moon. No deodorant, no perfume.

     Note that earlier in my transition I’d wear make-up daily (though never lipstick or eye-shadow). I gained confidence gradually. And now I ditched it because I find it costly and time-consuming (and not to my taste).

     No one thinks I “look tired”, because they can’t contrast my present non-make-up looks with a daily-meeting-me-with-make-up looks. I don’t objectively look tired. I just look more tired than I would with make-up. Or the reverse, I look too-awake with make-up.

     I look androgynous by the way. I’m not a model of feminine beauty. So my ditching the feminity performance can affect my perceived sex, for a minority anyways. It’s just that at some point you stop caring, and damn it feels better.

     I’m not mandating that everyone ditch make-up. I just personally don’t like it on myself or others, outside of scene works. I’m pansexual, so it matters. Natural looks, regardless of the looks, is what I prefer. I also love long hair on everyone, preferably loose.

165. It seems to me that if makeup being mandatory for women is a problem for women who hate makeup, and makeup being exclusive to women is a problem for men who would *like* to wear makeup (among other things, men get vitiligo and acne too…), but makeup being mandatory and exclusive for women is useful for trans women as a gender signifier, there is kind of an impasse there, and I’m not sure what to think about that.

     Dress codes that mandate or forbid make-up (and jewelry usage restrictions/allowance and hair length allowances/restrictions, and why not uniforms or clothing restrictions that are sex-different), wether for schools or most lines of work, or the army, or prisons (that don’t involve modeling or TV/theater/clown work) need to die in a fire.

     They’re defended as “separate but equal burdens”. And hold in front of supreme courts in Canada, the US and the UK.

     Because the employers want “a certain image” (I’m not sure what schools claim is the reason boys can’t wear skirts or make-up or long hair – usually in Texas for the hair, everywhere for the rest). The country of the free should have quashed this long ago. Freedom for employees > freedom for employers. As long as its freedom of expression, not freedom of destroying property.

     And as for the whole gender identity and expression deal. I prefer to use sex identity to stop the confusion. But this only works for transsexual women and men, not for genderqueer, agender, bigender and others who don’t identify as either sex.

     I identify as female, not as a woman. Woman just is the default identifier of female people. So I don’t identify with a performance of feminity or anything, just with femaleness. It’s usually more clear this way, but radfems still think it means nothing more than “wanting to wear dresses”. I gave up on explaining the concept to them.

166. Just throwing this note in about the context of a situation. My now ex husband frequently told me I looked better without makeup and wished I would not. After enough of that, I finally stopped using it at all. Turned out it was part of his jealousy issues, he just didn’t want me to be attractive to other men.

167. Well except that you use two hands to play guitar, and neither is necessarily more important than the other, so there’s nothing innately left or right handed about left and right handed guitars.

     Of course there is and this becomes immediately obvious if you’re used to playing a right-handed guitar and try to play a left-handed one.

     The majority of left handed guitar players play a ‘right handed’ guitar.

     Yes, which I mentioned before. Why are you trying to “correct” something I never said. The fact is almost no (or flat out no) right-handed guitarists play left-handed guitars because they are for left-handed people. Lots of left-handed guitarists will play right-handed guitar because most guitars (and guitar teachers) are right-handed, so they just get used to it, just as most lefties can also use right-handed scissors if they have to.

168. Of course there is and this becomes immediately obvious if you’re used to playing a right-handed guitar and try to play a left-handed one.

     Indeed, cos one is used to doing it one way so it’s hard if not impossible to change.

     Yes, which I mentioned before. Why are you trying to “correct” something I never said. The fact is almost no (or flat out no) right-handed guitarists play left-handed guitars because they are for left-handed people. Lots of left-handed guitarists will play right-handed guitar because most guitars (and guitar teachers) are right-handed, so they just get used to it, just as most lefties can also use right-handed scissors if they have to.

     No this is my point I disagree about the comparison of left/right handed guitar playing to left/right handed writing/scissors using. As a leftie I’ve only ever really used right handed scissors so I’m pretty used to that shit. However when I get the chance to use some left handed scissors I’m like kahbam cutting up shit like a true g. Because this is a simple matter of physics, in right/left handed scissors the blade is angled in the right way in relation to the hand. Or whatever.

     However with guitar you use two hands. There’s no real reason why the dominant hand should pick and the other hand should fret, so there’s much more flexibility for left handed people to choose what they want and why they choose to play right handed guitars, because theres more of them. So basically what i was just trying to say was that your guitar example doesn’t really suggest that handedness is learned.

169. I identify as female, not as a woman.

     You can identify as whatever you like, but you’ve also said more than once that you’re a trans woman. You do understand that “trans” is an adjective modifying “woman”? To say you’re a trans woman but not a woman makes no sense whatsoever. And plays right into the hands of those who say that trans women aren’t women. Gee, thanks!

     It’s usually more clear this way, but radfems still think it means nothing more than “wanting to wear dresses”

     Did you seriously think that anti-trans radical feminists would buy into your calling yourself “female”? If anything, people like that are more adamant that trans women aren’t females than they are that trans women aren’t women, given their insistence that being female requires XX chromosomes.

170. Here is my routine, which I do consider to be no maintenance. It’s not trying to achieve a certain look however:

     -shampoo and condition every 3 weeks
     -finger brush my hair every morning, brush with a brush every 2-3 days, no styling as my hair is 3 feet long and semi-straight, so it just goes downwards. No ‘dos’, no tying it up.
     -shave my legs once a week
     -shave pubic area once a week or two
     (no armpit hair to speak of, but I’ll mention it, I’d prolly shave it if I had some)

     That’s it. No make-up either. If I use make-up, it’s to please my boyfriend who likes the look. I personally find it weird. This happens once in a blue moon. No deodorant, no perfume.

     Note that earlier in my transition I’d wear make-up daily (though never lipstick or eye-shadow). I gained confidence gradually. And now I ditched it because I find it costly and time-consuming (and not to my taste).

     No one thinks I “look tired”, because they can’t contrast my present non-make-up looks with a daily-meeting-me-with-make-up looks. I don’t objectively look tired. I just look more tired than I would with make-up. Or the reverse, I look too-awake with make-up.

     I look androgynous by the way. I’m not a model of feminine beauty. So my ditching the feminity performance can affect my perceived sex, for a minority anyways. It’s just that at some point you stop caring, and damn it feels better.

     If this was intended to be merely descriptive, well, thanks for sharing. That’s fascinating. But despite your disclaimer, it comes across as being remarkably prescriptive. Most trans women I know do care about being perceived as women. And some of them do need makeup, among other things, to signal “woman.” Others, like me, even though I realized eventually that it wasn’t entirely necessary for that purpose, happen to prefer the way they look (especially once they’re of a certain age!). And/or work in occupations where they’d stand out if they didn’t wear makeup, something they try to avoid for obvious reasons. Or just enjoy wearing it.

     
     at some point you stop caring, and damn it feels better

     I understand that the use of the second person is simply a rhetorical device, but in contexts like this, when people use it to mean “I,” I wish they would simply say “I.”

171. I learned left-handedness, but maybe I’m an anomaly. Maybe it’s easier to switch from right-handedness to left-handedness? Maybe it’s more about choice–if you choose to take on a different handedness instead of someone forcing you into a different handedness? I don’t know. But it’s not simple, and neither is gender stuff.

     Or maybe on the spectrum of handedness, your genetic handedness tendency wasn’t as strong as some other people’s.

     Nobody’s saying any of this is simple.

     And remember that the “born this way” issue is a red herring in this discussion. The question of whether gender identity is genetic, or the product of hormonal effects prior to birth, or environmental, or some combination of all of them, is irrelevant to the question of whether it’s something that actually can exist (as something distinct from gender performance), which is what DLL was denying — not simply for himself but for everyone — based on his rigid, dismissive adherence to theories divorced from both experience and observation.

     Frankly, anyone putting all their eggs in the basket of arguing that there’s no such thing as internal handedness (as distinct from the performance of handedness), as a proxy for denying the existence of gender identity (as distinct from the performance of gender), is standing on thin ice, playing a losing game, sawing off the tree branch they’re standing on — pick a metaphor. Of course there are some people who are naturally ambidextrous to a greater or lesser degree, or have different dominant hands for some actions than for others. Of course there are some people who are able to alter their pre-existing handedness tendencies through repetition and practice, whether by choice or being forced to do so in childhood, and are entirely comfortable with the change. As this thread demonstrates, many are not.

     But, unlike with gender identity, I don’t think anyone with knowledge of the subject, scientist or otherwise, even tries to dispute that genetic handedness tendencies exist, even if they’re not always determinative, and can be influenced by environment. (By the way, by “environment,” I include pre-natal environment, including hormonal influences, etc.) For example, studies show that when one identical twin is lefthanded, the other one is lefthanded “only” about 76% of the time — still far greater than the 10% left-handedness rate that has apparently always been pretty much stable in humans, as far back as anyone can tell. So, are handedness tendencies in infancy entirely determinative? No. Is it entirely a question of “choice” and performance? Only a rigid ideologue would claim that.

     Since I haven’t actually stated yet here (ever, I think) what I personally believe about the origin of my gender identity and my transness — I don’t spend a great deal of time dwelling on it, since what I’ve done with it is, I think, a lot more important than where it came from — I’ll say that yes, I do believe I was “born this way,” or at least born with strong tendencies towards it, which manifested themselves at least as early as when I was 2 or 3 years old. I don’t necessarily believe it’s genetic, though; I think it’s more likely a product of some sort of pre-natal hormonal influence, whether because my mother took DES (which I don’t know for sure, but suspect) or otherwise.

     Look at it this way. I understand that correlation is not causation, but there do happen to be rather pronounced statistical correlations between transness and lefthandedness, and between lefthandedness and things like cryptorchidism (MAAB babies born with one or zero testicles) and Crohn’s Disease/ulcerative colitis, as well as a number of other immune system-related diseases.

     So let’s see, I’m lefthanded, trans, was born with one testicle, and have Crohn’s Disease. Jackpot! Clearly, it’s all my imagination, though.

172. I have a long comment in moderation responding to some of the comments about handedness, gender identity, etc., but am excerpting one part of it to see if I can get it through:

     Since I haven’t actually stated here (ever, I think) what I personally believe about the origin of my gender identity and my transness — I don’t spend a great deal of time dwelling on it, since what I’ve done with it is, I think, a lot more important than where it came from — I’ll say that yes, I do believe I was “born this way,” or at least born with strong tendencies towards it, which manifested themselves at least as early as when I was 2 or 3 years old. I don’t necessarily believe it’s genetic, though; I think it’s more likely a product of some sort of pre-natal hormonal influence, whether because my mother took DES (which I don’t know for sure, but suspect) or otherwise.

     Look at it this way. I understand that correlation is not causation, but there do happen to be rather pronounced statistical correlations between transness and lefthandedness, and between lefthandedness and things like cryptorchidism (MAAB babies born with one or zero testicles) and Crohn’s Disease/ulcerative colitis, as well as a number of other immune system-related diseases.

     So let’s see, I’m lefthanded, trans, was born with one testicle, and have Crohn’s Disease. Jackpot! Clearly, it’s all performance, though.

173. I tend to enjoy not necessarily standing out, but being genuine, regardless of the social reputation cost. I have no social life to speak of, so it’s not like it suffers unduly. I got little to lose. I already cut off my paternal side of the family.

     I think the with-make-up look looks weird, as in, I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. So I can’t figure how it looks better. I can see that some people prefer that look and don’t see it as weird, either for themselves or others (like my boyfriend).

     I can’t understand the idea that make-up is mandatory however. I’d sue my employer if it wasn’t reasonable to require it (I’m a model, do stuff on TV or whatever). I can’t condone the forbidding of it either, unless make-up is problematic for the field. Selectively forbidding men from wearing it is stupid.

     As if women NEEDED to be the only one exclusively allowed to use make-up, or feminity doesn’t exist, or something. If that’s true, it’s just as fragile as masculinity is said to be. I personally don’t believe that much performance labeled feminine or masculine are inherent as such. Only body language and “aura/vibe you give” could be said to be.

     75% of the world have males wearing skirted garments as a matter of course (not like kilts where it’s the exception and a national emblem – but in, say, India). The people who decided that dresses and skirts (but not the pope’s robes) are feminine and female-only, didn’t read the memo.

174. Btw I’d like to say I’m ambidextrous, but I write with my left hand (and always have).

     I used my right hand when it “seemed right”. I can’t throw good with my left hand (at least not far enough). I can apply make-up with both hands, brush my hair with both hands, and technically, eat with both hands (when using a spoon or fork), although I’ll always use my left to hold the knife. I learned to use right-handed scissors.

     No way I could write with my right-hand, unless it was the only possibility (ie my left hand is cut off, or in a plaster). It will be horribly written and take 3 times longer to write.

175. And then you have some musicians (Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix) who are left-handed and also play a left-handed bass/guitar.

     Jimi Hendrix played a right handed guitar strung upside down.

176. I did want to add: to Partial Human and the others who agreed with her comment and said similar things: thank you. I appreciate it. No, DLL didn’t “ruin feminism”; he’s not that influential! But I’m not sure he realizes, even though he belongs to a marginalized group himself and has written about his experiences in a school where he was surrounded by homophobia, how difficult and discouraging it is when I have to (well, I don’t have to, but it seems I’m expected to) explain the same things over and over again here, to a sometimes-hostile reception and interrogation, despite the fact that this place has always been theoretically trans-friendly.

     It isn’t that I ever expect to change the mind of whatever person I’m arguing with about trans-related issues; I’m always hoping that maybe something I say will make sense to someone who’s just reading. That’s the reason I started participating here regularly last year — despite the warnings I’d received — and that’s why I keep doing it. And it’s nice to know, as I’m sure it is for the others who were named, that it works sometimes. And that most people don’t really agree with what a certain person whom I won’t dignify with a name (not someone who comments here, fortunately) said about me a few months ago on another blog which I also won’t name, with respect to my comments on Feministe: “It’s incredible how much damage a guy like Donna L can do to a female community, online or off.” That kind of thing can be very upsetting, of course, as much as I try to consider the source. So positive reinforcement once in a while can be a very good thing!

177. No, DLL didn’t “ruin feminism”; he’s not that influential! But I’m not sure he realizes, even though he belongs to a marginalized group himself and has written about his experiences in a school where he was surrounded by homophobia,

     Cut that shit out. Don’t pretend like you know me.

     This is why I think you have a particular problem with me. You think you know things about me.

178. This is why I think you have a particular problem with me. You think you know things about me.

     Well…was she referencing a particular article you wrote? Then she’s just…citing you, I’d think.

179. I know what you’ve written in your comments here. That’s all I know about you. I have no real interest in knowing any more. And I apologize for giving you too much credit by thinking you should know better than the garbage you continually spew here.

180. I accept your apology. Thank you.

181. *snorfle* Donna, you are awesome.

182. how difficult and discouraging it is when I have to (well, I don’t have to, but it seems I’m expected to) explain the same things over and over again here, to a sometimes-hostile reception and interrogation, despite the fact that this place has always been theoretically trans-friendly.

     It’s probably not my place to say this, Donna, but I sometimes feel concerned that you over-exert yourself on this count. Personally, I certainly don’t expect you to explain the same thing over and over again here, and I get the sense many other posters don’t either (not to say that there aren’t also plenty of others who tokenize you as the go-to expert/whipping girl on every and any thing trans).

     I greatly admire all your activism for LGB issues and T issues both online and offline. And I hope you do fully appreciate how much your efforts have paid off here at Feministe, and how many people you have educated. But I also know how stressful and demoralizing it can be to debate things core to one’s very self, and I just hope you don’t place too steep of obligations on yourself in terms of a personal responsibility to counter the anti-trans bullshit.

     Again, I apologize if this unsolicited and possibly unnecessary advice was annoying to you, at all.

183. DonnaL, I can’t express enough how much I appreciate your contribution and your patience and how sorry I am that you’ve had to use them so much. Please don’t feel obliged to a) shoulder so much weight, or b) be so patient, if either is a burden to you.

184. Ditto to Caperton @ 184

     I feel like many of the discussions that take place here in the comments are ones where I should “Shut up and listen”; while the really major assholes that instigate these in-depth explanations definitely espouse ideas I would never hold, sometimes the problematic comments seem more vague to me and I don’t immediately grasp how or why they are wrong. I may have ‘done the reading’ Re: 101 (bypassing the radfem transphobic articles, obvi) but that’s only a small part of learning to check my privilege.

     I still stick my foot in my mouth sometimes.

     It has gotten to the point now, though, that I just want to scream “AGAIN? REALLY?!” when I see yet another thread devolve into hand-holding demands… racism, transphobia, ableism etc. being explained over and over again.

     I would not be nearly so patient, and nobody should have to be – but I owe a great deal to those of you who are.

185. However with guitar you use two hands. There’s no real reason why the dominant hand should pick and the other hand should fret, so there’s much more flexibility for left handed people to choose what they want and why they choose to play right handed guitars, because theres more of them. So basically what i was just trying to say was that your guitar example doesn’t really suggest that handedness is learned.

     Have you ever played guitar? Most people left-handed people who play right-handed guitars still play left-handed.. they string the guitar in the opposite direction so that they can play it with their left hand.

186. Many thanks to everyone, including Macavity, LotusBecca, WHEOhio, and especially Caperton.

     Just last night, I was having trouble sleeping; it wasn’t about this specifically, but I did start thinking along the way how sad this kind of thread always makes me, and how it leads to some very self-negative thoughts that I always hope I’ve left behind me for good after all these years, and that maybe I should just stop for a while. It’s not like I haven’t thought that before. But I’m not about to stop reading here — among other reasons, there are too many people I’d miss! — and sometimes, when I see something that I know I’m able to address (not better than other people, but perhaps in a different way), it’s hard to stay quiet, you know?

187. Have you ever played guitar? Most people left-handed people who play right-handed guitars still play left-handed.. they string the guitar in the opposite direction so that they can play it with their left hand.

     That’s not entirely true. Stringing the guitar upside down is a relatively rare phenomenon associated with Jimi Hendrix, and it is one of the ‘unique’ things, like playing with his teeth, which he is known for. Unique, meaning he is the only one known for it, as I’m sure other people have done it.

     He’s right about the guitar having distinct skills for both hands, which rather strangely relies on more expertise from the left hand for right handers. It still amazes me that I can do a quick change or a riff wth my left hand when I can barely through a ball with it.

     This has veered off topic, but I have a boner for guitars so I guess its somewhat relevant.

     He is actual

188. Have you ever played guitar? Most people left-handed people who play right-handed guitars still play left-handed.. they string the guitar in the opposite direction so that they can play it with their left hand.

     yeah, i’ve been playing guitar since i was ten thanks. now what about your guitar playing credentials?

     there are plenty of left handed guitarists who play righty guitar. For example, Albert King, BB King, Gary Moore (not such a big fan of any of them, but still…) also David Byrne… I’m sure there are more if you google it…

     I dunno where you get your stats from about most left handed players restringing right handed guitars… you would need to do more than just swap around all the strings yeah. cut new grooves in the nut or flip the nut if possible. depending on the kind of bridge, re cut the grooves or you might need to replace the bridge entirely. I’d guess most lefties who want to play a lefty guitar simply buy a lefty guitar…

189. Oh that was Chiara who made the guitar comment? Sorry Chiara, for referring to you as ‘he’, when I said ‘he’s right’.

Comments are currently closed.