A meandering reflection on fun feminism, waxing, role modeling, Socrates, and intra-feminist dialogue

In the last 24 hours, my hits have shot through the roof.  Lots of folks clearly want to know why I had my foreskin cut off last year. 

For whatever reason, the feminist blogosphere seems to be undergoing a period of particularly intense self-criticism.  The whole Ampersand/Alas/porn thing exploded this week and the discussion continues in that arena.

Meanwhile, the debate over "fun feminism" (or feminist women's concessions to femininity) has re-emerged with a vengeance.  Three feminists whose writing I admire immensely (The Happy Feminist, Amanda Marcotte, Jill Filipovic) all offered their own personal, articulate reflections on their own relationships with "femininity".  (See here, here, here).  This particular round of self-reflection was sparked by a new book from Laura Kipnis, The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability.  (Not even available to the schlumps like me who have to wait for its publication; some folks clearly got review copies.  Ahem.)  Jill summarizes the Kipnis thesis:

That feminism and traditional femininity are at odds with each other, and that compliance with the traditional trappings of femininity only serves to keep women down. I’m not too far into it yet, but in the intro she points out that traditional femininity wasn’t directly put upon women, but created by women themselves as a rational response to their own powerlessness. She argues that, now that women have the same legal rights as men, we’re still choosing to embrace these feminine things, and that feminism has been complicit or even supportive of that embrace. And, in embracing these things, women are complicit in their own oppression.

In the course of their three very different, very readable posts, HF, Amanda, and Jill all admit to at least some conflict and ambivalence regarding their own "feminine strategies."  Jill writes of enjoying high heels, bikini waxes, and Sex and the City.  HF notes her use of hair dye and anti-wrinkle creams. Amanda ties in her decision to take full financial responsibility for contraception.   But read all three posts at length rather than my summaries.

Though Jill, Happy, and Amanda are more experienced feminists than my students, what they write reflects what I read in student journals all the time.  So many of my students who are budding feminists worry about what they will have to "give up" in order to become "real feminists."  Many make lists of their feminist principles, and juxtapose them with the particularly "femmy" aspects of themselves.  "I want to be a feminist, but I like the door being held for me by a man."  "I consider myself a feminist, but I like feeling pretty."  "Can I be a feminist if I wax?"  "Can I be a feminist if I watch Project Runway?"  "Can I be a feminist if...."  The list is endless.

Of course, the temptation is to offer reassurance that "anything can be feminist" as long as its "what you want to do" and not "what society tells you to do."  As Jill points out, most folks who've gotten past Feminism 101 recognize the speciousness of that particular reasoning.  Teasing out what is really "our" desire and separating it from what we have been taught to want by a sexist culture is not nearly as easy as we imagine.   The most superficial kind of feminism is "choice feminism", which insists that any choice a woman makes is above reproach merely because she is making it as an active agent.  Shallow "choice" feminism offers little opportunity for reflection on what is gained, what is lost, and who else gets hurt by these choices.  Jill, HF, and Amanda all clearly and emphatically reject choice feminism.  Jill and HF don't claim that their choices to wear heals, wax, or use wrinkle creams are feminist choices -- but they also argue that they aren't inherently anti-feminist decisions either.  They acknowledge the tension and ambiguity that exists in feminist women's relationship with femininity, which is a very different thing from mindlessly accepting the dictates of pop culture.

On the other side, read Twisty and Molly.  Twisty savages Bust Magazine for its faux feminism, and Molly rebuts Jill with a post entitled Why my Brand of Feminism is No Fun at All.  Molly writes:

Being introspective about one's choices and admitting that not all of them are empowering is a great first step. But that's it. Once you've gotten to that level, make some more changes. For instance, I did feel like shaving was a real pain in the ass, and yet I kept doing it for a long time because I felt I had to in order to gain acceptance. Once I examined this view, however, I felt guilty. But I didn't say "well, I can stop feeling guilty because I'm so fun!" I stopped shaving my legs except when it's so dry that they itch unshaved (this amounts to 1-2 times per year). Oh no -- now I'm a "Hairy Feminist," and we all know hairy girls can't be fun. I don't feel guilty about the times I do shave my legs, because now I am doing it for my own comfort. When I realized my actions were not in harmony with the ideology I espoused, I did what I could to change my actions.

Bold emphasis mine.  Jill has an excellent rebuttal to Molly in Molly's comments section.  Excerpt:

I'm not saying that I'm immune to criticism for my personal choices, but I do wish that we would go after the system that compels women to make certain choices rather than the women themselves. I don't see the point in having a feminist pissing contest about who's the "most" feminist based on how we dress or how much hair we have on our bodies.

Bold mine again.  Molly has a follow-up here, which is where we finally get to the point of my post this morning.   She makes an interesting point (and singles me out as an example, which obviously gets my attention).  Molly argues that those of us who are public feminists (and that includes not only those of us who work for money as feminists, as I do, but also prominent bloggers like Jill, Amanda, and Happy) must be held to a higher standard than "newbie" feminists or those whose role in the movement is not as public:

I only mean to address those who hold themselves up, either explicitly or implicitly, as feminist role models. This would definitely include all feminist bloggers, particularly those who have acquired real renown in the blogosphere. I don't hold a random woman on the street to the same standards -- or even close to the same standards -- as those who would be the voice of feminism online.

Molly has a point.  Some of us get hundreds, many of us thousands of individual readers of our posts.  Young men and women looking for information on feminism frequently "google" certain topics that lead them to Feministe, Pandagon, Happy Feminist, Hugo Schwyzer, or dozens of other feminist blogs.  And as someone who works with high school and college-age feminists, I know how vital the Internet and the blogosphere are in shaping perceptions of what contemporary feminism is all about.  If we're lucky enough to have a high readership, we can be fairly certain that at least some young (and not so young) men and women are taking our words to heart.  And as we saw in the Ampersand/porn controversy, part of our "cyber cred" is the sense that we who blog and act as role models are doing our best to practice what we preach. And where we find ourselves engaged in personal behaviors that we believe to be inherently problematic, we who are role models have a special obligation to work to change our behavior.

Am I taking Molly's side over Jill's?  No.  What Jill does more publicly than most is something vitally important for feminists to do: "process out-loud."  Maybe it's just the Episcopalian in me, but I like it when folks allow themselves to sit in tension, allow themselves to wrestle with ambiguity, allow themselves to acknowledge complexity.  Jill likes getting Brazilian waxes,and she's clearly aware that part of her pleasure in being hairless is linked to the culture.  But by the same token, part of her preference for hairlessness may be part of who Jill is as an individual, distinct from a socially imposed pressure to be "bare down there."  It's absolutely absurd to suggest that those women who take pleasure in traditionally feminine behaviors are always doing so because of the patriarchy, while those women who take on more androgynous, more masculine behaviors (not shaving is stereotypically masculine) are somehow always demonstrating their courageous resistance to "the man."

Do I have a nifty answer for all of this?  No.  But let me tell you what I think a role model ought to do.  (And Molly, thanks again for singling me out as one.)  A role model is willing to wrestle publicly with his or her own uncertainties.  A role model is willing to engage in healthy self-analysis, and willing to give up behavior patterns that are hurtful to others.  But a role model is not a super-hero.  Real role models are flesh and blood men and women, with their own unique set of desires and experiences, hopes and fears.   Real role models aren't defensive (and Amanda, Happy, and Jill have been anything but on this topic).  Whether they wax or don't wax, wear heels or not, they are willing to examine their own choices critically and dialogue with others about them.  Some role models may choose to not wax; others may choose to continue to do so.  What makes a man or woman an important feminist role model is openness, candor, and willingness to acknowledge a connection that links private pleasure, public behavior, and the larger feminist movement.   Twisty meets that standard.  Amanda meets that standard.  Happy meets that standard.  Jill meets that standard.  And by being willing to wade back into the heat over his decision to sell amptoons, I think Barry Deutsch (Amp) is doing his damndest to meet that standard.

Few of us ,one hopes, get out of higher ed without learning the Socrates admonition: "The unexamined life is not worth living."  I decided a long time ago that my primary task as a pro-feminist blogger was to live out a very publicly "examined life."   How I eat, how I make love, how I teach, how I dress, how I exercise, how I vote, how I relate to those beneath and those above, how I pray, how I read Scripture, how I spend -- all of those choices are rightly open for analysis and discussion.  Of course, "examining" is not the end goal!  The end goal is to become an ever more loving, ever more effective human being.  The goal is change and growth, in the name of our own happiness, yes,  but even more so that we might be of ever-greater service to the world and to our cause.

So let's keep challenging each other in the feminist blogosphere, let's keep pushing each other, let's keep telling each other the truth.  And let us balance our eagerness to hold each other accountable with a willingness to acknowledge that we all see through a glass darkly.  Let's be really loving to each other, modeling for the whole world what a cyber feminist community can look like.

Comments

[Jendi]

Lifestyle choices do have political implications, but after a certain point, maybe the most feminist thing we can do for each other is stop obsessing about and ranking other women based on personal appearance. Isn't that one of the main ways women's energy has been diverted from productive activity - keeping us divided against each other and preoccupied with trivia? I don't feel I have the right to say what another woman means by shaving/not shaving her legs, any more than men have the right to categorize me as a good or bad girl because of my skirt length, regardless of my own words and actions. By all means, be reflective about where your own ideas of beauty come from, but be cautious about extending those assumptions to others.

[mythago]

Calling somebody out for saying one thing and doing another isn't "ranking".

[The Happy Feminist]

Wow, thank you for this lovely post! I am going to write more follow up on this and Molly's post tonight or tomorrow. What stands out for me in Molly's post is this:

When I realized my actions were not in harmony with the ideology I espoused, I did what I could to change my actions.

I agree 100% with that this is the desirable way to behave and I would assert that I do behave this way. My issue is (and I think I may differ slightly from Amanda and Jill on this) is that I don't think my femmi-ness is out of harmony with the ideology I espouse. I don't see it as just something I do to get by an unfairly patriarchal world. If someone convinces me that it is, I will immediately change it. I have a personal vow that I will never in word, thought, or deed concede to any kind of expectation of second-class status based on my sex. However, I don't agree that wearing make-up and high heels and waxing violate that vow in and of themselves.

The difficulty and ambiguity comes in because there is no clear cut answer. Make-up and high heels and other trappings of femininity CAN symbolize second-class status and there are all sorts of subtleties as to how and when they do.

Lots of food for thought!

[Bitch]

And you know what? it's freakin' annoying the hell out of a lot of people of color Hugo. It's like the only thing in the world that matters to feminism is gender gender gender gender gender gender gender gender gender gender gender gender. And, since I know that you recognize how important intersectional analyses of race / class /gender *is*, you can see how it's damn disappointing to hit BlogLandia to find this overweening obsessiveness on issues that matter primarily to white and middle/upper-middle class people -- because they don't have to think about making a living on the edge of poverty. they never had to think about how some women might like to "dress up" becasue for 8 hrs of their lives, they're wearing a freakin' uniform. Or maybe it's a big fat eff you to white feminists concerned with these issues b/c they generally don't care about the things that matter to *you*.

Oh, and hey, as long as we're insisting on thinking *hard* about our participation in Teh Patriarchy (tm), why not a little hard thinking about what we're participating in when we, oh, goshes enjoy consumption that appears gender-neutral. Hmmmm?

What women were exploited and oppressed to make sure water cress is picked and carefully cleaned, hmmmm?

What women were expoloited and oppressed to make sure the public johns are clean, hmmmm?

Oh, hey, how about hired housekeepers, hmmmmm? Nanny's? Day care providers all of whom are not paid the same daily wage as most people who hire them and thus cannot afford to hire their own help.

I don't think I should have to continue. You're were a passionate student of Cherie Moraga. (me too, though not personally like you.)

But, no. No one wants to get into all that on any sort of regular basis becaues they have to ask themselves how they participate in other systems of oppression which, gosh am i surprised, ALSO harm men. And we don't want to go there, becasue then we might actually have to listen compassionately and carefully to people who must deal with race / class / etc oppression. And that sticky MAN issue might get in the way and there where would we be. And then we might be, you know, cultural relatavist and oh lawdy, then we might go right straight to the PlayBoy Mansion in a Pair of Fishnets.

Hence, it all has to be about gender gender gender gender gender gender gender gender because and centered on that issue because lawd knows we couldn't possibly, you know, hold more than one concern in our heads at the same time. The luxury of white and class privilege is that you can imagine that you can decide when race and class matter. A lot of other feminists can't. And worrying about high heels and pink tool belts is so much horse hockey.

I mean, you know, pink toolboxes woulda been cool when I lived in HUD housing. you know why? When the HUD inspector came to make sure we weren't hiding The Menz under our bed, the mgmt always told us that we should take care that no one saw men's cologne, toolboxes, flannel shirts, and workboxes. Which always made me laff. First of all, the big ass toolbox is mine and I like my power tools and woulda had lots if I had a place to power tool around. And in the second place, all the "marks" of a man could have also been the "marks" of my ex-gf who liked her boots and flannel shirts and wife-beater tee shirts just fine.

Here's what the old 'pro-woman' line used to actually mean:

If we are to build a mass movement we must recognize that no individual decision, like rejecting consumption, can liberate us. We must stop arguing about whose life style is better (and secretly believing ours is) and tend to the task of collectively fighting our own oppression and the ways in which we oppress others. When we create a political alternative to sexism, racism, and capitalism, the consumer problem, if it is a problem, will take care of itself.

The excerpt is from Willis’s Ramparts essay, Women and the Myth of Consumerism.

And then there is the original meaning behind 'The Personal is Political'.

/ snippy Bitch tooooday.

[Bitch]

Hugo --

you're a sociologist, right? this

distinct from a socially imposed pressure to be "bare down there."

Shouldn't this be understood in terms of the concept of "individuation" so we don't have to reach "outside" of society to explain -- like I did in this Essay, "Spinster Cat Ladies Aren't Black"?

Nowhere in that essay do I have to appeal to "distinct from social pressures" as the mystery oil that made me different. Rather, I explain my lack of interest in fancy wedding gowns and engagement rings as a result of somehow escaping society. Indeed, those 'individuated' experiences are the result of being thoroughly enmeshed *in* society.

[Hugo]

BL (I still have a hard time addressing a woman as "Bitch"), I am a historian not a sociologist. And how we differentiate between what is OURS and what isn't is immensely difficult. But the default analysis shouldn't be that the feminine is always about an attempt to comply with one's own oppression.

[lorie]

Great post, Hugo. Incidentally, Laura Kipnis was one of my profs in the film program at Northwestern a few years ago. You can't really do a good in-depth study of film theory without knowing your way around some gender theory, and I was always impressed with the way she was able to blend the two. I learned quite a lot in her classes, and began to think in some different ways. I hadn't been following her work very closely lately, but I'm certainly interested in reading this book once it's available to us all.

[molly]

As I mentioned at feministe in the comments, I don't believe that feminism is best served by saying "Enh, things are good enough." I'd say most feminists agree -- it's why we cringe when someone says "feminism is over because women are equal now." I also don't think it's best served by individual role model women saying "Enh, I'm good enough at this." No one's a perfect feminist, that's true. But why does that mean no one should try? Why does it mean no one should strive for it? I don't believe that just because no one's perfect, it means we should all be -- in the immortal words of dennis rodman -- as bad as we wanna be. I've mentioned that in several distinct ways (quitting the phone sex industry even when it was putting food on the table, creating a bizarre wedding that was about my husband and I instead of societal expectations) I have allowed my life to change to better fit what I view as the intersection of my personal and political views.

But I'm always surprised to find that many people who are perfectly fine with discussing finer points of ideology balk at actually changing their own lives, even in the smallest ways (much less ways involving actually putting food on the table). I was surprised when I posted my abortion manual at how many people thought it was fine to talk about pro-choice action, but not to actually do anything. In some ways, I think blogging has made this sort of ethos easier because it allows endless talk with very little action.

[sophonisba]

Molly, I think you are absolutely dead right about everything in your last comment, except the "role model" bit, which is incredibly demeaning. Not to Jill, but to people who read her. We're not little girls.

I do get throughly sick of all the mutually congratulatory back-patting about how great we all are for learning to be at peace with our internal contradictions, and the constantly-pushed assumption that our choices are between feeling guilty and not feeling guilty. As if, you know, doing something else wasn't an option. It's not that people wear make up and skirts and shave their legs that elicits the eye-rolling. I don't care that people do that. It's that people talk about it as if it's a sacrifice we all must make to get along, and we all do it.

But the thing is, we don't all do it. Plenty happens to you when you defy larger conventions, plenty of bad things happen to you when you have an unusual gender presentation, enough to justify conforming for safety. But minor personal style crap like this? Not that risky. So, oddly enough, the "choice feminism" explanation is actually more palatable, for once. Wear makeup because you just like to, darn it? Okay. But wear makeup because a woman just can't get anywhere without it? Please. If you are not in high school, you do not have to live in "tension" with your grooming habits if you do not actually want to.

[Arwen]

I said it at Happy's and at Feministe too: to me, the femmy issue is DEEPLY rooted in class, and what may be dis-empowering on gender (heels, for example), may in fact be portraying *economic* power, (not having to work for 10 hours doing assembly line work on one's feet.) No one really expects their hispanic maid to show up in heels, and if she did, she'd be construed to be trying to use sexuality to advance herself through her employer. Whereas a female lawyer can show up to court in heels, and very few believe she's trying to sleep with the judge. Heels are a signifier for lack of physical labour: if a physical labourer wears heels, they're sending the message that they're not ready to work. The *default* impression on women is if they're not working legitimately, they're whoring: and that is indeed a matter of sexism. Yes, in patriarchy, the male labourer who shows up to the construction site in a suit is prolly not construed as trying to schlepp the foreman: but he would be thought of as crazy, bigger than his britches, or putting on airs. He'd be verbally attacked. (And possibly physically threatened, should he not fall in line.)

Pretty much every society has tribal ornamentation which in bigger societies often *designates lack of readiness to physical labour in the upper classes*. A suit with tie is explicitly bad for war campaigning. Those froufrou wigs and heels of merry old England?

It IS a feminist issue that the ornamentation of females of the upper class has been an accessory to males making it: and it is an issue that there are some constrictive things about the female upper class outfit that go above and beyond their male counterparts' restrictive and expensive sartorial choices. But hair plugs and weight worries and organic diets and manicures for men and cashmere socks are hugely important with the male CEO set to be taken seriously. From my experience growing up poor but now doing work for the rich, male CEOs spend way more time on appearence than working class or unemployed women do. The ornamentation hits both genders, although at this time it still expresses differently. Even if it starts being expressed similarly, it will still suggest a certain amount of seperation from domestic or blue-collar jobs; an unsuitability or a disinclination to ruggedness. Of course, being rugged off the clock is also desirable in this day and age, since trimness is now an upper class standard.

I don't wish to say gender is a null issue, obviously, but I think we miss so much of the discussion, and SO MANY WOMEN ARE CUT OUT, when we assume that the messages in a pair of high heels are ultimately and supremely about gender. They are a gendered expression of class; and they are a powerful message that of course women, especially economically striving women trying to "make it", are going to have ambivelence about. They scream, "I am not going to clean your toilet!"

If more women want to be represented in the avenues of power, then they will dress for the class they're aiming for. And that uniform says how very much not poor they are. Once there, the stylish ones can start making changes in the upper class uniform which perhaps minimizes the distance between women's and men's outfits; but they will not make the "hobbled" go away entirely. But if Jill is becoming a lawyer, it makes perfect economic sense that she not look like a farm labourer, but instead dress the class part.

[Arwen]

BTW: I used the "hispanic maid" with intention, because of course class also intersects deeply with race. Those same heels are going to symbolically change deeply within different contexts of race and class.

[molly]

Soph:

I didn't mean to imply that Jill's commenters were little girls. I think every person on this earth has role models, whether they're adults, children, or adolescents. Don't you have any?

[Shawna R. B. Atteberry]

Wow this was a great post, and great comments as well. Arwen's have given me lots of food for thought as well the others. Since I'm a self-employed freelance writer, I pretty much dress how I feel from day-to-day. Today I worked from home, and I am in sweatpants and a Tshirt. Yesterda I was in corduroys and very soft purple sweather and wore a little make-up. But I never think of it as pleasing anyone or trying to fit into a certain standard. I just dress for me. I was this way when I was in my editorial position too except I dressed business/business-casual (as per policy). If I got up one morning and wanted to wear heels, I wore heels. I didn't feel like bothering with make-up, I didn't.

The thing I really want to think about is BitchLab and Arwen's comments on dressing depending on your class. My mom cleaned houses for years, so needless to say heels were never in the picture. She wore sweats and tshirts or shorts in the summer. So that part I want to think about. I think the classism and racism aspect bother me much more than the sexism.

[John]

I like it when folks allow themselves to sit in tension, allow themselves to wrestle with ambiguity, allow themselves to acknowledge complexity.

Knew it was too good to last. :-)

[Hugo]

Sorry, John, periodically Frank Griswold takes over my entire body and makes me type things.

I appreciate those folks who have raised the class aspects of this issue.  Of course, as I pointed out earlier this year, it is often students from the working classes who feel the greatest compulsion to dress up for school.  (Answering the question, why more miniskirts at PCC than at Stanford?)

[Arwen]

Hugo: that makes perfect sense to me. I came from working class, and had to be tortured with mockery to give up calling all authorities "Sir" and "Ma'am". Saying "Yes, sir", or "Yes Ma'am" to professors was, ahem, a little odd.

[Hugo]

And similarly, Arwen, it took me a long time to see my insistence on being called "Hugo" by my students as partly an upper-middle class affectation.
Not that I intend to let anyone call me Dr. Schwyzer anytime soon.

[Arwen]

Yes sir, Dr. Schwyzer. I will keep that under advisement. *g*

[Bitch]

LOL to the thing about profs and first names as a m-class affectation. When I was juggling four adjunct jobs a semester, I floated between two elite liberal arts college, the extension campus of my uni, and a 3 state colleges

I noticed the same. At the elite institutions, the name on the door was M. or Mr. While students normally didn't call you by first name immediately, it was the norm to explain to them that they should call you by your first name. When I was at the state colleges, Dr. was on the doors and it was common to see signature lines in email with Dr. (something that didn't happen at the elite institutions -- not so much; age was a factor, too.)

At any rate, thanks to Arwen for elaborating so much more. I would want to correct the assumption people could make from my text: that gender doesn't matter.

The argument is only that we're all raced, classed, gendered, etc. The only reason one doesn't really think one is, is if you belong to the dominant group. That's the nature of privilege: it simultaneously confers the cultural capital through which you wield more power in society, even as erases the socially constructed character of those social positions. Thus, when we think of race, we think of people of color, not whiteness. When we think of class, we thinking of the working class and poor who are measured against the norm, middle class.

Cherie Moraga has pointed out, by the way, that she was made to suffer for her femminess at the hands of other feminists who judged her behavior as "not feminist." That is, there was standard of middle class propriety, even among women rejecting societal notions of beauty, that effectively operated as yet another form of white, upper middle class social control. The femmy body that Moraga embraced was seen as low class, ethinic. It was too big, too loud, too brassy, took up too much space, spilled over and byond the boundaries of acceptable bodily carriage deemed appropriate to the sexual display of feminists in the 70s.

[mythago]

they never had to think about how some women might like to "dress up" becasue for 8 hrs of their lives, they're wearing a freakin' uniform.

Uh, because no white women are working-class or had to wear a uniform? Because standards of what Women Should Look Like don't cost black women even more than white women and are racist on top of sexist?

Of course race and class are important--and people are talking about those things (and should be criticized if they don't). But I don't get this idea that it's either race OR gender OR class, and that there isn't a synergistic effect between them.

[John]

Sorry, John, periodically Frank Griswold takes over my entire body and makes me type things.

Now that explains a lot. :-)

[Hugo]

Not to brag or anything, BL, but I took a Chicana Studies class from Cherrie Moraga when she was adjuncting at Cal in the late Eighties.

[Bitch]

LOL -- I pointed that out in my post to you early on. I knew you'd taken a course with her Hugo. I was given ya the fisty bump!

Mythago -- uh, well, I AM working class and white. I.e. a failure. *rolls eyes*

[Hugo]

I consider myself bumped.

[Tim]

It's fun to watch feminists at each other's throats.