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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Grayson Perry irks me

469 replies

everythingisbetterafteranap · 10/03/2019 09:38

Not sure if I'm going to articulate this well, so bear with me.

I was reading a Guardian article on a therapist who is married to the artist Grayson Perry. Reasonably interesting article with a focus on self awareness as a parent.

But it got me thinking again on why so many bright, intelligent women so readily accept men dressing up as women in such a garish pantoesque way. Where is the feminist critique of this?

Grayson Perry has his alter ego 'Claire' who looks like the silliest version of female you could find. Why is this acceptable and not challenged? Would Grayson Perry be lauded for having a black alter ego with big lips and exaggerated gestures? There is even an annual 'let's dress Claire' competition at St Martins art college. Why aren't the students there questioning this?

What is this really all about? It doesn't feel female empowering to me.

OP posts:

Thread gallery

hipsterfun · 13/03/2019 21:43

I think it would be fair to guess we’ve pretty much zeroed our chances of a GP webchat...

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 13/03/2019 18:55

He’s gone full drag now. I’m sure Claire has now become Fanny La Shimmy or somesuch.

Trousering · 13/03/2019 17:08

A judge friend of mine who is qualified for serious sex offence cases tells me that cross dressing is very often present and whenever it is, there is always many other fetishes and paraphillia present too.

hoodathunkit · 13/03/2019 13:02

Datun

No apology necessary.

nauticant · 13/03/2019 11:18

Once I became more aware of the cross-dressing fetish and the fact that it's on a spectrum that extends out to sex offending, my view switched from "harmless" to "always view with suspicion". Even in its "mild" incarnation, it involves stuff like we've seen on the trans widows thread.

There'll be no unseeing from me.

Datun · 13/03/2019 10:50

Oh yes, I know hoodathunkit. Sorry. I was just musing out loud about the whole preposterous nature of men telling other men to live like a woman and thinking that means a fucking PVC mini dress.

It's quite true what they say. Once you see it, it's everywhere.

hoodathunkit · 13/03/2019 10:46

Datun

You will not get any argument from me on this issue. I agree completely

Datun · 13/03/2019 10:44

hoodathunkit

The problem there is that the entire industry, as it were, is shot through with the most basic sexism.

Deciding that living as a woman involves wearing a certain type of clothing?

Clothing has got nothing to do with being a woman. Let alone fetishised clothing.

There is no way for a man to 'live as a woman'. Whatever they ask a man to do, it will be a parody.

BernardBlacksWineIcelolly · 13/03/2019 10:37

I know right - we've all had that fashion dilemma. will I be en fleek if i post a picture of myself on the internet naked from the hips down? Obviously it won't affect my professional standing

GPismyboss · 13/03/2019 10:15

Oh blooming h, I was going to wear that frock to work. We can’t BOTH go in the same outfit...?

hoodathunkit · 13/03/2019 07:37

This thread reminded me of an old (I think 1980s but maybe 70s or even earlier?) documentary or news piece about gender dysphoria and how there was a clinic, I think in Charring Cross, London, run by a sadistic surgeon who enjoyed making his patients (MtF) miserable.

I distinctly remember one of the patients crying and saying that they had to dress as a woman for years before being permitted to have surgery.

One of the reasons they were so distressed is that the dressing as a woman thing meant wearing frilly dresses and ridiculous clothes that were a parody of femininity and nothing to do with what this person wanted to wear. They said that they were most comfortable wearing trousers and felt perfectly able to feel feminine while wearing the kind of clothes that a woman might ordinarily wear and not some sexy, fetished costume.

This patient was extremely distressed and the documentary highlighted the fact that this surgeon and his clinic was forcing MtF people with gender dysphoria to dress like sex workers in order to secure surgery.

Original poster

everythingisbetterafteranap · 12/03/2019 23:25

Hi all. Original poster here.

Thanks for all the replies. Been very interesting and illuminating, with Datun summing it up best.

I've ordered GPs book to understand this better, but regretting that partly now as later posts have left me feeling like I've been had. But I sort of knew that in my gut. Why don't women listen to that gut instinct more?

Sick of this whole 'men dressing up as women, saying they're women, feeling like a woman' trend. All seems to have core exploitation of women underpinning it no matter what angle it takes.

The, GP is an ally as it least he says he's a man and is challenging male toxicity is blown away with the fetish part. It's all about him being a man enjoying the humiliation of being the lowest thing possible, a woman or girl and one dressed up in garish and grotesque manners for self pleasure. Makes me rage.

Feels like a revolution is needed here led by women. Students at St Martins would be a start!

OP posts:

MeAgainAgain · 12/03/2019 22:08

Hmm

Answer

Change society so that women and girls are no longer seen as primarily sex objects / decorative

Then this goes away

Dress down days etc at work men and women generally wear similar cllothes - comfy

"Women's" clothes - red carpet or those adopted in pic ^^ lacy / or weird and worse lingerie etc
Are ALREADY fetish wear
For women
But no-one sees it as it's standard

MeAgainAgain · 12/03/2019 22:03

Yikes @ pic

OK sexual fetish obv

Not caught up past halfway or so

But, yep.

So. Where does that leave us?

Same place as before probs. Drag is offensive. Have always felt v uncomfy with "men dressing up as women" grew up in 80s so loads all over the telly.

I appreciate GP anaysis of gender he is obv v clever and I like what he writes etc

But cannot see men "dressing as women" as anything other than offensive TBH.
Women "dressing as women" is enough to be going on with ie critique of feminine "norms"

sackrifice · 12/03/2019 21:39

I know, right? All that rain just goes to your head.

hipsterfun · 12/03/2019 21:32

Lol, yeah, we all have that nightmare where we go out in a fuschia mac and then realise we’re nekkid from the waist down.

sackrifice · 12/03/2019 18:46

Do you think GP read this thread over the weekend?

NeurotrashWarrior · 11/03/2019 21:49

Kusama deserves her own thread instead of being second fiddle to yet another male artist, but I'm just adding her work "your narcissism for sale" here as it's quite apt regarding the whole identity/ cross dressing/ agp thing. Ironically I'm fairly certain GP would agree.

For context, she rocked up uninvited to make this given that as a female artist everyone ignored her.

Misogyny and a traumatic childhood broke her; she lives in a psychiatric unit in Japan and makes art daily in her local studio.

thesuburbanmythology.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/your-narcissism-for-sale/

hoodathunkit · 11/03/2019 21:28