BBC Rupaul Drag Quiz

I’m a bit confused now.

R4 was on and they were promoting an upcoming slot on drag in history (sure it will all be about men in drag, and not about women dressing as men as a necessity to avoid rape, get an education, etc).

They mentioned RP as ‘she’. So are they a character like Dame Edna? Can a ‘she’ do drag queen? Can I do drag queen - then it’s not drag is it?

Then they mentioned Helen Mirren so I switched over to another station.

Well, actually, I'm a bit lost now - you're still arguing that femininity is a negative? I was just pondering how much long hair suited Aragorn when he was all muddy and battle weary, and how it looked a bit rubbish when he was L'Oreal clean and shiny at the end of the films. And actually Anthony Kiedis was the only man who sprung to mind who had long hair in a shiny, well kempt 'feminine' style as understood in our culture, and how Thor etc. tended to have long hair that was rather different to the long hair that is often coded feminine.

I dunno really. I called a guy pretty this evening, so I'm really not doing very well at all this.

Long hair can also be very masculine on men, like Thor and Game of Thrones.

So long hair on a man is masculine, and long hair on a woman is feminine? That sort of implies that long hair isn't actually associated with a particular sex, it's just usually found on the heads of people with sexed bodies - which would make it neither masculine nor feminine.

There's a marked difference between masculine and feminine long hair styles in GoT, and the feminine styles take much more work (and often servants) to do properly. It's possibly not actually the best rebuttal of the point I was failing to make. Quite the opposite, in fact. Their masculine styles (which some women wear) are low maintenance and their feminine styles (which no men wear) tie up a lot of women's time while keeping them reliant on others to be considered presentable.

Well, tbh, there is rather a lot of overlap in some 'feminine' coded things and things considered youthful, isn't there? It's an interesting set of stereotypes worth examining, really. I still maintain it's a neutral term depending on context, but I'm not insisting anyone use it.

I'm pondering why I react differently to it than to fishy, and I think it's because fishy is used as a compliment for a man when he is dressed in stereotypically feminine garb, but would never be used of a woman as a compliment. Whereas feminine could be used of both men and women in a descriptive way without a negative connotation.

Yes - should have thought of the heavy rockers - tired and hard of thinking grin

I'm thinking of the young Eddie Vedder and the young Anthony Kiedis....amongst others. Love young men with long hair. I associate young hair with youth rather than with femininity.

Lass got targeted for reporting, and was one warning short of a ban, so decided to leave with her dignity intact.

Yes - should have thought of the heavy rockers - tired and hard of thinking

As annoying as Lass could be before she left, one thing I did agree with her about was that there can be a really dismissive attitude among some towards feminine women, as though they were letting the feminist side down.For me, breaking free from gender means that we acknowledge the sex binary, but we do not hold each sex to specific roles and expression

Well said!

Why did 'Lass' leave?

Long hair can also be very masculine on men, like Thor and Game of Thrones. Keeping it all shiney and tossing it about like a silvikrin advert (does that still exist?) might be considered more feminine, but that is learned behaviour

Cor, yeh!

I have a penchant for young, beautiful, long haired rock gods. Very masculine in the most positive of ways.

Long hair can also be very masculine on men, like Thor and Game of Thrones. Keeping it all shiney and tossing it about like a silvikrin advert (does that still exist?) might be considered more feminine, but that is learned behaviour.

For me, breaking free from gender means that we acknowledge the sex binary, but we do not hold each sex to specific roles and expression

Works for me. I just don't see how that's compatible with calling things feminine or masculine. If it's not in some way associated with the female rather than the male sex, then in what sense is a thing actually feminine? Thinking of long hair as an example here. Anyone can have it, but it's considered feminine because men are expected to keep theirs short. If men were just as likely to be long-haired as women then long hair wouldn't be feminine, would it? It would just be... long hair.

I would say that a particular behaviour was feminine or masculine rather than a person, eg someone's choice of clothes, as most people are a mix of feminine and masculine and other traits that could be anything.

As I said, there's a bit of chicken and egg here. Women are most often the caregivers in our society, and caregiving is low status. Is that because more often women do it, or do women do it because it's low status?

I'm not disputing that there are aspects of cultural femininity which are harmful - the most obviously to me is lingerie, all scratchy and boned and godawful uncomfortable. I don't think that these things shouldn't be examined and challenged. But I genuinely think that the cultural revolution which most feminists I know are working towards involves breaking a few of those eggs - if something is associated culturally with women, and called feminine on that basis, and either dismissed as pointless, weak or less, or lionized and turned into a fetish, then quite frankly, I am well up for the challenge of asking what assumptions are working behind that. I'm not especially feminine myself, and I don't really give a monkey's about it as a standard. But I know very feminine women and I really don't see the worth in saying they are engaging in a negative thing when they wear a dress or have long hair because they enjoy cultural femininity.

As annoying as Lass could be before she left, one thing I did agree with her about was that there can be a really dismissive attitude among some towards feminine women, as though they were letting the feminist side down.
For me, breaking free from gender means that we acknowledge the sex binary, but we do not hold each sex to specific roles and expression - either the traditional ones, or the reversal promoted by trans ideology, and we accept that anyone can express themselves as they please without needing to deny sex like the non binaries do. But trying to unhitch the meaning of specific words in our culture seems a bit too close to the MO of transactivism to me - I'd much rather say 'Yes, that man is quite feminine, why would that be a bad thing?'

It's only a negative when it's a standard that is enforced or scorned.

Which femininity is, and masculinity is, in every patriarchal culture. That's sort of how the whole thing works. Sociocultural context divvies up human traits etc into masculine and feminine and encourages people to conform to one or the other.

I suppose it's possible that there could be some utopia in which certain sets of character traits are associated with women and this isn't used to reinforce male dominance, but we seem to be a long way off that.

If we class something as 'feminine' and consider that a negative, I'd suggest there's is possibly a bit more going on, actually.

Doesn't matter what you class as 'feminine', it'll end up going downhill in the estimation of the general populace, unfortunately.

Being eg an excellent empathetic nurturer is a positive thing. Describing this as 'being feminine' is not. It's the label I'm objecting to, not the behaviour itself. The label means the behaviour ends up devalued by sexist society.

Basically, if feminine = female, then obviously, that way problems lie. If feminine is just what we call frills and fluff, well, that's a cultural accretion. As long as no one is insisting you're not a real woman if you don't do that, or a man is actually more womanly than a woman if he does, then it's just a cultural artifact, like calling red, green and gold 'festive'.

It's only a negative when it's a standard that is enforced or scorned. It's a set of culturally encoded things. Same as masculine things are coded that way in our culture. Feminine is associated with female, and because women are deemed lower status, those cultural associations are considered lesser, which means they are scorned, or fetishized. There is a teensy bit of chicken and egg here, obviously, and there's always nuance. If we class something as 'feminine' and consider that a negative, I'd suggest there's is possibly a bit more going on, actually.

Being feminine isn't positive, it's neutral.

I'm not entirely convinced of this either. Mainly because 'feminine' isn't something that some people are; it's how some people are characterised.

Having whatever personality traits or clothing preferences or whatever is fine, obviously. But categorising them as 'feminine' - that's where the problems come in. Having your neutral human traits classed as feminine isn't neutral, it's a negative.

Well yes, this is the heart of so many mis-steps. Being feminine isn't positive, it's neutral. Some are, some aren't. The apeing of femininity as though women should be flattered, because the person involved is so enamoured by cultural expressions of femininity, just betrays the hugely limited view of women that so many men have.

I'm late to the thread but this jumped out:

Being feminine is positive - do you disagree?

I do indeed disagree. As is being masculine. Because they're socially-constructed stereotypes which serve to maintain and reinforce patriarchy and the oppression and exploitation of women's bodies.

Conforming to stereotypes isn't actually a positive thing, y'know?

Maybe they just need to have a lovely drag act - in the real world (pub, club, concert, on the street...). We’ve all been there...

A larger man rocks up, tries ‘the charm’ verbally, gets angry when knocked back, tried to grab, gets violent, etc. But a withering bitchy comment or bag of the eyelids doesn’t put the man back on his place. He gets angry and threatening. ‘She’ feels scared and vulnerable. ‘She’ tried to pacify angry man. ‘She’ is scared and tried to leave...

15th rule of misogyny: Men are better at performing femininity than women are because they invented it and it gives them a boner.

Being feminine is positive - do you disagree?

I do. Femininity is a set of social indicators as to how successful the enculturation of gender stereotypes has been in an individual and a class. Femininity, enjoyed or enforced, is highly politicised, including any “positive” aspects - I’m not sure most drag is up to the complexities.

"He'll grow out of it eventually"

God save me from wanky students who fondly think their every utterance is of the slightest interest to anyone but their mum. Or possibly their gran.

I doubt their mums and grans do much more than say "yes of course dear" and change the subject

LOL like anyone here cares about the puerile second hand trolling of a few idiotic teenagers. I don't watch Drag Race, don't care what its fans think of my feminist objection to obvious misogyny. Get a life, Mac.