Why is comparing Womanface to Blackface offensive?

I don't think it's a great thing for US understanding of race and ways of dealing with racism to be exported

Could not agree more. I consider it American cultural imperialism and as noted on another thread it results in nonsense like students in Glasgow complaining of a lack of 'ethnic minority' tutors while being oblivious to the in your face anti Irish bigotry on their doorstep.

I think language is an important part of the "gender" trends that are concerning me, so I want to choose my words carefully. I didn't see anything wrong with "womanface" until it was pointed out to me, but now I would feel like I was blurring lines, as well as being disrespectful to use it. I don't think that just because a term is convenient or powerful makes it apt or appropriate. One reason I object to being called "cis" is because it diminishes "cis women" to a subset of women. Maybe we've all seen a genderist rattle of a list of types of women- "black women, disabled women, trans women, cis women..." I can't see how the various true subsets of women can unite successfully without trying to be aware of the differences between our realities as well as our commonalities.

And
If Black women ask white women to please, kindly, critique drag without comparing it to Blackface... is that really too much to ask?

I would love it if men respected us enough to not parody us with drag, but I don't want that to stop me from trying to show respect to people I want to make common cause with.

I've often come across the argument for pronouns- that it's such a little thing to ask. For me, this is nothing like "preferred pronouns" where I'd have to stomp on my sense of reality to say them. Where using them would be more of a type of submission, as opposed to acknowledging a (perhaps uncomfortable) truth.

"If Black women ask white women to please, kindly, critique drag without comparing it to Blackface... is that really too much to ask? confused"

I'm just wondering (and I don't know the answer), if those who are objecting to the use of the term womanface are predominantly American? As someone else noted, there is a difference in how racism manifests itself around the world. There is also a tendency for Americans to insist that their understanding is how everyone should see things and a total lack of understanding that something that's perfectly OK in the US may be incredibly racist elsewhere and something that's racist in the US may be quite OK in other places. Personally, I don't think it's a great thing for US understanding of race and ways of dealing with racism to be exported, it's not like the US is a bastion of best practice!

While blackface and drag are both offensive impressions and both classes are killed, subjugated and appropriated the key difference is the blackface was used by white supremacist groups to impersonate black people not for entertainment or because they wanted to live that way, but to create a false impression of them to whip up hysteria which lead to their mass lynching.

There are also lots of ways in which men impersonate women, and lots of reasons for it. To beat them in sport, to gain access to vulnerable women in order to rape them, to take awards for women in business, to force them to touch male genitalia, for validation of their AGP, and so on.

Does the term "drag" include all these types of men? Up until seeing this thread, I would have used the word "womanface" to describe these men ("drag" doesn't seem to be the right word), but if that term is unacceptable, what term should we use?

OP asked “why is comparing drag to Blackface offensive?”

She actually asked "Why is comparing Womanface to Blackface offensive?"

Is "womanface" synonymous with "drag"? And does "drag" just mean the overly made up and sexualised performance of men impersonating women, or does it extend to all men who impersonate women or cross dress?

Is it the comparison of white people impersonating black people with men impersonating women that is the problem, or is it the word "womanface" itself?

But how similar do two things need to be in order to draw parallels between them? They don't need to be identical in every way

Well exactly. This thread is a classic example of how identity politics makes one walk on eggshells. I'll listen to everyone's views and I will prioritise those who have direct experience. But I will make my mind up based on whether I support their ideological perspective.

If people dislike the term womanface what word or phrase would they prefer to be used to make clear that drag is a deeply offensive mockery of characteristics that women cannot identify out of performed by men?

Men in misogynybody perhaps?

I've just been at an exhibition which included how the Scottish Highlanders were brutally suppressed by their English overlords and laws were passed banning them from wearing their traditional dress (tartan). Highlanders were then caricatured in popular culture as lazy, feckless and stupid. Meanwhile the officers of the British Army were allowed to wear tartan. The Highlanders were driven off their lands into towns and cities and overseas to the lands that the British were colonising (the originis of the KKK in the US horrifyingly).

When men oppress a group they like to steal what belongs to that group and use it for their own purposes.

But how similar do two things need to be in order to draw parallels between them? They don't need to be identical in every way.

It does surprise me though that some women, including feminists, literally are unable to see the fake breasts in drag.

For my part it's because people were making inaccurate statements about drag, like claiming that it doesnt' mock women's bodies and physical characteristics (it does) and also saying point blank to "Pick another battle".

I think it's better to understand the roots of each practice and analyse them carefully to understand how they operate. It is fair to say though that when men oppress a group of people, mockery and appropriation are two of the many tools they use to legitimise what they're doing.

I’m confused by some comments here. OP didn’t ask “is drag is offensive?” (fwiw I think it is)

OP asked “why is comparing drag to Blackface offensive?”

Black women have explained why.

And Black women (unlike WW) are mocked by Blackface and drag. BW (unlike WW) face sexism and racism. Including historically from white women.

If Black women ask white women to please, kindly, critique drag without comparing it to Blackface... is that really too much to ask?

Basically we need to avoid any comparisons or parallels about anything where people have suffered. Vale all historical analysis!

I don’t like the phrase ‘womanface’. Posters like 2BThatUnnoticed and Mrsbertbibby have explained it better than I could.

The other reason is practical. If we want people to understand why sex based rights are important, then we need a clear message. Clips from the mixed relay race in the athletics this summer or dressing up as Man Friday work so well because they are immediately understandable. To me, ‘womanface’ just doesn’t cut the mustard because you have to be really familiar with these debates to even has heard the phrase, let alone understand what it means.

Everything karabair said!

And things change, and it’s different in different countries. In the uk (where I am) blackface was a public entertainment thing - utterly vile but not deliberately used to stoke hatred. It was people dressing up as in a grotesque way, and mocking, a group that they saw as lesser. It seems exactly the same as drag s today to me. Drag may have different origins but today it’s deeply misogynistic, a horrible parody of women as hyper sexualised, bitchy (misogynistic word there) shallow etc. It is not a ‘fond’ portrayal of women. And I think ‘womanface’ is an appropriate term - but it probably isn’t if you are in the US.
People are generally interested in issues that affect them. I’m a white woman in the uk & a volunteer with a group for young women that is having its single sex status challenged. one of my dds has already encountered a ‘man dressed as a woman’ (her words) in a public loo & it frightened her. I’m a biology teacher wondering if I won’t be allowed to teach the truth soon. I do feel personally threatened by the TRA movement. The struggle of black women in the us is undoubtedly worse but it’s not something I have any experience or knowledge of. We don’t all have to be angry about the same things.

Parkie smirking at calling women stupid c*nts. Disgusting.

Of course they’re not mocking homophobic men in drag. Homophobic men often love drag. The joke isn’t on them, it’s on women.

You approve of that Kenny Everett skit with Parkie do you Pota? He was gay. Does that excuse him?

Women are saying it is offensive for men to dress as them. Why don't they have the luxury of being believed?

This^. And also this:

Because even some feminists don’t really believe that women are oppressed on account of their sex. If they did, the parallels would be undeniable.

Exhibit A: the horrific historical photos of what was done to blacks and the connection she makes to the mentality that thinks wearing blackface and mocking blacks is entertainment. And the apparent obliviousness to the wealth of equally horrific current and historical photos of the torture and death of women and its connection to the mentality that thinks dressing up in a woman-stereotype and mocking women is entertainment.

Of course the two are not identical! But the hideous similarities are instructive to anyone who'd like to have some empathy.

I mean hello?! Women are tortured and slaughtered in their thousands daily across the whole planet because of who they are. It's not even history yet. It takes some very motivated obliviousness to overlook that.

They used to burn women as witches across Europe. Prostituted women and wives were deemed unrapeable for men to do what they want to.

If millions of women and girls missing across India and China doesn’t strike you as persecution then I don’t know what to say.

Oppression looks different depending on what men want to steal from the group they were oppressing. In the case of African American people, it was their labour in the American South. In the case of Native Americans it was their lands, and in the case of women it is our reproductive capacity, our labour and sexual access to our bodies.

It’s also because drag is predominantly performed by another historically oppressed group- gay men. Not the same as white people blacking up to mock the very people that they had brutalised through slavery and colonialism.

Pick another battle.

Drag was started by men who were mocked by society for being too feminine. It’s turning that on its head. Gay men were also persecuted.

You can’t compare the public lynchings and slavery to female oppression. Trust me- it’s a really bad look to try to do that. Just as bad as when TRAs try to compare the treatment of trans people to the Holocaust. Women as a whole class have been oppressed but never persecuted.

It’s not womanface- it’s a pisstake of the fact that gay men were called fairies, pussies, girls etc. They are not mocking women as a biological sex but more the heterosexual men who oppress gay men.

I think Karabair has it. Good old fashioned misogyny means women should just suck it up and stop being spoil sports.

Women die at the hands of men daily because of our sex. They attack and rape us in huge numbers. In India and China millions of female foetuses and baby girls are destroyed because of their sex.

And still men mock us. The Kenny Everett sketch is pure hatred, designed for people to laugh at.

Breasts, our bodies and our voices are intrinsic to being a woman. These are mocked by men in drag.

Why is it so hard for people, even feminists, to see and name what men are up to.

The fact that there are also accoutrements to our oppression does not reduce the offensiveness of men mocking it, it just makes the term ‘womanface’ inaccurate.