'Feelgood' drag film.

Nobody has an issue with men in dresses. That’s the whole point. It’s impersonating women with fake boobs - calling women fish because of our smell etc, stage names Flo etc It’s born out of a deep disgust for femininity. Just like the worst of blacking up.

I don't agree with the comparisons with blackface. Women aren't born wearing dresses and makeup, so it's not at all comparable.

I also know plenty of women who love drag shows; I don't know a single black person who enjoys seeing white people blacking up.

I’m sure there are lots of issues with the various elements of race that I could pick apart. Why don’t I - a white woman - dress up as a black man and treat the world to my views on race and the restrictions it imposes on everyone? Oh yes, it would be hugely offensive. But let’s get some gay men to comment on what they see as the issues around gender and do that dressed as parodies of women and while commenting on our bad smell and our bodily functions ..

Although I’ve got my reservations about the comparison with blackface, I’m so relieved and heartened to see so many others share my distaste of drag. For years it’s been a guilty secret - I’ve been worried to voice it in case it’s been somehow misconstrued as homophobic. What can we do to make the misogyny of drag more widely understood and recognised? I actually feel it could be a good way to get across our concerns about the whole gender v sex issue. If there ever was a definition of “female” that the gender ideologists promote, its the one Ru Paul et al personify.

Who are these drag performers who mock femininity rather than femaleness by refusing to use either hormones or some form of breast, hip and buttock padding to create the illusion of a female figure.

I think we are talking about two different things here - I'm talking about drag queens in gay bars like 30 years ago (some - by no means all - definitely used padding but I doubt anyone was using hormones). I think it has morphed into something much more horrible in the last few years. Whether that's happened because it was inherently misogynistic in the first place is arguable. I don't know and I don't know how I would even go about working that out. It may be the case that the misogyny is inherent but not as explicit or central to drag then as it is now - I think that culture in general is way more misogynistic now than it was 30 years ago.

But to get back to the original point, I think that this is one of the things that makes comparing drag to blackface a bit more complicated than it might be - I may be wrong, but I'm definitely not the only person who has, in times gone by, seen drag as less woman-mockery and more subversive comment on gender. I doubt most people would be able or want to make a case for any kind of positive or subversive element to blackface at any point in its history.

I think the fact that it's not so straightforward would suggest that tactically speaking, it might not be the most useful comparison to draw. Also there's the fact that a lot of women really like drag, even in its modern form, and find it entertaining and funny. I would bet (don't have stats) that the majority of viewers for Rupaul's drag race are women. So that alone could easily take the argument into the weeds.

I don't disagree, as I've said, that mainstream drag is now horribly misogynistic. I do think saying it's the same as blackface is a difficult line to take in an argument, though, for the reasons I've expressed here, as well as the reasons given by those who feel it's an appropriation of arguments about racism.

A man in an outrageous frock and wig has nothing to do with women. David Bowie, Nicky Wire, Lou Reed, Kurt Cobain, Boy George and plenty more on stage in skirts and make up and hair dolled up isn’t a mockery of women, because it’s nothing to do with women- it’s just that sex shouldn’t dictate clothing, the same way Miranda Yardley in a fabulous hat and dress is still a man.

Drag is about teeny tiny waists and huge fake boobs and ridiculous high heels and fish net stockings - because women must always be sexual objects available to men. It’s about 50 layers of make up and over the top fake lashes and over lined lips and giant hair- because women are superficial and fake and don’t do anything but make ourselves up for men. It’s about the ‘hey bitches’ because we are too stupid to realise a misogynist slur is turned into a greeting so let’s just have a good laugh at that right there. It’s about ‘fish’ because real women’s bodies are smelly and embarrassing and we must be shamed and humiliated for them. It’s a parody of the sex role stereotypes we are socialised to perform and that directly contribute to men’s entitlement to our bodies. Oh yeah and like pp said it’s also men earning money by mocking us in this way.

queenofknives wrote - "I've seen drag that is very tender and funny and didn't feel like it was mocking women, maybe because no one seemed to think that the man in an outrageous frock and wig was anything at all to do with women."

Who are these drag performers who mock femininity rather than femaleness by refusing to use either hormones or some form of breast, hip and buttock padding to create the illusion of a female figure.

You might be right. I definitely don't think straight men have any clue about any of it. I think gay men are (or were) often laughing at themselves and social norms/stereotypes etc - so gay men do know they're being mocked. Or did. I think the misogyny is the element that has dominated since drag left the gay scene to become a netflix special or whatever. It was a part of gay male culture for a long time before that and I am not convinced that it was based on misogyny - I've seen drag that is very tender and funny and didn't feel like it was mocking women, maybe because no one seemed to think that the man in an outrageous frock and wig was anything at all to do with women. Same as I don't think drag kings are necessarily mocking men or really commenting on maleness so much as putting gender stereotypes through a particular filter.

I don't defend any of the drag stuff that's made its way into the mainstream. I do think it's a shame that part of gay culture is now co-opted to serve the cause of misogyny and mockery of women. Had it stayed a small part of gay subculture I think most of us would still view drag queens as parodies of femininity rather than of females, and drag kings as parodies of masculinity rather than of males.

I do find the mainstream version of drag to be offensive and sexist mockery, so not really disagreeing with you. It may be that it's a case of comparing the more gentle and subtle misogyny of my youth with the out and out woman hatred of today!

Also it helps men who would rather die than support blackface to make the connection. Many right on men want to show support for their gay friends - who are obviously slightly lesser types of men. So they want to support drag and then get conflicted when they have it pointed out that drag is problematic for women. Which lesser type of human to throw under a bus? Gay men or women ?

Many would choose to support drag but the connection with blackface does give them pause.

I believe that drag is a problematic mockery of women, in its own right.

Comparison with any bad thing should not be necessary, in theory. Unfortunately, a comparison of some type is usually needed in practice because many people find it difficult to accept that something is bad unless it is compared to something more familiar.

I think there are some similarities between drag and blackface but I would not claim that they are the same. Some specific aspects of each are very similar and directly comparable, some aren't.

I believe that drag is based on misogyny; blackface is based on racism. Feminists who oppose drag are comparing misogyny and racism, which are both "major" category oppressions. Misogyny has a grim history in terms of duration, deaths, laws etc. (Remember the 60 million female babies killed in recent years just for being female). Therefore, I think a misogyny/racism comparison is a less trivial comparison than some people claim.

queenofknives wrote - "rather than laughing at women, it's laughing at men and their insecurities and ideals and so on."

How many men have even the faintest understanding that they are the (alleged) intended target of mockery by drag? I believe that many men think that drag is just "a bit of a laugh" and they don't care about its alleged deeper meaning. Many of those men will be homophobes and also misogynists. Such men probably laugh at drag because of its misogyny, not because of its alleged subtle indirect critique of masculine attitudes.

Why do drag performers have to indirectly mock men by directly mocking women?

Mocking women should be no man's stress release technique and/or source of income, which have been two of the main reasons why male gay culture created their drag "tradition". I think this tradition is long past its sell-by date.

... some black women really object to comparing it to black face..

And what? These women have no problem at all with drag? Really?

black women really object to comparing it to black face

I'm sorry but tough shit. There isn't just one voice in this debate

This. And actually the U.K. has its own traditions. Blackface isn’t just offensive because of the US connections. We are not the US. It’s not just minstrelling which is now forbidden but people dressing up as black people or darkening their skin even in tribute to particular black people (a Beyoncé tribute act got cancelled for this). There are particular US reasons why black face is not ok and other reasons more specific to the U.K. I suspect the tradition here has more to do with working class variety acts than the US version. We don’t need to copy the US discourse word for word. Nor do I need to check what some black women say before I determine if I may voice my own views. Womanface is offensive to me. Blackface was horrible before I knew about any connection to lynching in the US.

Shocked but not surprised at the Guardian silencing some perfectly legitimate comments from women.

I can see the parallels/similarities between drag and blackface but I agree they have to be set out systematically rather than simply drawing an equivalence. They look the same on the surface, but are they the same thing really? I'm not sure. Are racism and misogyny the same thing at base? I'm not sure about that either. On one level, yes of course, the hatred of another based on an immutable characteristic is the basic definition of both things. But beyond that, socially and historically and personally I think they can operate in quite different ways. I'm not convinced how useful a parallel it is to draw.

I think also wrt drag, there is some drag that isn't misogynistic - it's more like playing a character that everyone knows isn't a woman, but a gay man pretending to be a woman, so rather than laughing at women, it's laughing at men and their insecurities and ideals and so on. It's levels of masks and disguises that can be artful, funny, and subversive. So I don't necessarily object to it on principle, as I would to blackface. I would say though, that I dislike intensely all the modern drag shows I've seen on television, and found them sexist and stupid. I guess I am thinking about the seedy gay bars of my youth, where drag queens seemed like wonderful characters messing around with gender stereotypes and making fun of themselves and each other. But whether that's because I'm overlooking the inherent misogyny in drag, I don't know. I guess I'm not convinced that drag is inherently misogynistic, but I definitely agree that it can be misogynistic and often is, especially in the mainstream popular culture.

@Fffffs I do see your point. I’m just worrying about tactics.

Thank you @onalongsabbatical. I’m really just thinking out loud. My instinct on this is similar to yours. I feel there is so much at stake here - we’re on the verge of losing the definition of female as a sex ffs - that tactics and pragmatism should take priority over philosophical purity, particularly when talking with non feminists. And sometimes in an argument, less is more, and showing is better than telling. So the comparisons with the transvestite in Little Britain, or of gay men in countless Bernard Manning style jokes, might be useful - esp if coupled with an explanation of how the systemic nature of women’s dehumanisation in patriarchy actually makes those comparisons really very tame. Then leave it to the person we’re trying to persuade to see the parallels with blackface. A conversation about that can then develop into a conversation about how it’s only due to the advances made by feminists (inc sex-based rights and spaces) that women in the west don’t live under the barbaric conditions suffered by women and girls in much of the rest of the world, which yes even now are very analogous to the Deep South at the time of Jim Crow.

I don’t think there necessarily is ever exact equivalencies, that fit needs and purpose perfectly. I don’t think we need to bend over backwards to be super nice and accommodating to anyone we might possibly offend and silence a perfectly valid point in the process, that’s the kind of socialisation we need to step out of to be honest about what women experience.

I’m not sold that only comparisons of women murdered in the name of witch craft or honour killings are only ‘acceptable’ ones either. Why do plain old women killed by men not count? Do MoC being shot by police not count because that’s not kkk lynchings or slavery? Of course not, it’s part of the same problem of racism so it counts. The majority of women who are murdered are killed once leaving their partner- so daring to say no- and that’s the harm that drag’s performance of womanhood as being slutty and easy and to stupid to say no causes. It’s not the only cause but very clearly makes a joke of women’s sex role stereo socialisation and continues that same socialisation in the process. We aren’t murdered or raped because of individual circumstances, the violence we face is precisely because we are women and if that’s not easily grasped by the analogy then that’s a sign how extreme the misogyny we face is and the lack of understanding then needs challenged not accommodated by finding a more easy to grasp analogy. If people object to drag face then say women object to their use of class oppression and othering seeing as it was the Second Sex that brought these concepts mainstream to explain what women face centuries ago and they shouldn’t be appropriating our terminology for our experience. Doesn’t hold up? Of course not, because these concepts apply to racism too and experience of oppression isn’t ‘owned’ by any one group, and as drag face explains the point just fine we can use it. Women don’t need to be talked out of speaking up.

@GoshHashana well for a start if you look back to my original post I actually said some black women object. I did not say all; quote got trimmed it seems. But anyway.

I raised this as I thought it would be useful to have a discussion about whether the comparison (or rather: assertion of equivalence) was useful and valid, or if there might be alternative comparisons and/or equivalences which might be equally valid but potentially more powerful if they avoid alienating some black women and potentially others too. (For eg @fuckinghellapeacock made the alternative comparison with the Little Britain mocking Of transvestites. Personally I feel that is limited as it misses the systemic and historical nature of women’s oppression and the use and development of gender roles and stereotypes to do that - ie, I don’t really see transvestites as a oppressed and exploited class in the same way that women and black people obviously are).

One of the things I’m particularly conscious of here is how the TRAs have exploitatively hooked themselves onto the coat tails of the BLM movement. I don’t want feminism to fall into the same or similar trap. Idk if calling drag the same as blackface does that; I want to think about it and learn.

So first off I want to know more about the history of black face. Went here: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/blackface-history-racism-origins.
Unfortunately it doesnt let me cut and paste chunks of text, but certainly elements of black face in the US are strikingly similar to drag - The exaggerated features and dance moves, the “buffoonish” behaviour, the use of it to underline the performer’s superiority and otherness to the dehumanised people it is portraying (Very interesting to think that’s essentially what drag performers are doing there). So far, so similar to drag.

But there is an additional extreme violence associated with drag which I don’t think always carries over to an equivalence for the women’s movement (or at least doesn’t if we want the equivalence to be readily understood without the somewhat distracting need to preface it with an explanation of how patriarchy = systemic violence against women. Personally I can go there, but I think it would leave a lot of people behind - patriarchy has had centuries to normalise violence against women. Slavery and modern racism much less so).

According to the article black face gained a resurgence and peaked in popularity in the US in response to the demands from recently emancipated slaves for civil rights. It served to demonise black people as evil and deviant and so justify state violence against them. The most famous black face character Jim Crow even lent his name to the “Jim Crow” segregation laws which were only ended in the mid 60s and were used to control and suppress the supposedly dangerous and inferior blacks portrayed through blackface - which is where the KKK got in on the act too.

As I said, personally I can see the argument for equivalence - but it requires some work and steps. And I can also see why many people wouldn’t see an immediately parallel to lynchings in the American south and the treatment of women in western patriarchy in particular. Sure that might be because there’s a good few centuries have past since witches were burnt in Europe, and because people don’t immediately see the continuity between witch burning and, say, “honour” killings which are still a daily reality in the world (and because rape is viewed by many as violence against an individual, rather than something which is systemic to patriarchy). But that’s the point: if we’re looking for something to resonate quickly and win people over to our view, is the blackface comparison the best?

I can see why @Fffffsand @GoshHashana you see it as maybe a bit wet and self policing/censoring, but I guess it’s partly about tactics and pragmatism. I’m genuinely torn and interested in others’ views here.

black women really object to comparing it to black face

I'm sorry but tough shit. There isn't just one voice in this debate. And that isn't even true. Not all black women object.

Drag is a characture of the sex role stereotypes of slutty, stupid, and existing for men’s needs that women are socialised into performing to maintain the hierarchy of men’s dominance over us. This hierarchy and the male power over us and entitlement to our bodies is what leads to us being harmed daily, including being raped and murdered. Why is that less significant than black face being linked to kkk etc?

Is it because it just effects us women? Or because being honest about it would call out men?

As drag becomes more mainstream, this issue of its equivalence with blackface needs to be brought up, again and again. You can expect strong resistance, though. Many gay men are quite quick to forget their privileged position in the inter-sectionalist hierarchy, just as eagerly as they are to embrace trans rights at the expense of women.

I'm not into intersectionality, myself but what is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander.

I have always been uncomfortable with pantomime dames the nastiness and way they denigrate older women. I didn't have the words to articulate what I disliked about it and it seemed to be regarded as very much part of British culture.

I want to be sensitive to what black women say but It is very convenient for men that we can't compare womanface to blackface. It neutralises the revulsion we feel and controls our words again.