Drag and misogyny

Seriously, I'm looking for a reasonable explanation of how the two are different.

FightingtheFoo

I might be sick. Who on earth books his act?!

www.instagram.com/jonbenetblonde/?hl=en

Black men don't want us to compare dressing up as gross charactures of women with offensive 'female' names and mocking women as 'entertainment' as anything like black face?

Drag is misogynistic, there really is no argument against that that holds up.

It is men punching down, it is not ‘men admiring women’.

How many drag queens are there that represent actual women and the more ‘caring’ roles we tend to have? A drag queen dressed as a nurse, a teacher, a care assistant, a mother? Nope.

If men want to wear dresses and make up, fine, have at it. They don’t need to use fake boobs to do that, and they don’t have to refer to women’s genitalia. They don’t have to mock women in order to dress in an effeminate way, but they do.

And I am so sick of hearing Zoe Ball go on about RuPaul’s Drag Race like it’s the second bloody coming, but that might be my dislike of Zoe Ball shining through!

I used to find Paul O Grady as Lily Savage funny. I used to find Barry Humphries as Dame Edna funny. Pantomime Dames are usually the baddie and appear to provide some mildly adult comedy.

I don't think that is what drag is now so like many things it has changed.

Now drag includes 'live abortions' being performed on stage and drag artists modelling themselves on murdered children (JonBenét Ramsey). That may be the extreme end of drag with the more mainstream end provided by the BBC and drag queens asking kids their pronouns at story time in libraries with twerking demonstrations.

I don't find any of that funny.

No-one is forcing you to watch drag

You could say that about anything, though, couldn't you?

This topic has been done to death already. No-one is forcing you to watch drag, and saying its the same as blackface is pretty offensive.

The quickest way for one man to insult another man is to liken him to a girl.

True. Or in some cases, girls' and women's clothing - see 'big girl's blouse'.

How can people say drag isn't misogynistic?

The word 'fishy' is used for drag queens that pass the best as an actual woman for fucks sake.

And then we have the drag names like 'Anna Bortion' and 'Cheryl Hole'.

And the whole thing is based on stereotypes about women being bitchy.

Not misogynistic my arse.

I didn't used to till I started seeing more of it and started getting worse. Eg relating to miscarriage etc.

That’s the point. It’s what they and others perceive as stereotypically female. It’s not what women are actually like.

Exactly. And someone in fake breasts is not parodying an 'effeminate man'.

@FictionalCharacter
I too have always thought drag is a demeaning and ugly parody of women.

If you think a drag Queen is acting stereotypically female, that’s quite worrying too.

That’s the point. It’s what they and others perceive as stereotypically female. It’s not what women are actually like.

Stop appropriating racism. It’s not a huge thing to ask and it makes you look like a dick when you insist that you feel equally violated to black people with their brutal history because you don’t like RuPaul.

It doesn’t have to be exactly equal to suffer from the same principle: that of a dominant group mocking and parodying a group they have historically oppressed.

And do women not have a brutal history too?

I am likely to experience sexual harassment though but that’s something separate.

How so? Why does it not fit into the category of abuse that gender-conforming women get?

I remember reading about a survey which showed that the sheer number of negative female stereotypes out there for anyone to use against women is far greater and wide-ranging than those available to denigrate men. I believe a PP listed some above.

Effeminate men also face abuse because they don’t conform.

And who abuses them? And why?

The quickest way for one man to insult another man is to liken him to a girl.

It is an insult to the effeminate man yes, but it is an insult to all women.

If you think a drag Queen is acting stereotypically female, that’s quite worrying too.

Stop appropriating racism. It’s not a huge thing to ask and it makes you look like a dick when you insist that you feel equally violated to black people with their brutal history because you don’t like RuPaul.

Effeminate men also face abuse because they don’t conform. Like GNC women, they are targets because they don’t dress or act as expected.

This is relatively basic stuff. You’re trying to argue that effeminate men and women face the same thing but that people only care about the men. That’s not true.

I dislike drag.

I think it is disingenuous to say that dresses aren't 'inherently' for women. In 21st century Western culture, yes, these are articles of clothing worn almost exclusively by women. Men who wear dresses are extremely rare. When a bunch of schoolboys wore skirts a few years ago, they made the news. Drag Queens are hardly wandering around in kilts (a skirt-like garment that is socially acceptable for men to wear).

Also, when drag queens wear fake breasts and use names like 'Anna', 'Victoria' and 'Cheryl', they are imitating women. It's silly to pretend they aren't. They aren't using 'effeminate' boys' names like Percival or Gaylord.

The comparison with blackface is a tricky one. I am white myself, so it is not for me to decide whether it is an offensive comparison. I would say that whenever the topic has been debated on Mumsnet before, there has been a mixture of views. I have seen black women agree that it is a fair comparison. Others consider it to be offensive. Personally, currently I am inclined to think there are certain parallels in that you have a traditionally dominant group of people dressing up to mock a non-dominant group, whilst recognising that there is a particular history to blackface that is not present in drag.

Yes, women dress up as men and mock ED etc. That's not my humour. I wouldn't watch it. I don't like humour which mocks groups of other people full stop. However, in general, society recognises that humour that 'punches up' is different from humour that 'punches down'. In the case of drag Kings, you have a non-dominant class of people (women) stereotyping and mocking the traditionally dominant class (men). Now, like I say, I don't like humour like that - I don't think it contributes to a respectful society, but that is the difference.

The race point is a good one. It does piss black people off.

I think this is true. And this conflation leads to a weak counterargument that because drag is not as offensive as blackface (allegedly) , it is not offensive at all. It's the nonsensical idea that if there is someone more oppressed that you around, then you are not really being oppressed, that if someone is further up the "hierarchy of oppression", then anything they do is somehow not offensive. I see an implicit assertion that effeminate gay men are somehow more oppressed than women, and therefore may express themselves in ways that women are not allowed to complain about.

Drag is offensive in and of itself. It makes fun of women. It reduces women to a few deeply offensive and untrue characteristics - untrue in the sense that bitchiness, foolishness, vanity, obsession with decoration and so on are not female exclusive traits.

To use stage names such as Anna Bortion, Miss Carriage and Cheryl Hole is vile, degrading and just sick. There is nothing whatsoever to celebrate in this.

I know that there is a huge problem in Hollywood with women being “Aged up” instead of casting women in that actual demographic. It is blatant ageism. Nobody’s pretending that doesn’t exist. I think you cease to be a sexual being once you turn 39 there, don’t you? Meanwhile, the competitive snarkiness is not something I am at all comfortable with as a symbol of femininity. Women have cutting wit, but it’s different to that. It’s not debasing in a locker room way. I feel like they can’t let go of the dick jokes, they’ve just made them gynaecological in a way that we never would.

I’m sure some drag is misogynistic. But I don’t think that makeup and a dress is the essence of femaleness or even should be restricted to the province of females. I suspect lots of issues with drag but it would need to be better distilled. No issue with anyone wearing a dress.

If someone had told me in 1980 that in 2020 this or The Bachelor and other such fluff would be classed as entertainment on Telly, I’d think they’d been sniffing glue.

You don't see drag queens with normal names that don't poke fun at women, or build them up. You don't see them being kind or funny in a non-bitchy way (like most of us can be.). It's like they only see the Mrs Slocombe traits (that I have never, ever seen in any real women) and exaggerate them for laughs. I have never accused any female of having stinky bits. My friends build each other up - I simply don't hang out with people who aren't like that. I don't like people that bring a heavy or fake energy. We're all too busy running families and working to bother with the drama. I can't see how it's not misogynistic.

You've summed up my thoughts far more eloquently than I was able.

Thank you 😊 😘👏