The most glamorous girls in town are boys.

[PhyllisDoris]

How is this ok, but dressing up as a black person isn't?

Isn't it about time men dressing as a parody of women was banned?

They're not offending ALL women. Don't speak for me.

I like them. So do thousands of other women. You can choose to be offended. Fine.

No amount of talking will change your mind. The perception of what drag actually IS has changed. Many people have not caught up.

Women can do drag too. I said it earlier. Lady GaGa considers herself a drag queen. So do a number of female cabaret artists I know.

I love drag, it makes me feel happy and that's that. I am a woman and a feminist and I like drag.

JonesyAndTheSalad I'm not choosing to be offended. That isn't what finding something offensive in a political sense is.

Good for you if you love drag. Knock yourself out.

You liking it doesn't mean I can't apply radical feminist analysis to it and conclude that it is offensive and makes light of a profound aspect of women's subordination as the sex class.

You don't have to be offended by it.

But I still understand why you can't see the parallel with black face?

I think all women are kind of in "drag". We're all forced to perform gender in order to get on. I.e. the row about being forced to wear high heels & make up. Men will never be forced to wear disfiguring shoes & make up to get a job, so they can make fun of it, they don't live it.

That's why it's so offensive when men do it. They're making fun of something we have to do.

And "women do it too" doesn't mean it isn't misogynistic.

I don't see any homage to women in drag. It bothers me a little and I can clearly see the hypocrisy - I may wish to 'pay homage' to black women but this would be very frowned upon. Drag seems to emphasise big boobs, big hair, big painted lips etc - a parody and a form of piss take reducing women to shallow sexual creatures. Don't like it and would probably find it quite offensive if it was in my face.

I am very uncomfortable with drag. I think it's very much equivalent to blackface.

I am old enough to remember when The Black and White Minstrel Show was prime time telly and people trotted out the same justifications and defences as some people are trotting out now: it's not racist, it has a long tradition, everyone knows they are not really trying to be black, black people don't have a problem with it (think there was actually one black, blacked up minstrel at one point).

But society evolves and people wise up to these things. I have absolutely no problem with a man dressing like a woman, enjoying things that women have traditionally enjoyed. But don't act like a woman in a nasty parodying kind of way. It's not the 1970s.

I hardly ever wear a dress, much prefer trousers. It doesn't seem to worry anyone that lots of women walk round in trousers rather than dresses.

*I think all women are kind of in "drag". We're all forced to perform gender in order to get on. I.e. the row about being forced to wear high heels & make up. Men will never be forced to wear disfiguring shoes & make up to get a job, so they can make fun of it, they don't live it.

That's why it's so offensive when men do it. They're making fun of something we have to do.*

We don't, we really don't. I've never worn high heels, my daughter never wears high heels. I prefer trousers to dresses. Make up? Well I tend to wear a bit of mascara as I have that curse of the red head, invisible eyelashes but no one makes me wear it. My daughter is lucky as she has very dark hair and eyebrows/eyelashes so she doesn't even need mascara.

I think it is sad that some women still feel like this.

This is the weirdest chat I've seen!

So drag comes from a place where the performers were so ostracised and literally attacked (physically) that one of the few ways they could express themselves was in dressing up as women. Because back in the day society only saw a very strict view of male/female and what those roles meant. If you wanted to be sensitive, soft etc you were "feminine". This goes back to Georgian times and before (not just theatre, actual drag as we'd recognise it now). And the same for female performers dressing up as men...This worked both ways!! Because strict male/female ideas were the only options presented to us then.

Never have I ever seen a drag artist send up women...they're explicitly sending up the traditional view of women!! They're literally on our side and you're all bashing them here?! Honestly I have never seen allies so put upon, this is incredibly sad.

If you have to reference the 70/80s performance of drag and go so far back to make it relevant to you... I mean this kindly, PLEASE do some googling. Drag has always been at the forefront of challenging what male/female means and it still does today - some of the older performers may rely on that old schtick but it's so uncommon now - akin to seeing comedy. How many of you now watch Jim Davidson? It's the same with drag, there are very few Jim davidsons left!!

As others have pointed out, a lot of drag artists like glamour. We females don't all need to! And yes it was traditionally seen as a female attribute, but I'm glad and thankful that we're living in a society where biological men can celebrate it and show others it's not a quality inherent in females. It's freeing for all of us!

They're not looking to send us up, or take our place... Because we're all as different between ourselves as the drag artists are between themselves.

The reason this topic is tetchy for someone like me is this: violence against drag artists, who are real people with friends and family, is so common. Violence against anyone daring to challenge the male/female is still so common. Anything that criticises a group before you fully know the breadth of characters in it, the reasons behind what they do, is scary to me.

Full disclosure: the drag in that poster...it's not what I'd enjoy. But then I'm not making assumptions about a whole art form based off one tag line in one poster

When white men dressed up as black men, they were not exploring a part of their personality that desired to look like or to be like a black man.
When a drag queen wears women' clothes, I believe that they are exploring a part of their personality which longs to be a female, perhaps not permanently so, but certainly for that moment. The fact that the dresses are glitzy is simply because it would be less fun wearing Boden or a grey tracksuit with food stains down the front.

I should also add that I had a hairdresser who often wore drag and he adored women. He loved the culture of musicals and glamour. I just cannot equate his attitude to any form of offensive parody.

There's far too much hatred in the world already OP> Don't add to it.

They can wear what the fuck they want.

It's the play acting at being women, along with calling each other girls, using feminine pronouns etc. The overplayed stereotypes, calling each other "bitch", and behaving like catty women towards each other.

It's not something i recognise as female. And not something i aspire to.

Oh please, women on MN discussing how they feel about drag is not a threat to drag performers.

I don't have to spend hours getting to know every drag performer on the planet before forming an opinion of drag as a cultural phenomenon.

Drag has always been at the forefront of challenging what male/female means and it still does today

It so isn't. Everyone knows that men in drag are men. That's what's entertaining about it.

The real analysis of drag is why are certain clothes and trappings considered to represent women (and only women).

And they're showing those characteristics aren't gender specific so that's a good thing right?

As others have pointed out, a lot of drag artists like glamour. We females don't all need to! And yes it was traditionally seen as a female attribute, but I'm glad and thankful that we're living in a society where biological men can celebrate it and show others it's not a quality inherent in females. It's freeing for all of us!

This would be true, if they did it in their day-to-day lives. Not made a performance out of it.

I too am of an age where the only drag acts that I saw were fairly anti women. There were a lot of sexist jokes and a slight air of intimidation. It certainly felt as though women were not particularly welcome in the audience, despite the fact that these days a lot of hen nights go to these shows.

So, if they are not doing comedy and if they are not sending up women or making sexist jokes, what do they do?

Still torn on this.

Beachcomber so you're saying we can't allow people to deviate from the norms you're saying are bad?

I imagine a lot of drag queens would love to dress in their stage costumes when going about their daily lives but can't because they would get the shit kicked out of them.

Honestly their comedy is usually against straight dudes in their audience :) but it isn't done with malice!

A lot of performers do music pieces, full on theatrical stuff and dance sets.

A lot of older drag artists can be waaaaay out there...because some had already been outed by society, they couldn't hide what was "camp" and so just owned it. Some of my gay guy friends don't like drag artists because they see them as embarrassing and kitsch...but guess who was brave and brazen enough back in the day to march and protest for gay rights...there's a reason you might associate drag artists with gay pride marches and dancing on floats :) but they put themselves out there and at great risk

For that reason yes a minority of drag performers...in fact any gay people...can be defensive about seeing people they don't know/hens at the shows is because they're afraid and all too familiar with judgement. Think of "Cabaret"...it's all fun and frothy until the masses decide its abhorrent.

Ok we're certainly (I hope!) as a group not going to let things slip on women's rights. But it wasn't very long ago that things were so different and we should never forget it can all slip away so easily...maybe not the big stuff, but sly comments from your boss. This is the same problem with drag artists and all gay people... My drag neighbour had lost teeth being beaten by blokes who saw him in drag in the 90s. That wasn't v long ago. The group needs understanding and there's a LOT of material out there about what they're about :)

And a lot do impersonations of Cher or whoever because these were the women who were saying "it's ok to be different".... So there's less of a connection with say Rosalind Franklin :) That's not to say they wouldn't respect her!

It does feel v weird not having maybe a drag artist here to speak for at least one of themselves and us all projecting...

I would say that on principle, don't say "I'm not going to spend hours" researching something you then bash. You should familiarise yourself with something before knowing if you don't like it!

I just see drag artists as allies, historically and now they've been at the forefront of pushing for lbgt rights and been the friends of outcasts

And I'd walk out of a gig that made digs at women, drag or not!

Trying to catch up with the discussion but just based on Notmyrealname85 saying "And they're showing those characteristics aren't gender specific so that's a good thing right?".

This, I think, is where it is tricky. Ordinarily - yeah totally. But I think for me, the crux of it comes down to it not being as simple as showing characteristics as not being gender specific. If they were doing those things as men, then I'd agree. Gender stereotypes deserve contempt, and I'm a firm believer that the social construct of gender being damaging to all people, regardless of sex. While drag performers are obvious men performing in drag their characters are portrayals of women, taking the piss out of stereotypically womanly attributes. While I don't think for a second that individual drag performers are doing this maliciously, I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging that the industry as a whole is damaging to women, and anyone who has a vested interest in being gender critical.

Again, while I appreciate that people who enjoy drag say that it's a celebration of women, I can't accept that it is when a significant proportion of those who it claims to celebrate don't find anything celebratory about it.

Grammatical errors there are what I get for trying to be coherent while the two year old is marauding around the place..

Granny - actually, women are forced to wear Make Up and heels. It is still 100% legal for companies to force female employees to come to work in disfiguring shoes and make up.

And many women are told they need to wear heels, make up in order to look professional. I was reprimanded for not wearing all of the above in a previous job.

Cowgirl you say: When white men dressed up as black men, they were not exploring a part of their personality that desired to look like or to be like a black man.
When a drag queen wears women' clothes, I believe that they are exploring a part of their personality which longs to be a female, perhaps not permanently so, but certainly for that moment. The fact that the dresses are glitzy is simply because it would be less fun wearing Boden or a grey tracksuit with food stains down the front.

This sounds remarkably similar to this defence of blackface (reason.com/archives/2012/10/13/in-defense-of-blackface)

"In fact, blackface performances are not always unambiguously antagonistic toward African Americans. Several scholars of the phenomenon have argued that blackface has usually been, to some degree, an expression of envy and an unconscious rebellion against what it means to be "white." There is substantial evidence that this was especially true in the first half of the 19th century, when white men first painted their faces with burnt cork and imitated slaves on stage in what were called "minstrel" shows."

I'd like to point out that the above defence is total bollocks - people liked blackface because they found it funny to see privileged people "demeaning" themselves using hurtful steretypes. Same reason people find men dressed as women hilarious.