Are women allowed to be offended by Drag/ women face now then?

[Chosennone]

Things are changing. Strange times. Midst Pandemic. Horrific events in the USA. people are 'waking' up to oppression and inappropriateness within comedy.
If it is no longer seen as acceptable to wear any kind of black costume, seen in LB, LOG, Ant & Dec, surely it is time that a sensible debate could be had on Drag. Is it acceptable? Is it not a mockery of female features for comedy in the same way original blackface was?
If not, why not?

@Ethelfleda omg i never thought of that! A few hundred women should try it!

I'm just wondering about the term "womanface".
If you Google it, nothing comes up about it? Just pictures of womens faces.

Is this just something made up by MN or just a new ish word that hasn't caught on much yet ?

And what about manface? Are drag Kings accepted, or are they seen as just as offensive as queens? Genuinely asking.

I’ve only seen it on MN so far. I think it’s a very useful word, like cocklodger

Thanks LightenUpSummer yes I do love the word cocklodger, it's fantastic

I never really thought much about drag, but it annoys me when they play on words about us ‘being fishy’. I find that really offensive. It used to be the biggest insult boys called girls back in the day when I was at school.

I've only ever heard Queens say it about other Queens, never about females. But I do very much understand why some women would be offended.

It is offensive because it's based on and derived from regressive and derogatory stereotypes.

Why is it ok to say that women reek of fish ?

I went to a few drag King shows when I was younger but I've never seen one where the Kings were being offensive parodies of men. No giant fake beer guts or huge fake beards or jokes presented as male stereotypes (what would that even be? Football hooligan? Porn addict? Housework shy gamer?) They were all dressed up as very attractive passable men doing great performances. One drag King show I went to the lead act dressed up as an almost perfect resemblance of Justin timberlake and did an amazing tribute act. Nothing at all like the giant comedy breasts, grotesque makeup, and overtly sexist jokes you see from drag Queens. I've seen one equivalent drag queen show where the performance was mostly a Tina Turner tribute act, very well performed and entertaining, but the others have just been horrible. So I don't think it's the same for Kings as it is for Queens (in the same way as any attempt to "reverse the genders" often results in different situations because of the power asymmetry). Really no one should be making a career out of mocking anyone else's protected characteristic, but if they must then we have to recognise that it's worse when the group in power (White, male, straight etc) does it to the disadvantaged group (Black, female, LGBT etc). Just because most of the men doing drag are gay (and it originated in gay culture) doesn't change the fact that it's men using their male privilege to mock women.

Very well said ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings I agree.
The drag my friends do and the drag I see is just like what you described. Impersonation acts. No jokes, no crude language or mockery.

I have indeed heckled bad drag and interacted with good. It’s expected. You might get people disagreeing with you but people who pay for a sit down entertainment show aren’t going to stand up and get violent

I am only up to page 8 of this thread and I expect that it will have moved on tons by the time my post plops onto page 17. HOWEVER, I cannot disagree more with the statement above. I didn't heckle a drag act, I got up and walked out because I was very offended with his fish/slack vagina/fat women/domestic violence jokes. This was at Funny Girls in Blackpool. I was on a hen party, the hen wanted to go in. When the drag queen noticed me leaving he made me the butt of his jokes and had the audience (some, not all) laughing along with him as he called me fat and ugly and frigid. I am not a timid flower in the slightest but he had me in floods of tears. It was over 10 years ago and I still go hot with humiliation when I think about it. I would love to know how this man was "celebrating women" and "breaking gender stereotypes".

The form is offensive. Whether or not an individual act is offensive is irrelevant. By doing womanface at all, they are being offensive.

Of course it's offensive.

It's not offensive to every woman. But I completely understand and accept its offensive to some. Of course.

HappyMealWithLegs that's horrible!! I can't believe someone did that to you. Completely unacceptable, disgusting way to behave.

Happy . Misogyny plain and simple :(

YADNBU. Ever since I 'woke' up to (I use that ironically of course) the issues with TRAs and became gender critical, I've been asking this exact question, but I had long been pondering that fact that, whilst both are an enduring problem, racism definitely seems to be given more weight than sexism. By that I don't mean to say one is more or less important than the other, or more or less of a problem than the other, but that - you say someone / something is racist - that tends to get taken seriously. You say someone / something is sexist however and maybe just get an eye roll. Oh those feminists are on their hobby horse again...

I watched Ru Paul's Drag Race for the first (and last) time last year and was horrified at how they were such extreme caricatures of all the negative female stereotypes and yet this show is so popular? All the contestants' characters were so 'bitchy', 'slaggy', 'slutty', 'tarty', 'promiscuous', 'loud' (ie all those negative attributes that only apply to women / or only women should not be) - I thought it was so offensive, and so completely unfunny, and yet it's so popular including with women. Baffled.

Some women may not find it offensive, but it is offensive to all of us nonetheless.

I have sat there and cringed while a drag queen made vagina “jokes”.
I was young and less assertive than now, and with an older , bossy ,gay male friend. I didn’t heckle, I just felt embarrassed and upset.

Oh I would never sit through a drag show ( or any show) which made indecent 'jokes' like that.

The shows I go to are in no way offensive to me. There are no rude or nasty comments made about anybody (except maybe Donald Trump and the likes🤣)
I think the drag scene in Ireland is very different to that of the UK and USA and definitely much smaller as many of the disgusting things I've heard drag performers say and do are from these places. That's not to say there aren't rude and hurtful people everywhere, because there definitely are!

BLM campaign is essential. This is not taking anything away from the campaign. There is an element of 'whataboutery'

I agree OP. It's not taking away from the campaign at all. It's just trying to.

How casually posters talk about blackface vs womanface. Silly petty games. No need for comparison, the 2 are not the same as anyone with the capacity to at least think in some depth would know.

No thought that black women are women too & are also offended by blackface racism as well as womanface sexism. Not that this surprises me - people who don't 'get it' have actively chosen not to.

Womanface has been a topic on the feminism boards for absolutely ages yet I've hardly seen AIBU take a blind bit of notice of it.

This is all about another stick to beat BLM/black people with by people who can't take it that the world is changing. So now we have the MN daily strawman arguments.

The world is changing, people will just have to get used to it. Petty racist comments won't make a shred of difference to that.

@HappyMealWithLegs, so sorry that happened to you. That is why I would not dare to heckle or leave a drag performance. I would be cowed by the presence of males and would absolutely be humiliated by any comments made. I am very aware that men will back up their verbal aggression with physical aggression. I have been shoved and pushed aside by men in pubs and clubs just for having the temerity to be standing where they wanted to be. If I was voicing an opinion, I can see it ending with a smack.

@HappyMealWithLegs that sounds like a terrible experience, with a very vicious entertainer. And such a shame no one in the audience or your hen group stood up for you, or you felt like you could stand up for yourself. I’m sorry that happened to you. We all have one or two horrible experiences that stick with us, so I’m not going to diminish that. But you can be insulted by nasty people who disagree with you anywhere, even on a mumsnet thread! As it was my comment that you were responding to I will reiterate that I have heckled bad drag and got some comedy stick in return from the performer, but no violence or aggro came my way. Would I do it again now as a less brazen, more tired adult? Perhaps not. But I would not want to sit in the front row at a regular comedy show either!

I like drag, just see it as a bit of fun. Not offended in the slightest.

Would you be offended by some of the specific examples on this thread, @ToBBQorNotToBBQ? A drag artist saying that a room full of women 'smelled of minge', or drag artists referring to each other as fishy - meaning they 'pass' so well for female you can almost smell the fishiness of their genitalia (because of course, all women's genitalia smells rank and fishy)?

Personally, I find the emphasis on womanhood being about huge boobs, over-the-top makeup, being bitchy/tarty/promiscuous - a misogynist stereotype of womanhood - very offensive and unfunny.

The widow twanky in pantomime I suppose is similar. if we could all just allow freedom and not be offended by things life would be a lot simpler.