To find drag queens offensive?

[MrsMummy500]

AIBU to find drag queens really bloody offensive?

I hate the term offensive, it’s bandied around far too often at far too insignificant things (am aware this may be one of them). BUT, men dressing up as some fetishised version of a man made ideal of a woman really pisses me off. Hyper hair, max make up, drink in hand, revealing clothes.

I do not know a single woman like that. It riles me and I feel like I’m unable to express it as women have lost so much of their space to LGBTQ+ community (I perceive this, I don’t say it as a fact).
potential bomb drop alert but if white people are taken down (rightly IMO) for ‘blacking up’ should it be acceptable for men to parody women in the form of drag queens.

Ps- I do not buy for one minute that they are celebrating the female form with balloon breasts. It feels more like a piss take.

I agree. Sick and tired of lots of things men do which we are expected to accept as humour/choice etc. Have always found drag really problematic.

@likeamillpond

You don't get women parodying men

www.pride.com/entertainment/2018/3/22/11-drag-kings-you-should-definitely-know-about#media-gallery-media-6

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

Why shouldn’t they give make up tips to women and girls? Make up isn’t only for women. Men have been wearing it for centuries as well

Because they're not telling other men what to do - they are bossing women around.

Bossing them around? How so? Do you have an examples?

@Rhine, I have watched Drag Show. If you think it's just a bit of fun and they 'idolise' women, you really have no idea what misogynistic behaviour actually looks like. It actually reminds me of one scene from Two and a Half Men I actually agree with, when Charlie Sheen's character was called a misogynist due to his shit treatment of women, and he replies 'no I'm not, I love women!'. It's what you cant or refuse to see that's the problem - there is not kindness towards women, no actually knowledge of who we are. It's crass, ugly stereotypes. If you think stereotyping is ok (and I bet you don't if it's humour or entertainment about other races or sexualities), then cracking on. Otherwise nothing in what these men are doing is ok or positive reinforcement for the empowerment of women.

I don’t like them. Brass, unfunny and gross

Lily Savage & Edna Everage were funny so I quickly got over the drag part of their act.

Anyone else in drag I find hugely offensive, they give me the ick

Bossing them around? How so? Do you have an examples

All drag queens who do make up/clothing tips. These are men who have been socialised as men, grown up as men, enjoyed all the freedoms of men, thinking that they are better than women at the shit we have to cope with all the time. It's mansplaining on an epic scale.

And it is really regressive, because they are constantly pushing girls to be more 'feminine' i.e. to spend loads of time and effort on their appearance. There is a massive irony that drag queens are making money from subverting gender stereotypes while, at the same time, reinforcing gender stereotypes for women.

'Lily Savage & Edna Everage were funny so I quickly got over the drag part of their act.'

Edna everage was fairly funny but drag queens now tend to be overtly sexual as if they are portraying how gay men see 'tarty' women.

tbh I think comparing the struggles of women to black people is a little bit offensive in itself

Fucking really? Women have been raped, abused, burned at the stake, made to be chattel, denied the right to own property, land or vote, excluded from work and institutions like universities, trafficked for sex and other horrible things throughout history. But sticking a frock on with your. Male entitlement and privledge intact and insulting women is OK? . The above poster should read some women's history.

There is a massive irony that drag queens are making money from subverting gender stereotypes while, at the same time, reinforcing gender stereotypes for women.

This with fucking bells on. Wither way, men win in this situation, they look like the heroes of expanding male 'gender' identity, whilst forcing the female one into a smaller box of 'how women should be.

I'm not offended with a capital 'O' but they're obnoxious aren't they? Tasteless too. None of them want to look normal like Mavis Riley, they're all Bet Lynch with sequins and so much make up it must be applied with a spade but I guess that's to hide any stubble. Not my cup of tea.

@Teddy1258

A lot of drag isn't about looking like or trying to look like a woman, many of them aim to look androgynous, and more 'alien' like, conceptual, like Leigh Bowery for example. I understand your point though.

Leigh Bowery wasn’t a drag queen !

I hate drag, it is offensive and outdated.

@MrsMummy500
I so agree with all your points. Thank you for posting.

'It's very revealing that every other group in society gets the right to be offended and demand that others are silenced for their research, views, opinions and the rest. But when women have the temerity to point out openly disrespectful & misogynistic behaviour seen in drag queens (let alone the abhorrence that is drag queen story time) we are gaslit, patronised and told that our views are wrong'

Exactly 👏

@Lastfreakinglegs

tbh I think comparing the struggles of women to black people is a little bit offensive in itself

Fucking really? Women have been raped, abused, burned at the stake, made to be chattel, denied the right to own property, land or vote, excluded from work and institutions like universities, trafficked for sex and other horrible things throughout history. But sticking a frock on with your. Male entitlement and privledge intact and insulting women is OK? . The above poster should read some women's history.

Yes, but the reality is, I would say, that there are different types of oppression and that being male is a privilege. But being black isn’t - the same way that being white is and being a woman isn’t. It is my opinion that as a white woman I am more privileged than a black man, broadly speaking.

I do not know a single woman like that

You don’t know a lot of women then

I think there's a difference between Drag Queens and what used to be called 'female impersonators', like Dame Edna and Lily Savage. The latter were genuinely creating a comic character (in the same way that Mrs Merton or Alan Partridge are characters), who happened to be female.

Given the change in atmosphere, I doubt that we will see men dressing as comic female characters in the same way again. Even pantomimes are 'modernising' now. Ironically, not many women felt insulted or demeaned watching these acts, but now that so many of us are saying how misogynistic we find the sort of caberet Drag Queens being mainstreamed, we can be safely ignored as 'transphobes' and 'terfs'.

It is my opinion that as a white woman I am more privileged than a black man, broadly speaking

It's not a competition though is it .

I struggle to understand why I don't like it. But I never have.

@Lastfreakinglegs

tbh I think comparing the struggles of women to black people is a little bit offensive in itself

Fucking really? Women have been raped, abused, burned at the stake, made to be chattel, denied the right to own property, land or vote, excluded from work and institutions like universities, trafficked for sex and other horrible things throughout history. But sticking a frock on with your. Male entitlement and privledge intact and insulting women is OK? . The above poster should read some women's history.

And this. This is my biggest peeve, the idea that women have 'privilege' now, and therefore have no right to find complaint or offence in anything. Never mind how we are still being abused, raped, denied rights to our own anatomy, murdered in horrifying numbers on a daily bases. But its not happening in the streets where bystanders doing nothing films it, so no one cares, its not happening. Women are suffering and dying as we are ignored for our medical problems, we're told that its 'women's problems and these things happen' - oh that's not when we're being told off for referring to our own anatomy as 'female' to start with, it belongs to men as well now. And when we're not being abused for our sex, we're being told that we must be quiet, be compliant, don't make a fuss, look good, dress well and most of all be fucking kind. Fuck that and fuck what men thinks is good for women.

@Lastfreakinglegs

It is my opinion that as a white woman I am more privileged than a black man, broadly speaking

It's not a competition though is it .

No, of course it isn’t, I’m not sure why you’d think I was saying it was. How weird 😂

Yes, but the reality is, I would say, that there are different types of oppression and that being male is a privilege. But being black isn’t - the same way that being white is and being a woman isn’t. It is my opinion that as a white woman I am more privileged than a black man, broadly speaking.

But surely that is case-by-case? There is no ‘broadly speaking’ because there are white women in this country at all levels of the economic/social spectrum?

To those asking who has spent time with drag queens; no I haven't. I don't know any drag queens. I do know a guy who put on blackface years ago. Absolutely lovely guy, kind, generous, thoughtful, trustworthy. Doesn't mean it wasn't offensive that he dressed up in black face.

Yes it's almost unbelievably misogynistic.