Calling out the misogyny in drag is "hate" now

[Ravenclawsome]

Local museum has bought a costume featured on Drag Race.

It's then criticised those that point out that drag is misogynistic. 🙄

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/2385220/ru-pauls-drag-race-dundee-museum-hits-out-at-unacceptable-abuse-over-ellie-diamond-display/

@Aspiringmatriarch

Sure, OK. Sorry, I got my boards mixed up.

Not your fault we just have to be ever so careful these days some people get very hot under the collar if certain questions are asked or matters discussed outside of one particular topic on MN, they are not so determinedly picky about any other topics though - read into that what you will.

Thanks. I'm not sure I want to start a whole thread about it as it was kind of a natural progression of my thoughts from reading this one. A bit frustrating! Plus I admit I'm a tiny bit scared of the GC board.

@Aspiringmatriarch

Thanks. I'm not sure I want to start a whole thread about it as it was kind of a natural progression of my thoughts from reading this one. A bit frustrating! Plus I admit I'm a tiny bit scared of the GC board.

Mwhahahaha!

Get yourself on the GC board. It's good fun 😁

Not caught up but just remembered something.

A while back there was a call to ban drag at a pride march or similar as it was seen by some to be mocking transwomen.

So if some women and some transwomen feel drag takes the piss out of women (and without getting sidetracked into a about definition woman etc!) then does that put an extra angle into this conversation on whether drag is lampooning women, or just GNC and the same as Nicky wire or the Eddie izzard 20 years ago 'these aren't women's clothes. They're mine, I bought them' or whatever the exact wording was.

?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/drag-queens-banned-performing-free-pride-glasgow-event-over-fears-acts-will-offend-trans-people-10405214.html

'Free Pride Glasgow said: “It was felt that it [drag performance] would make some of those who were transgender or questioning their gender uncomfortable. It was felt by the group within the Trans/Non Binary Caucus that some drag performance, particularly cis drag, hinges on the social view of gender and making it into a joke, however transgender individuals do not feel as though their gender identity is a joke.”'

Interesting eh

To just make double clear

My point is that members of the LGBT+ community have issues with it for the exact same reason some women do.

So does that give anyone pause for thought.

I'm not wanting to divert this into a discussion about views on whether their views are reasonable or not given that so many women have hated it for years, or anything like that!

Yes that is interesting, I hadn't heard that. I can see why it would be contentious.

Feminist conversations about finding drag offensive have been around since at least the 70's so why have our feelings of being 'uncomfortable' or disliking our 'identity being made into a joke' not taken into account by any group, unlike the above example?

Women are told that it's just a joke, lighten up, it's a tribute. Why are our feelings so unimportant?

I assume that's a rhetorical question!

On the one hand, yes.

On the other, a sincere question as to how organisations decrying drag as demeaning to transwomen can't see the rank hypocrisy of telling women 'it's only a joke'/'it's a tribute'. Or do they not even think women worthy of consideration?

How have we gotten to a point in society where sexism and misogyny is so open and seemingly accepted when we are being constantly told to be kind and inclusive?

@Waitwhat23

Feminist conversations about finding drag offensive have been around since at least the 70's so why have our feelings of being 'uncomfortable' or disliking our 'identity being made into a joke' not taken into account by any group, unlike the above example?

Women are told that it's just a joke, lighten up, it's a tribute. Why are our feelings so unimportant?

For the simple reason we are women and neither us nor our opinions or feelings count.

Plus we are decried on both sides from men and women, written off as prudes or nasty, mean feminists trying to spoil everyones fun.

@NiceGerbil

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/drag-queens-banned-performing-free-pride-glasgow-event-over-fears-acts-will-offend-trans-people-10405214.html

'Free Pride Glasgow said: “It was felt that it [drag performance] would make some of those who were transgender or questioning their gender uncomfortable. It was felt by the group within the Trans/Non Binary Caucus that some drag performance, particularly cis drag, hinges on the social view of gender and making it into a joke, however transgender individuals do not feel as though their gender identity is a joke.”'

Interesting eh

it does rather confirm (yet again) that natal female people perceiving something natal male people are doing as offensive and uncomfortably mocking of them and their identity are told to get over it and it's only a joke. Natal male people perceiving the same thing as offensive and uncomfortably mocking of them and their identity? Well that's definitely a problem and not a joking matter.

Note the clear difference in the sex class based experience; there's no commonality in the gender based experience. And then spot the sex based hierarchy.

The whole issue is that it is a powerful group punching down. Mocking their subordinates and the disempowering, laughter worthy stereotypical perceptions of their characteristics.

@Redapplewreath couldn’t have put it better myself.

A university banned it because it was offensive to trans students, too.

Aberystwyth University has been forced to ban drag socials because cisgender men were using them as “an opportunity to ridicule trans people”.

According to The Tab, Aberystwyth Students’ Union made the decision in consultation with the university’s LGBT+ society AberPride.

The SU said the socials had become “about members of random groups dressing up as the opposite gender in a general way that has the intention of being as funny as possible.

Pink News condemning drag: www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/04/university-drag-social-ban-cis-men-aberystwyth-trans-people-pride-lgbt-society/

From other posters re drag who argue it is not a piss take, genuinely interested to know

If you were aware of this before

If it changes your views in any way, and why it does or doesn't.

Incidentally, if I ever decide to be a drag performer my name will be Purity Spirals.

I don't need to be s drag performer.

From a how you look POV I feel like I'm dressing up in a costume whenever I do makeup fancy clothes etc.

For me it's a costume. At home I don't do that. I dress in comfy clothes and don't bother with hair etc.

The point that for some/ many women getting into heels or dress for wedding or etc feels like performaning femininity n is also apparently... Not interesting, relevant etc.

For so much new ideas to work, most women need to do these things because they're driven to by a deep identity thing. Flounces, sparkles, hair, low cut, short skirt. Or even things that are feminine in a different way to the look drag exaggerates. Less revealing dresses with bold patterns. Whatever.

Feminists have been talking about gendered everything forever. About how dressing up can be fun but is just that. About the reasons behind the expectations of the gender roles and why.

Years.

Again, we could have got together with others in loosening things up around expectations.

But that's not wanted is it.

Some need women to be connected with extreme feminity in order to take the piss by lampooning it (and us).

Others need it to indicate their internal gender to the world. And that won't work if anything goes.

All of this is to do with men and what they say women should be, to support their requirements.

None of this is about women at all.

That's why no one is interested.

The pride march trans stuff is about men arguing over who gets to decide what these stereotypes of women are the right ones.

Fyi when I'm is the garb for the Xmas party. I don't adopt a fake shallow persona and go around slagging off other women.

That part of drag is inherently misogynist.

Purity Spirals is great!

To Gerbil, this thread as a whole has made me reconsider a bit. I still don't have a huge problem with drag the way some people do, but I can definitely see the problems with it. It's just that it has a place in gay culture and history which makes me reluctant to condemn it outright as I don't feel that's really my place. And I think for some drag artists it's a genuine art form. I don't much like it, and I don't like panto or Punch and Judy either but I accept they're part of the culture in which I live, if that makes sense.

Re the complaints from trans people, I do think it's wrong if that's taken more seriously than women's objections. I suppose it might be particularly uncomfortable for trans women - like holding up an unflattering mirror. A lot of trans women are afraid of being perceived as a man in a dress; I know that may not elicit much sympathy on here, but I can imagine for someone with dysphoria who wants to 'pass' it could be quite upsetting. But it shouldn't mean their feelings are prioritised over everyone else's.

While I have never liked it in the mainstream.

I have zero problems with men in gay venues etc performing dressing etc.

It's still misogynistic but. I mean it's loads of blokes together. Any group of men do all sorts that is misogynist frequently I imagine (and have seen).

Where I object is having it, including blatently nasty stuff, in the mainstream esp in a family viewing style.

It was all over the place in the 70s and 80s.

The 90s from middle on the pushback came and it was all beer this blokey blokey nuts magazine and etc in the mainstream iirc.

I remember Julian Clary and there was other stuff but the freedom of presentation etc got squished back down.

Drag race whether I went/ go iPlayer it was the first top featured for MONTHS. why? They have loads of output. From that site though you'd think it was the only thing they were showing at times.

Ditto BBC news seems to have a constant main page interest in loads of drag features. Why?

Where are all the other people? Lesbian gay bisexual people? Why do often is it drag?

Library stuff etc... Where are the other groups? Why the news features? Again. Where is everyone else?

Why the ubiquity?

And given I'd say the point that even without the GNC stuff it's not infrequently misogynist...

Why?

The same reason Cupid stunt etc were on back in the day.

Taking the piss out of women has always been in fashion.

IMO.

So since the mid 90s it's been, rereading my post.

In the mainstream generally.

Misogyny from an aspect of gay male culture, or misogyny from aspects of straight male culture.

Same difference to me.

Woohoo.

Drag race whether I went/ go iPlayer it was the first top featured for MONTHS. why? They have loads of output. From that site though you'd think it was the only thing they were showing at times.

I noticed this too, and agree with your other examples. Particularly when it comes to LGBT representation, you rarely seem to see lesbians.

I also agree it shouldn't be repackaged as family entertainment, too much of a seedy side to it which doesn't take much digging to find. But it seems to be popular for the time being.

It's not so much it's seedy really

It's more that it has evolved for a certain audience over a long time- and that audience is gay men who are into it. (That's the other problem- loads of gay men don't relate to that side of things at all- so why is it the go to thing and being presented as increasing visibility for LGBT+ people across the board?).

Anyway.

Generally it includes- and again this is aimed at a certain audience -

Sexualised jokes often pretty crude
Iffy names

A certain behaviour style that is shallow, judgemental esp on looks. Being aggressively bit*"y to other queens, and to women as well sometimes.

Clothes that a a certain style of I mean the words I want to use are very sexist terms that men use. Erm. I'm sure you know what i mean.

Etc etc

Being pushed so hard in the mainstream? Why? It makes no sense either in the amount of publicity, or with the idea that it's so brilliant for LGBT + that it's the only thing needed.

With storytime for eg. What is it messaging? And how does that land with all the children etc who think or know or will realise as they grow that their sexuality is L B and esp G?

I thought we had got past this thing decades ago where gay men were fine on telly unless they were super camp (Larry Grayson, Mr humphries)... Now when it comes to so much it's just drag queen...

Yes, I agree. It's for a particular audience and it's being pushed into the mainstream for some reason.

This idea that any depiction of a female character by a male is wrong is the same kind of thinking that says that actors can't play people of a different ethnicity, or sexuality, and really that can go pretty much as far as you want to take it.

The "well, you can play a member of a group less oppressed than yours but not more oppressed" is just pure critical theory.

Comic depictions can be poorly done and get into the territory of bad taste, and that tends to mean they aren't funny, or at least are only funny to people who like humour that's in bad taste.

I don't think the idea of acting or drama is actually possible in a framework that can't accept people playing characters that are unlike themselves in significant ways. It's basically a puritan/iconoclastic perspective. And for that matter, we see the same tendency with fiction now where a writers are criticised for writing from the perspective of characters or settings that aren't their own. That viewpoint is the end of fiction.