why do women collude in their own oppression?

[ColdComfortFarm]

Following the notorious Sebastian Horley thread, I feel utter despair at the way women defend their oppressors. Black people would never attend the funeral of someone who advocated cutting up black people with chainsaws, enslaving and raping them, so why do women? I'm not a fool, I know that society protects misogynists in a way it does not protect racists, but even so, why do women support women-haters in a way that Jews or black people (for example) do not? And how can we change this?

Plus if you do choose to reject the standards you will suffer; at job interviews, for example.

I don't think wearing lipstick is remotely the same as women venerating Raoul Moat or loving Sebastian Horsley tbh.

But I think wearing painful shoes that make you unable to move becuase of some notion of beauty is very much in that line tbh.

There's grades of everything I think.

Sancti - so will a man who rejects the standards and turns up in shorts or sandals or has unkempt hair or has a beard. Women aren't expected to turn up at interviews with fake breasts and false eyelashes! Just to be clean, groomed, smartly dressed and perhaps with a bit of lippy. As I said on the other thread, I have been googling images of Forbes mag's 100 most powerful women in the world. None are beautiful (Angela Merkel is top) and at work they wear suits and not much makeup and specs and look entirely normal.

Do you wear shoes like that? I don't? They would count very much against you at most serious job interviews too.

It's not even beauty though is it, the extreme things, they're fashion. They're not worn to enhance a womans natural form, they are worn because it is the fashion and then the eye becomes accustomed to the look and accepts it as a norm and as desirable.

When we had a thread about clothes/makeup before I was very much of the view that the media & fashion houses & pop stars etc are to blame for all of this. So a small cohort of v powerful (mainly) men are dictating what western women wear. And that look is spreading around the world by the power of the media. Most normal blokes on the street think eg really high shoes look stupid and uncomfortable. i mean, we're clearly not wearing them for them, we're wearing them becauuse we have been brainwashed by the media into thinking that they are desirable and covetable items.

Notice when women in uncomfortable shoes compiment each other, they always say "nice shoes", not "they really suit you" or something like that. The shoes are a covetable item to be displayed to other women - it's nothing to do with looking nice. Or something like that I think.

Not many women do wear heels much IMO- many fewer than is implied. Following a thread on MN on this subject, I looked at all the women I passed on Oxford St over a week in June.

There were hardly any wearing high heels (

Professional women working in the City adhere to a different beauty standard though.

That's the problem. I can be terribly chuffed with myself for not having a spray tan and wearing 6 inch heels, (ie snobby), but I am adhering to a beauty standard which is just as strong, it's just not one that's as obvious IYSWIM.

Most women do adhere. So while in my work the women wear flats and don't iron their hair, they do a different style of female attractiveness which is subtler but just as present.

I feel guilty for engaging with SR now. I mised the part on the other thread where he said he was a prostitute user.
Actually for some reason, God knows why, I thought slightreturn was a woman A woman rock musician . I think my brain has been warped by YDWTK because Slightreturn does seem rather normal by comparison.

Yes there are heels on a boot or shoe eg, solid and more comfortable then the shoes one can't walk in... I don't totter around in the latter at work. Like gender, femininity - a spectrum.

ISNT- but on the same basis, men in the city also conform to a style - let's face it, you dont get many imaginiative dressers in the square mile. It's blue shirts, short hair and double cuffs all the way. I think "general good grooming and smartness" is different to dressing in a way intended to be sexually appealing.

The argument made seems to be "women have to be beautiful to succeed whereas men dont" which I dont think is true outside very few, especially image conscious industries.

Oh I must have missed that argument. It's not true in my experience.

I had a quick scan, can you point me in the direction of the "women have to be beautiful to succeed" post/s?

I don't think women have to be beautiful to succeed. Beauty can often work against women: beautiful women are often presumed to be thick.

Can someone point me in the direction of where someone said that women have to be beautiful to succeed though, as i can't find it. And I think it'd be silly of us all to start arguing against something that no-one has actually said IYSWIM.

Arse- cant find it either. I think I might have cross-threaded with another thread along a similar vein (mea culpa). Promise I didnt make it up just to derail the thread.

No I know I just have seen it happen a couple of times that we have somehow all ended up arguing aganst sometihng that no-one has actually said - and I'm not sure how it happens!

FWIW I agree with sakura that really beautiful females can have a really terrible time.

I have read posts suggesting that women are outcasts or suffer if they do not adhere to the 'beauty standard' - which seems to be definined here as an unattainable ideal of youth and glamour. Plastic surgery and false eyelashes and high heels are often mentioned. I can't scroll back and forward without losing what I've posted, but it is across both threads (the one about 'sexy' and marketing) but this is just from the last page or so: " if you do choose to reject the standards you will suffer; at job interviews, for example."
But the so-called beauty standard at interviews is not about glamour, it's about grooming, and applies equally, if slightly differently, to men. As I said, take a look at the Forbes 100 list - not a sex-kitten in sight, just lots of soberly dressed, reasonably well groomed women with not a cleavage or false eyelash in sight. And these women are super-successful.

The shame- I now feel like the drunk trying to fight his own shadow!

As you were everyone. Just ignore me!

I suppose I consider this conversation to be a continuation of the other thread tbh. I actually think that wearing lipstick to a job interview is the least of women's problems in the context of what inspired me to start this thread! It's the adoration of cruel, violent, misogynist men by women that makes me tear my (highlighted) hair out in despair.

ISNT you see I think it varies for different jobs; I started out as a receptionist nd tbh when I did wear shoes with silly heels and tiny mini skirts I was extremely popular with the male management and absolutely they much preferred that look; the woman at my last recptionist post who ahd the job before me used to wearr tight lycra.

But it was a male dominated field, and indeed one that is s eriously behind the times generally- pirelli calendars and the like.

IME you dress in the costume for the job. And yes men do also of course. But for a receptionist in a bakckwaters haulage company you might (might have, over ten years ago since I last did that role) dress in a very different way to my later roles for homestart etc.

I alsom think styles are regional; I am far from the city or oxford street and the uniform fgor women here seems to be either huge statement heels, spray tan and big blonde hair or cheap juicy couture rip off trackies. As an outsider I notice that perhaps more than usual as it was agin different back home- jeans and t shirt for everything.

LOL baggedandTagged

Coldcomfort I think you are conflating a lot of different ideas together TBH.

There are different beauty standards and they have all been touched on on this thread. I don;t think any woman on here would claim that you need to have skyscraper heels and tons of makeup for a normal job interview - of course that would be utterly incongruous.

One person has said that she had a job where she thinks she would have been sacked if she didn't wear makeup and I think we have to take her word for that.

The plastic surgery and mahoosive heels are part of a media projection and the pop industry etc which is a look primarily aimed at, and picked up by, teens and young women.

When people talk about rejecting beauty standards meaning they will fail interviews i took that to mean not adhering to the beauty standards of those particular situations, not saying that women going for jobs as top execs will get rejected if they don't look like Jordan.

For me personally, in my working career, I have not seen much evidence of pressure on women to look a certain way, above and beyond normal grooming. However I do think that many women place enormous pressure on themselves as a result of the media etc, espcially teens and young women.

And yes agree with CCF that different situations will have different codes of dress, of course.

Agree with sancti, rather (sorry tired)

The beauty standard thing is difficult isn't it. As it's definitely there, but it's a bit of a slippery devil to pin down. For every "oooh look at her shoes", there's 9 women not wearing shoes like that. And then it becomes "it's a choice, there is no compulsion, it doens't exist". But it does exist, it just manifests itself in different ways, and at different points during our lives.