Resisting femininity experiment - who's in?

[sethstarkaddersmackerel]

I was thought-provoked by the 'I'm a feminist but....' thread, particularly Dittany's posts, in which she talked about women who choose not to 'perform femininity'.

I posted on the other thread that I hugely object to all that bikini-line business but do still shave my legs. Am not sure why I do this, so I think I'm going to stop and see how it feels. It felt like a major issue when I was 20 or so but I actually suspect not shaving them now would make me feel more, rather than less, confident.

So I wondered if anyone else was thinking about giving up any beauty practices or other elements of compulsory femininity and would like to do it together and see how it feels.

this is not a competition - if you decide after a day you hate it and can't live without it, fine, but it would be really interesting to hear about, and I think it could advance our understanding of how this all works.

anyone else in?

btw, I am in a vile mood today so if anyone wants to come along to the thread and tell us we are just falling into the trap of thinking all feminists have to have hairy legs, or that actually they wax everything and are a still better feminist than meeeee, I will tell them to fuck off because if you don't 'get' this I can't be bothered explaining, either you get it or you don't

Isn't it some sort of exercise regime?

www.jillianmichaels.com/free-custom-weight-loss.aspx?promo=C769B522-88C3-414D-BECE-9081A50AC8D5&np=1&variable=tough&xid=GJMOES&gclid=CPTSq4-H4KcCFUtC4QodLxvd8g

Hell On Earth.

we're doing Fat Is A Feminist Issue for the next book club of course.

so i've been reading this thread on and off, and while i don't really do the over-grooming/depilation stuff apart from 'tache control, which i just can't bring myself to leave, i do just want to point out that underarm hair does not make you smell more strongly. i've always found that shaving my armpits makes me feel sweatier and makes me smell rank, plus i hate that plucked chicken look. would it be terribly rude of me to suggest that people who find their underarm hair smelly are just not washing properly?

20 rules per day! . I don't work and only have one child and already do not have enough time to MN as much as I want .

If I had to do all those things, I'd never sleep. (Mind you I don't anyway, but that is because I have an Amazing-Non-Sleeping-Toddler)

and if we did do all those things we wouldn't look that much different anyway.
a bit shinier, perhaps.

that is what I think too.
I think forcing yourself to do things you don't really want to because you feel you ought, runs the risk of having unforeseen negative consequences (could put you off feminism for life, that could!)

I think for an experiment it might be worth pushing yourself to do things that need a bit of effort, to see how if feels, especially if they're things that are easily reversible.
So for instance, going out without make-up for once, for someone who never does, might make her realise that actually it is perfectly fine, and if it doesn't it doesn't matter because she doesn't have to do it again. Whereas if she decided she had to chuck all her make-up in the bin and isn't allowed to wear it she will just be miserable.

what lies beneath this approach is actually the belief that certain beauty practices are not good for you in the end so women will stop doing them quite naturally. If we had to force ourselves to not do them and it was really hard, maybe that would mean they were actually good things to do.

I'm simplifying a bit....

Right I am very much a beginner feminist so please bear with me, I would have a problem with a thread devoted to not wearing heels/shaving legs/arms/bits/ not plucking eyebrows/stray hairs being called Project Feminist it's a bit like we are trying to play up to a stereotype.

yes, you could justify it by saying 'we are celebrating the fact that feminism makes it easier not to do these things' but it would run the risk of being misread.

we wouldn't be saying 'the essence of feminism lies in not shaving your legs' but people would take it as meaning that.

I'd like to see 'Access to Good Quality, Fresh, Affordable Food is a Feminist Issue' but I don't think it's been written yet. I agree with SAF that weight and health are correlated.

Project Natural perhaps? Project Normal Woman? Project As Nature Intended? :o

The weight/health thing is right at the fore of my mind at the moment. I'm 6 months post-partum after DD (DC2) and now that I don't want any more children, I'm trying to get my body back into shape. It is a lot to do with wanting to be healthy and fit so that I can run around after my DCs and set a good example to them about eating healthily (by which I mean enjoy all sorts of food but everything in moderation, rather than eat like a sparrow). But I have hovered around a size 16 for the best part of 4 years and I really want to be a size 14. So it is also driven by wanting to look good in clothes... Which is partly because I think I look better like that and feel happier like that, but also because I see thinner people everywhere fitting into things I want to wear. So I am conflicted about why I am exercising and watching my diet - because I should for health reasons or because society is telling me I can't be a decent human being unless I am thinner and wearing smaller clothes. But of course I wonder will I be happier at size 14, or will I just want to be a 12, 10, 8 etc?

Would love to read Fat is a Feminist Issue - where do I sign up?

This thread is the Project though isn't it? I feel more comfortable with the experiment approach and the fact I can post when I'm not actually doing anything different and as Libra says I think it would cause more trouble than good!!!

Oh god I'm not doing this, am dating hot guy atm and throwing myself enthusiastically into femininity but am interested to see how it all goes for those participating.

And am PMSL about how grooming afficianados are so annoyed about it.

Agree that doing it has to come from inside because you feel happy doing it. And I think that is gradual - there are days when I go out without make up etc. and feel perfectly OK and "fuck you if you don't like it" about it and get exactly the same response as when I'm dolled up to the nines. But still there are days when I want to doll up to the nines and wear ridiculous shoes and those are the times when I know I am playing along with the femininity construct. It's interesting to consider why I want to play along with the femininity construct as well... there's nothing wrong with dressing up, is there, but it's the enforcedness of it that's wrong, the lack of choice. And also the potential assumptions that people may make about you, if you don't toe the beauty line - that you are less co-operative, more argumentative etc. I sometimes wear no make up when I'm feeling particularly bolshy and confrontational, and then at other times I wear no make up when I want to be invisible and am busy and want to get on with stuff without interruption. So two completely different scenarios.

On the fat/weight thing. I agree with everyone

Yes of course it is unhealthy to be too fat / unfit and that is not a good thing. And that's true for everyone, man woman child cat dog hamster.

However as Dittany points out when many (most?) women worry and fret over their weight it's not because they're worried about their health it's because they are worried about how they look / not being a size X (whatever they have decided is the "correct" size - and many (most?) women feel that their bodies aren't right even when they are slim.

Even when I was a teeny thing at 20 I still thought I could do with being a bit slimmer. When I was a bit bigger at 25 I wished I was the size at 20. Now I think how silly I was at 25 as I had a great figure. And so on and so on. That's not good. Although I am fortunate that I have never been too affected by this stuff - I've never been on a diet and was fairly oblivious about weight issues at school while most of my classmates were busy vomiting into the toilets after lunch. But even for the most oblivious, these messages get in in the end.

So the weight/fat thing is definitely a thing for this thread in a way.

I suppose what I mean is that people who are overweight from a health perspective should do something about it. or alternatively, decide not to. Either way, it doesn't need to be at the forefront of a person's mind all day every day, at every meal and so on. That's a terrible waste of time and a miserable way to live. Do something / don't do something. But no point in dwelling on it IYSWIM.

I don't know if that makes sense!

I suppose this thread is about the ultimate in confidence really, isn't it.

About being able to face the world as yourself, entirely, and be happy with that. No lurking doubts that your eyebrows need doing or someone might spot the bit on your ankle that you missed or that you accidentally rubbed your eye earlier and is your eyeliner OK and is your hair still right and oh dear your legs are very pale compared to everyone else on the tube better get some of that special moisturiser in again and are the backs of my heels a little rough? and oh when you bend like that you're not very happy about the way your arm skin looks and all of the trillion and one little doubts that go through the mind in an average day.

Or is it just me

Ultimate confidence is what it's all about isn't it. To just walk down the street and be happy without having to do or even think about all this stuff. A much freer way of being, surely.