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

Interesting....Dp is also more on the talking front. I like nice looking men (and women for that matter) but its not my main criteria. I went out with a dropdead gorgous guy when I was younger, but he couldn't hold his own in a discussion so it didn't last long :) I am an intellectual snob.....

The ugly old man, younger woman thing has been there forever hasn't it.....remember touching on it in my PhD. But in the end it is transitory (or may be not in this day of plastic surgery etc) and you need other glue to keep you together. Doesn't whatshis name (Berger?) who argued ?according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at?

I am uncomfortable with it too Engelbert, but Berger's point is it is so ingrained. Your last sentence is very Miss Jean Brodie :)

SAF - ah the 'I have puked on your bed' cure Haven't we all been there! (touch wood, not recently).

Ooh. I saw a particularly fine (unexpectedly so) specimen at soft play on Monday. They're are extending and the attendant who usually works there had his shirt off. Yum

Underarms are looking a big like pubes here. About 2 weeks no shaving. My leg hair seems almost non existent. It is very sparse, fine and blonde. Probably doesn't even need shaving.

Yes John Berger. That's a good book. There's a really interesting bit in it about a painting of a woman (I'll dig the book out and link to a photo of the painting) wrapped in a fur where the top and bottom halves of her body couldn't possibly meet but that the angle and juxtaposition of them makes her pose more provocative. Men cutting women in half to make them look more appealing :(

No shaving here either. I do feel a bit sweaty around the pits though but I think that's just because I can feel it more. I shall go and have a wash :o

Ways of Seeing - it was the book that accompanied the series (or vice versa...) About art and perception...

Yes, sorry, same Berger but different book as Blackduck says

this thread continues to throw up far too many fascinating ideas to keep up with. wow!

I wish I could post more, I have too many small children crawling over me.

Lostinafrica - 'Men's obsession with porn is more likely to be influenced by their trousers than by "the patriarchy", surely?'
We're all a bundle of our physical responses and our conditioning. Your sexuality doesn't exist separately to your culture, it is conditioned by it, and you can see that in the way people in different cultures respond to different things - the Victorians getting hot under the collar about a shapely ankle, the Japanese liking women flat-chested, the cultures that value fat. And of course there are individuals in each culture who buck the trend, but that doesn't mean that conditioning has no impact.
I think it is the case that women are conditioned to objectify ourselves, hence the 'even if I was on a desert island I would still want to look good' comment you sometimes here. But there are books and books that explain and argue for this far better than I could.

'Children as young as three get birthday cards and t-shirts proclaiming their love of shopping.

Three-year-olds prefer shitting in their hands and painting on walls with it and anyone who says otherwise had better check their underwear for flammability.'

lmao Engelbert!

just thinking about navel-gazing (in response to Lostinafrica's comment that initially she thought we were navel-gazing but then she decided it was interesting).

it's interesting that Style and Beauty, or the huge sections of women's magazines in which they talk about such things, don't get accused of navel-gazing.
Of course a hundred years ago there was much more of a discourse of accusing women of being vain for going on about such things, and considering it morally wrong (ie nasty patriarchal trick in which you have to look good but you will be criticised for any effort or thought you actually put into achieving it).

what is really interesting is that it is the first thread, in a WHOLE YEAR of the FeMNist topic, to do what it does; that's literally hundreds of threads talking about other aspects of feminism, and yet people STILL feel it is navel gazing.
so - 100s of threads in Style and Beauty = not navel gazing
1 single thread in FeMNism = navel gazing

people spend hours and a fortune shopping, spend whole weeks at spas, and that is ok, but a few minutes talking about the phenomenon is not. It is mind-blowing really.

(this is not an attack of LostinAfrica btw - it is great that she was so open about her initial response to the thread)

Unlikely to get the books out here, though... Maybe when I move. Maybe when the children have grown up!

Ok, fair enough. Some comments have reminded me that just because I've lost my libido doesn't mean noone has one. Useful reminder!

I think looking good is fine but there is too much parading sexuality around - that's what I object to. Men and women. Men, keep your shirts on. Women, leave something to the imagination. And that has nothing to do with feminism, so I've clearly lost the plot altogether now...

you can buy them very cheaply online, it's just a matter of how much it would cost to ship.
(and finding time to read them when you have multiple small dcs of course!)