Link between lack of women's rights and feminine grooming?

[ComradeJing]

I'm in Dubai at the moment. We're staying in a hugely expensive resort thanks to a work conference DH is attending. I've been shopping in the big malls (boots! Clark's for Dd! Waitrose!) and been in the restaurants and beach and pool of the resort and have noticed that the levels of feminine grooming are far, far higher than anything I have seen before.

10cm louboutins at breakfast, evening wear as day wear, full faces of perfect make up all the time, shoes are always proper sandals, heals or pumps... No trainers, no plastic flip flops...

Anyway, I was wondering if a lack of women's rights correlated to more feminine grooming?

Men were much more casually dressed - as you would find in any hot country, shorts, t-shirts/shirts, casual shoes.

I think women in the UK and Australia (the two countries I have real experience of where women have theoretical equal rights) are much more casually dressed. Here I would have felt uncomfortable in Havianas, shorts and a t-shirt that no one would look at me twice for wearing in Aus.

I'm happy to be told I'm over thinking this or that I'm just going to the wrong parts of Dubai but I'd love to know what other people think or their experiences.

messy - yes ... and I wonder if some of that stuff with boys talking about sex with girls they hated, it's also part of that nasty idea that you can punish women like this.

So it's not just about the separation of appearance and emotion, I mean.

LRD - re. your West Wing digression. What confuses me is that in various cultures/times there seems to have been 2 opposing assumptions at work: on the one hand, women have been seen as lacking the same sex drive as men, on the other the idea that women's sexuality is wild and dangerous if not controlled, and that it's somehow malevolent.

Yes - but is that not virgin/whore? Gail Dines also had this theory I heard (I hope I'm getting it right), that at various times people have developed this polarized idea of the animalistic woman (and it's tied up with racism in the US, she says), who is sexually uncontrolled, and the sexually contained women who're 'suitable' wives and mothers.

I think that binary is such a nasty - but effective - tool for controlling women, because inevitably you make women walk this very fine line, between knowing that if they don't satisfy their men, other women who are sexually uncontrolled will do so, and on the other hand, if they seem to enjoy it too much or want to step outside of monogamous relationships with men, they're judged as 'sluts' or whatever.

I mean, I think you have to have two opposing assumptions because it is such an effective catch-22.

i'm not attall sure about the brazen and wild female sexuality that must be tamed. i know what your talking about, something freud was obsessed with maybe, but i've encounterd very little of this in my life and when i have i have put it down to the fact that the girl has worked out her reputation gets her lots of attention from the boys rather than her unweldy libido pushing her to find satisfaction i would guess it has more to do with male fantasy than fact, the idea that a woman would be just as driven for casual sex as a man is mabye quite a turn on. i'm not saying some women dont have high sex drives it's just men seem to be better at walking away from casual sexual encounters with a spring in their step.

the way men react to women is more the point here, if a woman only has to undress to make him feel different she must be oozing with lust herself , it doesnt make sense that such arousal-inducing beauty could be inert . also, if she can do that to us what other powers might she have? she might be a witch, burn her! or maybe wrap her in a burqua so we dont have to deal with these complecated overpowering sentiments. our overtly sexualised society where a confused guy can say "why would you want to diminish a girls sexual desire" has it's advantages, it's got to be better than some of the more conservative societies on this planet where sexuality is repressed.

the issue of men talking about having sex with a woman as a punishment, is very complecated, i make no excuses for this behavoir but in an attempt to try and explain it......
sorry i've sat here at the pc for 10 minutes wondering how to begin and i dont think i can explain it, is there something submissive about the sexual act for a woman? does this mean for a female you dislike you still have an emoitional hold over her? a way of winning the feud, by winning her over so she consents to sex? actually i dont know.

LRD
ok, mabye women dont think 'seen one seen them all' but do you really think it's the same for men and for women? look at how women behave when they watch a stripper, lots of shouting and so on, then look at the men as they watch a stripper, stareing, gazeing , trying not to blink incase they miss a bit.

did you hear about the american pretty school teacher a peodofile! who was sent to prison for the affair she had with a pupil? males and females of course must be treated the same under the law, but is it really the same? was that boy really damaged? or was he the envy of all his classmates?
do you really think this is the same as a male teacher having an affair with a female pupil?

a number of posters have said, that women react the same way to a naked man as men react to a naked woman, i dont think so.
'playgirl' went out of production, it's small male gay following were quite upset.
'for women', another erotic magazine aimed at women lasted months on the shelves after a blaze of publicity on it's launch.
one of the big differences between the sexes is the fact that men are more visual than women in this area, men dont tend to read erotic literiture, they want images.

chairman - the point about what you refer to as 'brazen and wild' (nasty terminology) sexuality is, as my reference to the virgin/whore trope indicates, a trope. A stereotype. Not a reality.

And no, funnily enough, I don't agree that the way men react to women is 'more the point'. Occasionally, it's quite good to think about women's reactions, too. We're a whole 50% of the population, you know.

As has already been pointed out, women might dislike stripping for all sorts of reasons having nothing to do with disliking naked men (though I am interested that you're such an authority of how women feel when they watch men strip, as I wasn't aware it was a terribly common pasttime).

It is quite amusing (as well as stunningly arrogant) to hear a man insisting he knows how women feel about naked men. I am biting my tongue here, or I would suggest your response may well be based on something several women have told you, that it's really ok - women just don't react much to naked men. Honest. And we actually prefer it when you leave the toilet seat up as a sign of rampant masculinity. Oh, and the moon? Green cheese.

Sorry, but, well, I don't think you've much clue.

Obviously you're on the wind up with that comment pretending to condone underage sex, I assume. It's a pretty disgusting wind-up, but from previous experience I know MNHQ won't delete.

as i'm not a woman, i cant claim to have the same expertise as you to judge how woman react to anything.

51% actually.

did i condone underage sex? where? all i'm saying is that teacher is different from a peodofile. you may disagree.

You expressed doubt that the boy was 'damaged'.

I really hope you do not put into practice what you seem to support. It is a crime and an abuse of trust. I'm not interested in spending my Sunday morning talking and thinking about it.

Chairman, the "brazen and wild" trope is more of a thread through history rather than a day to day reality. It's well documented as a central theme to Christianity's view of women and was at least part of the rationale behind the witch-hunt.

With ref to the whole "men are more visual than women" thing - yes I've heard that a lot, but I can never really buy it whilst there is so much cultural indulgence of men's visual appetites and so little for women's. Social conditioning is such a huge factor and I would say that IMO girls are brought up to believe that judging men solely on their looks is shallow.

To give an example, I went out with a complete minger for years!! I wasn't attracted to him physically whatsoever but I felt so guilty about my shallowness that I carried on going out with him. It annoyed me that he expected a higher level of looks/grooming from me that he was prepared to give, but I never really told him, cos I didn't want to be rude. It was only when he turned out to be a bit of a dickhead that I finally finished it.

My point is that IMHO women are attracted to men physically. The physical attraction may contain a more psychological aspect to it, which is why looks alone doesn't do it but it's still pretty strong. It's just it's socialized out of us more out of us.... IME of course

messy, i'm not suggesting physical attraction isnt inportant for women, the 'wedding photos cut in half experiment' prooves that, woman are not above the flesh. just that when it comes to arousal men are very visual, and women well, i dont want to pidgeonhole women here, but maybe women need a connection? a mood? . if women were as visual as men in this regard wouldnt some women at least buy erotic magazines like some men do?

as for the witch hunt, i belive ( as do some historians) that sexuality was at the very core of it. whiches were blamed for making men impotent.

i have a morrocan freind who genuinly belives that the mother of a potential bride for him back in morrocco made him impotent for a week or so for not chosing her daughter. i tried to tell him it was all bollox and between his ears not his legs, but he was adamant.

You do realise the 'erotic magazine' market is created solely for the male market don't you chairman meow? The images of women in submissive and degraded poses is a bit of a turnoff for many women, visually stimulated or not.

degrading images of women are another topic slug, i refer you to my earlier post:-

((a number of posters have said, that women react the same way to a naked man as men react to a naked woman, i dont think so.
'playgirl' went out of production, it's small male gay following were quite upset.
'for women', another erotic magazine aimed at women lasted months on the shelves after a blaze of publicity on it's launch.
one of the big differences between the sexes is the fact that men are more visual than women in this area, men dont tend to read erotic literiture, they want images.))

this is what i mean when i say men are more visual than women.

Or that women are socialised out of being comfortable being seen to buy such items. Fact is most visual erotica is aimed at men. Playgirl from memory was cheesy and coy. You only have to look at teenage girls bedroom walls to see tat women do have a visual component to their arousal, we're just less likely to be as obvious about it.

But of course, as a man you are obviously an authority on female arousal

Exactly slug, who knows what the female gaze would be like if it were indulged more..

With ref to the "women need a connection" I think that also can vary according to which stage you are in your life. Sometimes you're looking for a connection, sometimes not.

It is possible that those magazines of which you speak failed because women feel a bit cheesy and sleazy guffawing over a man's body, I mean I even feel a bit at those Diet Coke ads. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate the abs....

Anyhow we've gone a bit off topic. I'm not saying you're super wrong or right, Chairman, I'm just saying you need to factor in the social aspects and also that individual women are probably the best experts on their own likes and dislikes.

women are socialised to feel uncomfortable to be seen buying such items? and men look fine buying porn? all the mags i came across as a teenager were 4th or 5th hand ( yuk, pages stuck together!!) . no one i knew had the balls to actually walk into a shop and buy one.
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i'm not saying women are not attall visual, and i'm sure your husbands arse is lovely and pert but erotic lit falls off the shelf and numourous attempts at marketing visual erotica for women have failed, isnt there something we can assume for this?

I think I've just had female sexual response mansplained to me

Don't be so silly, slug. Naturally a fine upstanding man knows much better than us silly ladies what ladies really like! Of course, the fact many women have told this man they don't find men visually attractive is quite indicative of the general reception of naked men by women.

I'm shocked you'd call such cogent and dispassionate argument 'mansplaining'.

so if i was a woman my ideas would be taken on face value? without the mockery and hostile tone?

LRD, if you want to think that i think your all silly ladies because you fancey a self ritious bullying fine, but your prejudice is palpable, not to mention sexist.

OP¨- I think that the high levels of feminine grooming you describe correlate to high incomes and lots of leisure time

Your guess is probably as good as mine there bonsoir.

chairman - how did you get to that conclusion?!

No meow your thoughts wouldn't be taken as face value but people would accept that your feelings were valid because you have actual experience, as a woman, of female sexual response.

There are some things that the opposite sex will never, ever understand because they don't have direct experience of it. A man will never truly understand how much pressure is placed on women to be thin and wear make up for example.

It's one of those things that comes across as fucking rude tbh. It's in the same league as telling us what we should be discussing on the feminist section, telling us that we are worrying about the wrong thing... and of course mansplaining explaining female experience to a woman.

On another note this is by far the strangest turn any of my threads have taken!

bonsoir I suspect you are right. I just wonder if there is also a high level of feminine grooming in very poor countries too. I lived in India for years and just can't remember what it was like for poorer women (too young to care/look sadly).

at what point did , my pointing out a difference between the sexes, turn into my telling women how they felt?
if my opinion is less because i have no experience of being a woman in society then your experience is less for not having been a man. i wasnt talking about women, but women and men.

and now you think i'm telling you what you should and shouldnt be discussing.

i have thought about posting as a women just to not be prejudged for the crime of having a penis, but as sanjeev says, it wouldnt proove anything i dont allready know, and i'm not a woman so my posts would really be pointless.

if a mans voice really is unwelcome here please tell me and i will leave, i mean that, i'll stop posting alltogether.