Glamour Magazine allows transwoman to redefine feminism

[MrsJamin]

Call yourself a feminist? Our transgender columnist Juno Dawson's here to see if you really pass the test

And calls women who don't "TERFs". Thanks, Glamour and Jo Elvin, thanks a lot.

[OlennasWimple]

I've re-read the article (I know, I know) and still don't actually know what Glamour thinks it means to be a feminist in 2016...

[OlennasWimple]

Grayson Perry is interesting - IIRC he describes having an alter ego (Claire) which is who is he when he wears a dress

[shins]

"Maybe I couldn't make it. Maybe I don't have a pretty smile, good teeth, nice tits, long legs, a cheeky arse, a sexy voice. Maybe I don’t know how to handle men and increase my market value, so that the rewards due to the feminine will accrue to me. Then again, maybe I’m sick of the masquerade. I’m sick of pretending eternal youth. I’m sick of belying my own intelligence, my own will, my own sex. I’m sick of peering at the world through false eyelashes, so everything I see is mixed with a shadow of bought hairs; I’m sick of weighting my head with a dead mane, unable to move my neck freely, terrified of rain, of wind, of dancing too vigorously in case I sweat into my lacquered curls. I’m sick of the Powder Room. I’m sick of pretending that some fatuous male’s self-important pronouncements are the objects of my undivided attention, I’m sick of going to films and plays when someone else wants to, and sick of having no opinions of my own about either. I’m sick of being a transvestite. I refuse to be a female impersonator. I am a woman, not a castrate."
Germaine Greer -The Female Eunuch (1970)

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

Now THAT'S feminism.

[Lottapianos]

Olennas, he does have an alter ego who he calls Claire, but he has always been very clear that Claire is really just him in a dress. He claims no special insights into how life is for women because of this, and I really appreciate him saying that. Ditto David Bowie, who responded to questions about why he wore 'a woman's dress' by putting the interviewer straight that it was in fact a man's dress, as it was he who was wearing it and he was, you know, a man.

Julian Clary is another example - known for wearing very pretty and glittery make up, looks gorgeous, identifies as a man

[MrsJamin]

You used to be able to mention Eddie Izzard in that list but unfortunately he's using trendy trans rhetoric now :(

[HermioneWeasley]

That book was massive for me

[shins]

Yes it's eerie because the trend now is for a kind of amped-up exaggerated version of femininity as it was when Greer was writing. False hair and false eyelashes and drawn-on eyebrows. Thick drag-queen eye make-up and fake tan, extreme epilation. At least women in 1970 got to keep their pubes and weren't injecting botulism into their faces.

[Lottapianos]

You're right about Eddie Izzard - since he announced that he has 'boy genes and girl genes' FFS I'm not in his fan club anymore

[shins]

Lotta, also in the roll of honour would be Prince -all man and very happy in high heels and make-up!

[Lottapianos]

Good call shins. I'm sure there are lots of others.

[shins]

Boy George? He had (still has) beautiful delicate features but built like a brick shithouse like his Irish builder dad and brothers, and no stranger to a ruck. Never in a million years have I heard him make any claims to womanhood, despite being so pretty in his day he "turned" straight men left right and centre.

[LittlePaintBox]

BenLinusatemyhomework

My mum taught me zip about feminine practices, no make up, hair, fashion advice. No conversations about boys, or shaving my legs or contraception. She did show me how to use Sanpro but that was it. I worked some of it out for myself some of it I still have no clue about and muddled (incompetently) along into womanhood. I can't imagine I'm alone in this

SNAP! In fact the only 'feminine' thing my mum ever taught me was how to do a 'sexy' walk when I was playing Anita in West Side Story. She was very good at it as well. Other than lobbing me some blue Rimmel eye shadow when I went to my first school disco, that was it in terms of passing on the secret rituals of femininity.

[BenLinusatemyhomework]

I've said for a while now (before I even became aware of identity politics), that beauty trends are ever increasingly veering towards the drag queen version of woman. All the contouring and the ridiculous fake eyelashes that look like a broom stuck to eyelids.

Women impersonating men who impersonate women. It's bizarre.

I'm going to throw Adam Ant into the ring of 'gorgeous feminine men'.

[DeviTheGaelet]

So missing the point of girl hood makeup. No way would any self respecting teenager take make up tips from their mother, or even big sister. Because they wouldn't know cool make up if it bit them

[DanaBarrett]

Pete Burns (RIP) only ever himself.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

Funnily enough there's a makeup artist whose videos I watch occasionally - a guy - who makes exactly that point about some of the makeup trends i.e. that they are drag.

[RufusTheSpartacusReindeer]

Yes to adam ant...a beautiful man

And boy george

[RufusTheSpartacusReindeer]

Maybe

But they were so ,so pretty

[RufusTheSpartacusReindeer]

Oh yeah cos they were so natural