Juno Dawson article in The Pool

[HomeTerf]

I get The Pool bulletins in my inbox every morning. Today I was in a bad mood before I'd finished my first cup of tea.

www.the-pool.com/beauty/beauty-honestly/2018/13/juno-dawson-on-international-transgender-day-of-visibility-beauty?utm_source=today&utm_campaign=a7392b5b00-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0522b4f78a-a7392b5b00-69698209&mc_cid=a7392b5b00&mc_eid=c50be11d85

clicky link

I can't quite put my finger on why it's so annoying. Perhaps because Dawson is trying to elicit sympathy at the fact that transwomen have to be attractive (or 'fuckable') to get on magazine covers (like women then) and simultaneously objecting to only being used by magazine editors to tick a diversity box and not because they're the best person for the job (ie. attractive.) Perhaps it's the passing token mention of black, Muslim and disabled women, when I'd say that disabled women in particular are far more woefully underrepresented in the media than transwomen (most notably in the New Suffragette feature in which Paris Lees was given a place.) Perhaps it's just the snippy tone.

I've read it through twice and I'm still not quite sure what its point is. Apart from flogging Dawson's book. At least that bit was clear.

I think Juno is trying to 'sound like a woman'. The feature has creepy whiff of mimickery in the tone, trying really, really, really hard to not let the male entitlement show- straining.

It just ends up sounding insincere and trivial - women's issues need more gravitas.

There was also the obligatory “many of us are murdered brutally, usually victims of male violence”. While even one person murdered is bad, where are the “many” compared to female murder victims? And “usually”? The remainder were perpetrated by aliens, perhaps?

The entire article was basically an excuse to make sure everyone knows that he himself is part of the group referred to below.

My second concern was a broader one. If we look back at that list of transgender people working in fashion and beauty, one thing becomes clear: they are all eminently fuckable. It seems only a certain type of trans person is allowed to be visible in the media.

No further comment because I don't want to get banned.

If we look back at that list of transgender people working in fashion and beauty, one thing becomes clear: they are all eminently fuckable. It seems only a certain type of trans person is allowed to be visible in the media.

And this isn’t true of women? Jesus would you ever take your finger out of your arse and listen to what women have been saying for decades?

Let’s have a chat when an overweight or older woman or even a woman with facial hair is on TV regularly without facing hate and abuse in tabloid rags on a weekly basis just for having the temerity to exist without looking like Holly Willoughby.

Of course, this goes well beyond trans visibility. If you take out the word “trans” in the above paragraph, you get “a woman is only considered ‘successful’ if she has managed to not only be a woman, but actually become a supermodel”. What we need to do is redefine the entire archetype of beauty so that all women can stop feeling like we’re competing in a fixed race we’re designed to lose, the finishing line perpetually being moved by the beauty business.

We have been saying this for years but yes of course it is only worth listening to when reframed by a male voice.

Welcome to the world of women where we are judged on our looks. FFS what did she expect??

We have been saying this for years but yes of course it is only worth listening to when reframed by a male voice.

The whole piece is mimickery and appropriation. The mask slips a bit in the 'usually' comment [Juno is only able to mimic just short of actually calling out male violence] and the 'fuckable' comment [we know that men imagine the whole point and benefit of womanhood is all about basking and revelling in the male gaze].

A big yyy to all of this. Thank you for focusing my anger!

It was the melodramatic trans-bingo mention of murder in the opening paragraph that got my blood boiling immediately and I couldn't think straight after that.

Let’s have a chat when an overweight or older woman or even a woman with facial hair is on TV regularly without facing hate and abuse in tabloid rags on a weekly basis just for having the temerity to exist without looking like Holly Willoughby.

But this ^^. This is it.

Who knew you have to be fuckable to get ahead in the beauty and fashion industry? /s
It must be such a shock when your validation is suddenly based on an entirely new criteria, one that you were previously unaware of.

Juno Dawson and Paris Lees are media darlings and friendly with a lot of journos.

Also Caitlin Jenner on vanity fucking fair. Kellie Maloney for gods sake. When do natal women of those ages and appearances ever get that kind of profile? Never!

India Willoughby topless on CBB and not being told to 'put em away love noone wants to see that'

What we need to do is redefine the entire archetype of beauty so that all women can stop feeling like we’re competing in a fixed race we’re designed to lose, the finishing line perpetually being moved by the beauty business.

I hope that, to the casual viewer, being young, ultra-feminine, thin and pretty isn’t the mark of a “successful” transition on Transgender Day of Visibility.

I'm sorry, but someone born male has spent tens of thousands of pounds in an effort to conform to their own ideal of a woman is supposed to look like.

To then criticise the beauty industry that they have not only leveraged, but personally profited from, is the rankest hypocrisy.

No one would even be listening to Juno if they hadn't bought in to society's ideals of beauty.

Juno is THE customer that keeps the beauty industry in business.

Welcome to the world of women where we are judged on our looks. FFS what did she expect??

Quite. Welcome to gender you fool. What did you think it was? Your special ladyfeelz? No. It's a system of externally imposed expectations. We did try to tell you but you didn't listen.

You can't self-identify into an oppressed group and then be surprised by your oppression, you utter navel-gazing idiot.

Er, newsflash, NONE of this is news to women.

Why do you think half the population aren't multi-millionaire supermodels? Why do you think modelling is the only industry in which women are more famous and rich? Why do you think we spend billions on make up, diets, hair removal, shoes that cripple us and don't just nip down the barbers for a six quid haircut?

Why the fuck are we giving credence to this utter shit?

Come back to us when the media, fashion and modelling world is saturated with women who are short, fat, plain and elderly.

Fuckable? You grim prick.

Juno is echoing what women have been saying since forever.

It's not so much that they are now coming in for same treatment as women, that annoys me.

It's that they are propping up the very system that they now denigrate.

Far more than women. They've actually claimed they've changed sex in order to perpetuate feminity. Nailing that very stereotype to the mast of 'woman'.

They couldn't just be a man with female traits. That's not allowed. They had to be a woman because that's where femininity resides.

Juno is echoing what women have been saying since forever

Isn't that the whole point though? They're 'wearing' our frustration with the beauty industry just as they wear 'our' makeup

So many good points and so much sense here. Thank you.

One of the reasons I was so annoyed this morning was that I've been keeping an eye on The Pool to see if they touch the trans issue. They're clear that their audience is women, and they include a lot of political content highlighting sexism and inequality - the JJ crowdfunder story and #labourlosingwomen would have been right within their remit, but of course they ignored those. It's disappointing that they chose to run a piece that makes them look all woke and inclusive while reinforcing shit gender stereotypes and transplaning female experience to actual women.

As a happier aside You can't self-identify into an oppressed group and then be surprised by your oppression, you utter navel-gazing idiot made me laugh. It's going into my pithy phrase hall of fame.

Isn't that the whole point though? They're 'wearing' our frustration with the beauty industry just as they wear 'our' makeup

There are, of course, you're right. But is the frustration genuine?

Is Juno genuinely frustrated that they can't achieve the ideal that they have in their mind? Or is it a faux concern because it sounds like the sort of thing women say and do?

I suppose it's because they are buying into the stereotype that they themselves have created.

It's a difficult thing, for me at any rate, to articulate.

Seeing the picture of Juno as a man sent my blood pressure soaring.

They are male. They are very male.

These men don't always realise that they are as much a victim of sexism and gender stereotyping as everyone else. They sincerely don't get it. Because they are blind to sexism.

And then, they go right ahead and perpetuate it. That's where my frustration lies.

Compounded by the fact that they then start moaning about it.

The lack of insight, the absence of analysis, and the complete failure to really have any affinity whatsoever with women, whilst claiming to be one, exasperates me beyond measure.

The fact that many men, normal, everyday men, don't see it, just makes it worse.

I'm going to use a long quote here from Ways of Seeing by John Berger. The book was written in the 1970s and I don't think it's ever been bettered in terms of succinctly explaining the man gaze and woman as object:

"A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another....

One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object -- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”

Remember, this was written in the early 70s. Before the internet. Women are watched and evaluated continually now. And that gaze is no longer just in the moment, it's filmed and scrutinised over and over again.

Trans women continually fail to understand the impact this has on women. They either relish in it (Paris Lees) or they complain that they aren't beautiful enough to be objectified. Either way, they really don't get the way that most women feel about it. Because we have no choice

As well as the erudite comments already posted, I wonder whether there's just a smack of "it's not fair that I will always have hands that are so big that they will always be a giveaway that I am a transwoman"? That JD has spent so much money trying to "pass" and yet knows that they will always fall short

I don't think that JD really cares that the fact that I have not shaved my legs for a week means that I am - according to many - "unhygienic", or that my decision to go out today with no make up on (acne scars be damned) would qualify me for a circle of shame side bar, if I were famous

Julia Louis Dreyfus' last fuckable day

m.youtube.com/watch?v=XPpsI8mWKmg

Isn't that the whole point though? They're 'wearing' our frustration with the beauty industry just as they wear 'our' makeup

Tallulah that's literally the most perceptive thing anyone has said about anything ever. Can we go ahead and make you a Wikipedia entry based on it?

Isn't the beauty industry is kind of an important tool to the vast majority of trans women? I can ignore every make up counter in Debenhams, refuse to give in to plastic surgery. I will still be perceived as a woman.

So Beardy McPlaidShirt up there is an earlier version of Juno? He looked better like that, and I say this as a woman who finds that look incredibly unappealing and wishes the lumberjack trend would go away and young men would stop walking around looking like extras from Oh Brother Where Art Thou.

I'm sure Juno is frustrated on a personal level by the lack of fawning over the beauty that they had assumed would come with transition, but that's narcissistic injury and personal vanity, not systemic oppression.

CapnH I read that book a couple of weeks ago and that exact passage hit me so hard it nearly knocked the breath out of me. Thanks for sharing it.