Is Woman Face offensive?

[Sunflowersforever]

Saw two interesting stories today. One on the revisionist work around the Apu character in the Simpsons; and one on the human Ken Doll Rodrigo Alves dressed up as a woman.

This has got me thinking.

With the strong British history of men dressing as women (panto, Dick Emery etc) is it time to say that, no, dressing up as a woman is offensive now just as 'blacking up' would be? If we challenged the black and white minstrel show, why is it ok for Ken Doll (his term) to do this?

Women are routinely treated as second best and suffer violence and discrimination on a scale unheard of for most groups, so why is it funny or acceptable for men to dress as women?

This is the image

I dislike drag, it's parodying women. Hypocritically, I liked Lily Savage because I felt it was a character being played, and also a character that he liked. So...a bit confused on the subject, but mostly dislike it.

Yes, I see what's you mean. I also loved Lily Savage, and back in my youth remember seeing drag acts like Lola Lasagne and being so ok with it .... but the recent gender fluid phenomena has started to make me question this and think, wait a minute, why is this so ok?

What's funny about drag and b&w minstrels is the superior being dressing up as the inferior. That's how I see it, anyway. The reason I could tolerate/enjoy Lily Savage was because she took no prisoners.

It mocks women, imo. It's all so exaggerated, from makeup to mannerisms. Men dressing as something "lower than" in order to get a laugh.

Exactly

It does like into the current gender/sex debate of what is it to be a woman.

It's just like one of those, wait a minute. Why hasn't this been challenged?

Or is there an alternative view that someone else can explain?

PS. I always liked Apu but having read statements from how offended many young Indian people are by it, it does make me rethink it.

I agree, it is people using those “lower” or more disadvantaged in society for financial gain and furthering their career.
The find drag very distasteful.

It’s daft but it always remember on Stars in their eyes the contestants were not allowed to dress as another race or sex and even as a child I distinctly remember thinking “good!”.

It has always bothered me for just this reason. I used to go to a lot of gay clubs with a few gay male friends, and I remember being very uncomfortable watching a drag act that was really just ranting horrible misogyny. I have friends who love drag but I dislike it, apart from pantomime dames, where the humour is sillier and more good-natured. Maybe the misogyny is more obvious and the subversive element lessened now that gay men have equal rights and are far more integrated into society ?

I have never seen drag as “women face” mainly as I have never seen make up, clothes as “women” but more of a stereotype that should be pushed. Maybe it’s my 70s upbringing when challenges were made and Marc Bolan, David Bowie pushed the boundaries or maybe because I dress masculine but that is acceptable and not “man face”. also have a family member who does drag, he never claims to be a woman, drag is his presentation of himself that he would present if society was not so hung up on presentation equals sex.

I always felt uncomfortable with the progs on TV when I was growing up when the men dressed as women, I was born in early 70s so 2 Ronnie's, Les Dawson etc.

Now I'm older and look back, I think it was as basic as men taking the piss out of women, so no wonder I wasn't keen.

I don't know so much about "proper" drag.

I don't mind Lily Savage and I think Dame Edna is hilarious but I think context is key. With those two it's not so much 'woman face' as a double, double bluff. They are funny because they are men being women and we all know it.

Pantomime i saw this year was 2 women as the dames, wondered if traditional panto dames days are numbered as there has bern complaints for transfolk about drag etc. The women dames did get a blatant “tranny” joke in their routine which did surprise me.

Of course objections from women are completely dismissed but those from trans activists are taken seriously. I wonder if transwomen get told to 'lighten up' (and the equivalent) at all?

Personally I dislike all forms of womanface, whether the intent is to celebrate or denigrate the otherness of women it all relies on stereotypes and frequently mockery. Plus to exclude actual women (ie all the comedy shows that had men dressing as women instead of working with female comedians). I can't think of a drag character I've not found really grim including pantomime dames.

Oh and as someone who lived through the 80s I think glamorous men can be very sexy, zero problems there as that's a completely different thing. I'm all for non comformity, gender bending and androgyny too.

I dunno. Most of what men are dressing up as is not actually being women, is it? It's the costume we have habitually been accustomed/persuaded/coerced into wearing, that many of us eschew. I don't think that's harmful in itself - indeed I think the right endpoint for that stuff is costume that anyone can choose to wear if they feel like it, but noone is coerced into any more. Men wearing it is an important step towards that. So I think it's all in the attitude and the meaning of what they're doing - not bad in itself.

A man wearing a dress or heels or other 'feminine' wear is fine. A man wearing feminine clothes, make up, wig etc and also talking in a high pitched voice in a way that they think women speak and about things that they think women talk gets into parody.

Precisely. Man wearing skirt or makeup because he likes skirts or makeup - no problem, and artfully applied make-up looks good on most people. Man who's wearing that stuff because he wants to be sexy - also fine, as long as in his mind sexy doesn't mean...

Man dressed as a caricature of a woman, with the Betty Boop voice and the leopard print mini and the fishnets, and the overall idea being that woman = thing you fuck.

And you can always tell the difference. Nobody mistook Marc Bolan or Adam Ant for members of the latter group.

If we take this idea down to the child/baby level, why is it that "unisex" clothes are generally found in the boys' section? Why is it ok to dress girls in boy clothes but not the other way around?

Girls are seen as lesser beings than boys. Dressing a girl as a boy is a step up. Dressing a bit as a girl is a step down. It's all very obvious.

It didn’t bother me until the last couple of years. If you’re not at risk of losing something (in our case, our word, our ability to define ourselves) you can laugh at people taking the piss out of it. Now it seems less like fun.

I find men dressing as women hugely offensive to women - like we're an object of ridicule and stereotyping - and yes, we're supposed to laugh along. Why is acceptable for women but not for people of colour?

Great post OP - it's time women stopped accepting men's putdowns of them, in whatever guise, as OK. They are not. They discriminate by objectifying and stereotyping - this is why The Minstrels had to go, Robinsons lost its Golly and so on. This is why men get away with designing sex and robot dolls in female form, why they get to traffic women with little law enforcement, why women are routinely sexually abused and assaulted - because some men believe we are objects there for their use - - it's all part of the coercion and subjugation.

To laugh and dismiss drag as good ole fashioned humour, men being men etc is probably what the black slaves did in Southern USA for their white masters.

Yes, I agree with AngryAttack about the difference between a man wearing clothes/makeup that's aren't traditionally 'for men' and a man turning himself into a 'female fuck object'.

Plus I don't like a lot of the exaggerated personalities of drag queens, being super bitchy etc.

But then I suppose the stereotype of the panto dame as a nagging spinster is kind of offensive as well. I dunno.

I have always hated drag acts and never found them funny. Think Hinge and Bracket was the first one I saw.
I liked League of Gentlemen though but that seemed different to me as all the characters were mad, it wasn't a man being a woman that was the "hilarious" bit because women are so ridiculous.
I didn't like Mrs Merton either and an old woman being hilarious just because she's played by a young one.
I can't think of any women playing comedy male characters.

It depends. Objecting to any man being dressed as a woman for laughs would be ridiculous.

But you have opened my eyes to the “step down for fun” element.

“I can't think of any women playing comedy male characters.”

Kathy Burke?