We run from TIM's run to

[spontaneousgiventime]

Stereotypes.

I watched the MB program last night and was in despair amongst other emotions It was packed with the very stereotypes we are trying to escape from.

When my husband was alive I used to de-fuzz all the time. Why? I genuinely don't know, he didn't ask me to. Maybe it was just a feeling it was the 'done thing'. Since he died I no longer shave (epilate in my case) apart from my pits and that's for hygiene reasons. All winter I used the fuzz to keep warm, my legs didn't get a shave once. Even now I would only do it if I was wearing cropped trousers, a skirt or dress very, very rare

I hardly ever wear make up, it has to be for a special occasion or event and even then I keep as neutral as possible. Today, I am wearing an old pair of joggers in a size to big so I look like a sack of spuds tied in the middle. I also have on an old vest top I ought eons ago. I'm not going out today so haven't even brushed my hair, after my shower I just towel dried it and shook.

TIM's do all the things we want to escape from, face full of make up and primped to the Nth degree. It's taking us back to a place I and many more of us don't want to go. I fully respect the rights of anyone to wear and present as they choose. I don't think anyone should be made to feel bad for that. I just want TIM's to know, be who you want to be, dress how you want but please, don't take women down the rabbit hole of regression, we are only just seeing light from years of climbing.

Seeing the surgery scene last night and MB claiming it's to make MB 'the person they feel they are' made me angry, it's vanity pure and simple. Hours of reading trans forums have given me an insight into a world full of these damaging stereotypes, yet TIM's think that's #whatmakesawoman.

This post is a tad disjointed - sorry. I just wanted to put my thoughts down and see what others think.

I agree.

It's kind of like drag to me. MB seems like a gay man in drag. I'm not sure what the difference is TBH. Where and how does MB become a woman?

It's fake plastic boobs, plastic surgery, fake hair, fake nails. All fake. When you peel all that off underneath is a gay male still with penis.

It's fake hair, fake nails, fake boobs, fake vagina if they even bother to have surgery facial surgery, so a fake face, all this fakery to make a real woman. Can't they see the irony of this?

I'm a little girlier than I used to be but stil see that stereotypes of femininity are harmful and restrictive. All gender stereotypes are so yeah, this was one of the very first things to confused me when I heard about the whole transgender thing.

I've copied this over but had a similar response.

It was hearing India Willoughby on Woman's Hour last year saying that a woman not shaving her legs was 'dirty' which made me aware of some of these issues. I had to listen again on catch-up to check that I hadn't imagined it. The discussion was about the sexist requirements of dress within the hospitality industry specifically about heeled-shoes..

I found it bizarre and so regressive having not heard such opinions voiced since the early 1980s when I was at school.

Jenni Murray comments about this in The Sunday Times were overshadowed by the outcry that followed:
(extract)
"India held firmly to her belief that she was a “real woman”, ignoring the fact that she had spent all of her life before her transition enjoying the privileged position in our society generally accorded to a man. In a discussion about the Dorchester hotel’s demands that its female staff should always wear make-up, have a manicure and wear stockings over shaved legs, she was perfectly happy to go along with such requirements. There wasn’t a hint of understanding that she was simply playing into the stereotype — a man’s idea of what a woman should be.

She described hairy legs on a woman as “dirty”. But hairy legs are not considered dirty in a man. Did she not know that the question of whether a woman should shave her legs or her armpits had been a topic of debate among women for an awfully long time? And that to describe a woman who chose not to shave as dirty was insulting and again suggested an ignorance of sexual politics?"

IW flashing IW boobs on CBB was cringe-worthy. IW seemed to think they were a sign of being a woman. No, IW they are a sign you take female hormones as your body doesn't want to grow boobs naturally.

I recall the first stirrings of alarm/confusion when CJ was on the cover of vogue. All this approbation for creating a face that women with body dysmorphia create. Or women who are ageing and who can't accept those changes. CJ 'passed' by looking absolutely 'fake'

Women are embracing those stereotypes more than ever though. Loads of makeup, boob jobs, depilated genitals Young women. Maybe that is why this doesn't worry them as much.

Vogue

CJ 'passed' by looking absolutely 'fake'

That isn't what a woman CJ's age looks like.

Picasso

Yes. That's what I was getting at. People's ideas of what women really look like are so screwed in the internet age

... sorry, hence the 'passed' in inverted commas. Any more that people believe Joan Collins is still 45 of whatever age she's hoping to approximate. And yet... the media are all full of how great she looks

When women use the word pass about their own appearance, it's about being suitably dressed for the occasion.

Men use it to talk about convincing people they are a woman.

CJ was not really suitably dressed for a woman of that age on the cover of Vogue. I don't want women of that age to feel there is something cool about contorting in a corset on a magazine cover, it's a grim parody. Ergo not convincing or passing in any aspect.

We are agreeing, I'm just thinking out loud here.

I think what happens is that woman gets conflated with the male gaze of cinematography as described by Laura Mulvey:

the male gaze is the act of depicting the world and women in the visual arts and literature from a masculine and heterosexual point of view

So the aim is to be the woman of the male gaze, not an actual woman with unbrushed hair sitting on her sofa wearing ropey old jogging bottoms. That woman, with the unbrushed hair, is a failed woman from this perspective. Miranda Yardley makes a similar point when they say that trans people often confuse feeling sexy with feeling like a woman.

Picasso

Oh yes, me too (thinking out loud)

Yes, absolutely. Its so disheartening to see many young women lapping it up too.

I've heared it said from TRAs that transwomen are challenging stereotypes of women because they are just, like, women who don't fit the "stereotypical" definition of woman. Having a penis or looking male etc is challenging the stereotype of female and therefore should be celebrated and supported by radical feminists.

Stella Creasey said that the GRA was in need of reform because the current version "promotes syereotypes". She I think was referring to the bit that requires living as a woman for two years when the only way to do that is to live in woman stereotype for two years so obviously the fix for that problem is to remove the requirement to live as a woman for two years and just let any bloke self declare as a woman whenever.

It's all topsy turvey.

Lang

And that chimes with AGP I guess?

Summer

Yes. Lapping it up is the way I think of it too. Like it's super-admirable because it's aspirational with a side order of angst

Opheliah

That makes my brain hurt

Yes, the AGP performance is all for their own male gaze.

So let me get this straight;

Hairy legs = You're not a real woman
Penis = Totally cool, you're 100% woman

Phew, glad to know where we stand.

So let me get this straight

Hairy legs = You're not a real woman
Penis = Totally cool, you're 100% woman

Yup, that's about right

Like others, the IW comments about unshaven legs being "dirty" was one of my peak trans moments. It's just so insulting, isn't it? IW didn't say that unshaven legs were "unattractive" or "unfeminine" (which would still not have been OK, but at least it's a fairly mainstream position). She said they were dirty - urgh. This is such a telling insight into how IW views the world, IW and women

"Dirty" is such an interesting word. In this context it doesn't literally mean "dirty". It often doesn't. The great Mary Douglas noted the way that particular cultures and religions used the terms "clean" and "dirty" to distinguish themselves from other, outside groups. So "pork" is dirty, for example, in the Muslim and Jewish religions. Homosexuality is "dirty" in the conventional heterosexual world view. Immigrants are "dirty" as far as white racists are concerned.

So what does India mean by "dirty"? It seems to be a way of differentiating between real women, who conform to traditional gender stereotypes, and people like radical feminists, who don't. In this view, Willoughby, who is biologically male, is a woman, but someone like Julie Bindel, who is female, isn't.

RedHollyhock
Nailed it

R0wantrees said:
She described hairy legs on a woman as “dirty”. But hairy legs are not considered dirty in a man. Did she not know that the question of whether a woman should shave her legs or her armpits had been a topic of debate among women for an awfully long time? And that to describe a woman who chose not to shave as dirty was insulting and again suggested an ignorance of sexual politics?"

But in starting this topic, spontaneousgiventime said:
I no longer shave (epilate in my case) apart from my pits and that's for hygiene reasons.

Dirty? Hygiene?

I was quoting Jenni Murray.
I share her view, which is nuanced.

Its clearly different than an individual's preference.

It's interesting reading peoples views. They mirror so many of my own. I admit I hadn't heard IW say unshaved legs were dirty. I think IW needs to think before opening that God awful gob of theirs. I think it's fair to say the majority of us shower or bath every day or every couple of days and wear clean undies. I confess, a day at home means I have left the bra in the drawer

Hairy legs = You're not a real woman
Penis = Totally cool, you're 100% woman

I saw this and know that it is how TIM's and TRA view things, crazy isn't it. Flap your dick around, no worries it's a nice cute lady dick, don't shave and you're no woman. God, what a shitshow this all is.