Shon Faye v Ed Sheeran

[FordPrefect42]

Hello all,

Just wondering if anyone here has read Shon Faye’s recent Twitter post?

Basically within this post, which I will quote below, Faye is criticising Ed Sheeran for wearing casual clothing on stage whilst performing with Beyoncé who is wearing a rather unconventional dress:

“Ed Sheeran is a 27 year old man the fact we’ve enabled him to feel it’s ok to dress like this at all, let alone next to Beyoncé really boils my piss”

Please tell me I am not being unreasonable when I say that I think that this is a complete overreaction? I think people should be able to wear whatever they wish... also, I know this doesn’t have much to do with Feminism but Shon Faye is someone who is frequently discussed here and I can’t quite believe so many of my friends are in agreement with them on this statement (and also support them in general!)

I’m also inclined to believe this is their way of projecting their gender-related issues around clothing onto a man (which this individual still possesses the biological characteristics of...) but I may be leaping to conclusions!

So yeah - what does everyone think of this statement? I simply think this is their newest way of trying to get a few hundred likes and RTs by saying something controversial, personally.

P.S. I have used gender neutral pronouns to describe Shon Faye - please let me know if this goes against guidelines, I have tried to be as respectful as possible whilst acknowledging biological reality, if you understand what I mean. Thank you, and apologies in advance if this is unacceptable.

Ed Sheeran is a 27 year old man. The fact we’ve enabled him to feel it’s ok to dress like this at all, let alone next to Beyoncé really boils my piss

I really don't know what Faye is getting at, even with correct punctuation.

I don't know who "we" is. I took it to mean society / cultural norms in general. What is being "enabled" - beyond society allowing an adult man to wear what he wants and look scruffy if he wants?

Is Faye trying to make some point that an adult woman can't wear what she wants? (and if that is the point I'm not convinced by the hand wringing that goes on about women not being able to wear what they want)

The extra added Beyoncé point adds nothing. The post is just as meaningless without it.

I think this is about hatred of unisex clothes - ie the T-shirt and jeans combo. As gender is about performance of stereotypes, it is not possible for trans to pass as their preferred gender unless everyone plays the game. There have to be male and female acceptable identifiable clothing as there are no men or women. 'We' have enabled Ed to not perform gender through clothing. Shame on us

I don't think that makes any sense at all from Faye's point of view. Sheeran is wearing clothes which the vast majority of men in the western world wear. Of course plenty of women wear jeans and t-shirts but they are culturally accepted for men. Your point would make more sense if Sheeran had dressed like Grayson Perry or the transvestite comedian Andrew O'Neil or the singer Mike Hadreas (aka Perfume Genuis) or Courtney Act , all of whom are "men in frocks" and who don't claim that presenting as feminine in appearance means they are female. I don't see why Faye should be bothered by a bloke who looks like a bloke wearing bloke's clothes.

I do however have a good deal of sympathy for the hatred of gender neutral clothes. I'm very sceptical this means anything other than everyone has the choice of slightly different coloured jeans and t-shirts. I think it may also overlook that human nature may innately prefer there are external, albeit culturally applied and artificial markers.

Terry

that Novara video though. "The Awokening". Could they be any more wanky? Or were they trying for knowing irony? If so they missed it.

Ooh there needs to be an Attenborough programme about the sea slugs!

I still want to know who made Shon Faye the clothes police.

Why is it bad that Ed Sheeran has been "enabled" to wear casual clothes?

There is an argument that saying that 'trans women are not women' is being sucked into acceptance of the term 'trans women' even if from a critical standpoint. 'Men in frocks' may be cleverly subverting the view that clothing signifies gender but, like a lot of po-mo thinking, is read by the general public in a non-intended manner.

So it could be said that Ed's refusal to play the game is genuinely subversive and that this is what got Shon's goat. This level of outrage is not about being scruffy. He is not wearing 'blokes' clothing, he is wearing unisex clothing. If we are obsessed with identifying 'gender' we can find no signifiers we have to - shock horror - rely on biological sex characteristics.

If Shon wore a T-shirt and jeans (without the hair and makeup) they would be identified as male. This is why the T-shirt and jeans combo is hated. Without uttering a word it signifies that gender differences are constructed or, at the least, privileges biological sex over gender. It is not the fact that a man or woman wears them it is that, when wearing them, it is pretty obvious whether the wearer is a man or woman because they no more signify gender than a naked body.

Ed doesn't exist to validate Shon's gender identity.

Exactly - actively or passively ignoring a fake debate carries the same power.

Interesting point, KeepOn.

It is also deeply insulting to the many talented and hard working contemporary female musicians to try to write them off as sexualised bimbos compared to the 80s/90's- or not even be aware they exist.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that Lass, more that the pressure on female pop stars these days to wear hyper sexualised clothes is much greater than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

actively or passively ignoring a fake debate carries the same power

Precisely this. A threat to the necessary world view (for Shon) that material reality does not exist and everything is performative. Lose the vice-like cultural grip on that and it leaves Shon with nowhere to go.

'We' have enabled Ed to not perform gender through clothing.

Pretty much Shon's point, I think. Women are treated differently than men, but that's whoosh right over Shon's head.

Courtney Love and Hole were bigger gender benders. They wore male punk rock expectations and pissed everyone off. Madonna wore a sanitized version of an already sanitized don't put safety pins through your cheek version of punk (at least at first), then it became a Catholic schoolgirl pissing daddy off rebellion.

Generally, the show biz machine gets a hold of female singers and tells them they have to sell sex / glamour / shock. The smaller the voice, the more image they need to sell. Gaga is an exception -- the woman has real pipes; Beyonce's brand is that she's her own machine.

To get back to jeans and tee shirts, you have to get back before the machine took hold over hard rock -- Janis Joplin era, maybe, but even then if they wanted a record deal.

Layer cake isn't original in describing female staged faux fashion, but I will concede to sea slug.

I'm another who cannot understand the point of this tweet.

"Ed Sheeran is a 27 year old man. The fact we’ve enabled him to feel it’s ok to dress like this at all, let alone next to Beyoncé really boils my piss"

Removing the irrelevancies:

"Ed Sheeran is a 27 year old man." And your point would be ... ? Why is his age of any relevance here? Oh, three years younger than Shon and achieved so much more .

"at all, let alone next to Beyoncé" Hmm. Is she a goddess that all must bow before and dress in one's Sunday best for? (I'm sure many would probably say yes.)

So we're left with

"The fact we’ve enabled him to feel it’s ok to dress like this really boils my piss"
Shon, Ed has not been 'enabled' by anyone to dress how he does, he does so by his own agency. And who is this mythical 'we'? And why does how he dresses boil your piss?

In conclusion - I suspect Shon was drunk-tweeting. It's completely incoherent.

This article discusses the race privilege that allows ES to dress like this in contrast to the expectations on black performers. And made me go and listen to Skunk Anansie again so that's good.

I suppose Shon Faye has at least highlighted an issue even if they didn't mean to. You can't look at the photo of the scruff and the seaslug without being aware of the massive differences in pwrsonal care expectations for white men and black women.

Race privilege? Drake performs in tee shirts and sweatshirts.

It's just worded in such a bizarre, petulant way.

This is the wrong way around. To not show white male privilege what should Ed Sheeran have worn?

The TRAs and their compliant individual signalling allies think we've got it all wrong and it's because we are bad feminists. They seem to be ignoring the bit where Shon says that Ed (who I'm not keen on, which is irrelevant to how he can dress) simply shouldn't be allowed or tolerated to dress like he does:

"Ed Sheeran is a 27 year old man. The fact we’ve enabled him to feel it’s ok to dress like this at all"

Did you miss this? Happy to help!

How many oppressed black women are forced to dress like Beyoncé?

This to me is what using the word c*s about yourself represents. Obedience to trans ideological dogma and showing it. Throwing disobedient women under the bus if female, having a group of disobedient women to abuse with impunity if male.

To not show white male privilege what should Ed Sheeran have worn?

I've been wondering about that. You can say what he was wearing was unisex but it was also standard issue bloke wear. What was he supposed to wear?

ES wasn't making a statement - he dressed the same way he always does. God knows what Beyoncé came as. Thinking she has to look 'sexy' is about being a woman. What about her outfit was about being black?

I've been wondering about that. You can say what he was wearing was unisex but it was also standard issue bloke wear. What was he supposed to wear?

I'll wager Shon wouldn't have been happy if he'd have worn a dress.

Doesn't ES have a wispy beard? Isn't that an appropriate gender signifier.

Anyway on a previous duetting B forget to put her skirt on

Sheeran should have been wearing white tie and tails.