Why is comparing Womanface to Blackface offensive?

[Backinthecloset123]

I've seen quite a few people state this is offensive and still don't understand why.

Here's an example.

twitter.com/Bon_QuiGirl/status/1189546024479707137?s=19

Could someone explain?

The way I see it, the abhorrence of the history of slavery and racism, and of course blackface, can be equated to the abhorrence of Womanface due to the history of the rape, abuse, murder and hatred towards women by men, the FGM taking place to this day, the murdered female infants, the list goes on.

I am trying hard to understand and would love to hear why my thinking is wrong, and the comparison offensive. I have no hidden agenda.

But gay men do it so it's not. Or something.

I won't use the term 'womanface' because it's an appropriation and it doesn't feel quite accurate either. I agree with everything you say there Fraggling.

Not a single person has addressed Parkie and Kenny Everett calling women "Stupid c*nts" whilst he dresses as a woman with massive fake breasts and showing his underwear. Everybody OK with that then? I guess it was a while ago.

I absolutely do think some men use dressing up as women as a way to perpetrate violence and dehumanise them.

Just look at sissy porn.

It's not as overt as blackface but there are definitely elements of it there.

Some men use dressing up as a woman to humiliate themselves so they can get off on it sexually, because women are there to be fucked. They are the lowest thing it's possible to be.

I'm happy to be told I'm missing something by black women and I'll listen to them and not use the analogy again but I do think that some men use it as an act of violence.

I’ve not heard of evergreen college, but thanks for engaging with my comments

And of course women’s oppression can be discussed ... far out

I don’t know any Black feminists in the UK who are fine with the comparison but I only know a couple. I’m interested to hear from more as I appreciate the cultural context is different, the systematic, institutional rape and murder did not occur.

Yes I’m well aware that most women in the world are not white or western. But people who link drag to Blackface are white and western (it seems)

Just like the ones who say “TWAW like BWAW!” and get offended if black women object

Is it offensive to compare yellowface with blackface? Given that there isn't the same history of lynching and slavery, that is.

Karabair I think it’s appalling and abhorrent that the drag performer you mentioned, said and did those things.

I personally find drag offensive and I’d never take my child to “drag library storytelling” which seems particularly awful - nor do I condone “child drag stars” which I think should be banned.

I don't think women are being told to shut up about an element of their oppression by being asked not to use the phrase 'woman face'. There is already a term that can be used - drag - and we can feel free to complain about that should we choose.

Blackface comes from an era when there weren't any positive representations of black people in society. However demeaning some may consider drag the same can't be said about representations of women. The category of woman has always featured a range of images - from the demeaned to the widely respected.

Also there are many women who like watching drag (not me) - perhaps because they know it doesn't represent how women are seen by everyone in society. They find it funny. No-one could ever say the same about blackface as the representations of black people in society have been so partial and insulting for so long.

I can see why it is offensive to use terms that put the two on a par with each other.

I don't mind not using the term woman face but I don't think drag is the word for it.

To me drag means playing with gender in any way, lots of drag queens play with masculinity now and there are drag kings too. Dragging up can also just mean taking on another character.
Some of drag is very offensive but that's when I particular thing is happening and that's when they are using it to demean or appropriate women.

What is the term for when men dress as women as a way to exert control, dominate or humiliate us??
Because we definitely need one, because it's definitely a thing.

Drawing attention to similarities between the two isn't like saying they were the same though. I can just about accept not using the word womanface but we shouldn't be forbidden from drawing parallels. That really is controlling speech and is not a good thing.

What is the term for when men dress as women as a way to exert control, dominate or humiliate us??
Because we definitely need one, because it's definitely a thing.

I am tempted to put a very specific man's name here, in response, but it would probably get deleted. But think pro extreme-porn campaigner turned television handicrafts enthusiast...

And, I really instinctively dislike not agreeing with Barracker, but I do here.

"I won't use the term 'womanface' because it's an appropriation"

Crikey.
When you elevate offence of women using the WORDS woman and face, over the actual ACT of men WEARING a costume of womanhood, and the 'appropriation' you care more about and condemn is the former, not the latter, I think your priorities are wrong.

Woman and face are my words to use, not possessed by others for me to be accused of appropriation.

I don't accept the policing, silencing and chilling rules from anyone, regarding what language I may or may not use to describe an aspect of women's oppression.
Not from TRAs and not from feminists.

The utter reach required in a woman telling women they may not use women and face juxtapositioned to describe the offence of men literally painting themselves with a woman face - because women haven't been killed in sufficient quantities

It's not about forbidding speech. Not for me, anyway. It's just about saying "Yeah, I can see how that causes more problems in this context than furthers our argument. I'll use a different means of explaining this point."

I guess I'm just motivated here by someone pointing out something I hadn't seen and adjusting my own behaviour. Much like when the Transwidows pointed out how it was pushing them out of feminism when we lionized the 'good trans' who were their husbands, so I stopped making Hayton a big deal.

But pointing out similarities to blackface often does make it clear to some people. Are we not to do so, or is it the use of the word?

Agree with Barracker.

Misogyny is the oldest prejudice. Males dominating, hurting and killing females has doubtless been around since before there even were any different human skin colours.

Black men are as good at misogyny as any other group of males.

I'm not being told I can't use a word that draws a very neat and apt parallel between two forms of mockery of historically oppressed groups.

If anyone wants to say oh no drag is done with humour and affection, well the same could be said of the British black and white minstrel show in its day.

Well, personally I'd be treading very carefully about using anything other than straightforward 'this is mocking, objectifying and enforcing really horrendous stereotypes about women, and in a world where women are stilled raped, killed and generally oppressed with impunity, I think that's punching down and isn't right'.

I know analogies can be powerful - we're all familiar with Barracker's brilliant use of the Rohypnol one. I'm not even making any pronouncements about not using this analogy, because, who the fuck am I, really. I'm just saying, I get the objection, and I understand it, and think I shall take it on board in future. Because specific women have raised an issue they find difficult and I act according to my conscience, which is all any of us can do.

Antibles
I don't like drag. I find it creepy and unnecessary. However a few drag artists when done up can look like actual women. Maybe that is the appeal for some who like it. I don't know.

I do know that nobody from the black and white minstrel show ever looked like a real black person. Ever. It was always about ridiculing how black people looked. Many people watching it had no contact with black people to counteract that representation. It was never done with affection.

One final thought - iirc, drag shows do not act out FGM or the murder of baby girls at all, let alone as a hilarious event for men to laugh at.

Blackface (Minstrel shows) did portray the murder of black men and the rape of black women (although black women were portrayed as hyper sexual hence not rape). These events were presented not as tragedy, but comedy. White women laughed along with white men.

If you wish to compare blackface to drag, I’d suggest referring to +UK+ blackface. Black women in the US think you are belittling their ancestors by comparing their murder and rape to white men dressed as white ladies. Which I know is not the intention.

In case I have not been clear. I support any woman who finds drag offensive and wants to critique it, or any other aspect of female oppression.

Women as a class have been, and remain, oppressed based on their sex and it breaks my heart to see white libfems say otherwise.

It is also painful to see black and white feminists fall out on this issue of blackface. However, it doesn’t mean they are enemies (I hope!) as they are still fighting for many of the same things.

Personally I say “macho ma’ams” where I believe appropriate.

Every time you say “W-face” (quite aside from Black feminist critique) - you implicitly associate our word, woman, with the very people fighting to take it away from us. I saw a TRA screenshot a pile of “W-face” references and it seemed to give them a weird enjoyment, despite its intended meaning. So MM works for me.

I do not think that “womanface” exists. It is no different from women wearing “manface” by wearing trousers, no makeup, acting masculine.

I think it is offensive to compare anyone simply going against gender stereotypes in dress, makeup and manner to “blackface” because skin colour/race are not stereotypes in makeup, dress and mannerism.

But not all men dressing as women is drag.

Some of it is done in porn and as a humiliation fetish.

It's such a spectrum at one end you have men putting a bit of make up and dressing up as Beyoncé, and at the other you have men using dressing as a woman to sexually dominate.

It doesn't help to just call it all drag, we need the language to be able to call out when men are using it as a form of dominance and control.

It's the difference between someone plaiting their hair and full black face.

It's not about forbidding speech. Not for me, anyway. It's just about saying "Yeah, I can see how that causes more problems in this context than furthers our argument. I'll use a different means of explaining this point."

This is it for me. I read a couple of twitter threads yesterday asking white women to stop drawing parallels and explaining why. I can't see the value in fighting to use a particular phrase which is problematic/hurtful/divisive/triggering to a group of women when other phrases can be used. In-fighting and division will not serve us well.

because Blackface did not only mock: it dehumanised Black people and low-key legitimised their murder and rape by portraying it in a funny way

I take the point that some black women have objections to the comparison, and I'm fine with being mindful of my language in order not to alienate whoever I'm talking to, but this quotation so strongly reminds me of whichever dick it was who goes out dressed in socially-constructed-woman-as-fucktoy costume and then tells men how hot and sexy and powerful it makes first-person-singular feel when passing men make sexually aggressive and derogatory remarks.

People like that are inviting and excusing and celebrating male sexual predation of women and girls, and we all suffer for it.

Americans of my acquaintance - male or female, whatever colour - have shown a tendency to prioritise racism and cast it as the primary source of social ills. I get why, but it seems blinkered to me - racism and sexism aren't fundamentally different things. They're both rooted in basic human psychological tendencies towards ingrouping and the denigration and exploitation of outgroups. What I don't get is the unwillingness to contemplate the fact that US-style racism was implemented by a very aggressively patriarchal culture. The skin colour of that culture was largely incidental; the behaviour of that culture was and is so destructive not because it is racist per se but because it has evolved around a male-dominant ideology that cannibalises and consumes everything it touches.

Tyro, a fair point, well made. Male aggression and supremacy is to my mind, undoubtedly the root of so many evils.

I strongly disagree with the poster who says womanface isn't a thing because women in trousers aren't wearing manface.

Example to demonstrate point: Eddie Izzard's current attire I would call womanface, because he's obnoxiously equating the sexist stereotypes and expectations that serve to keep us mentally enslaved to our local iteration of patriarchy with being naturally female, and is thus normalising and legitimising culturally-specific mechanisms of oppression, subjugation, and sexual exploitation. He's proclaiming that our oppression is natural and by implication normal, unremarkable, and something that neither could not should be overturned.

Women in trousers aren't normalising the systemic oppression of men over millennia by choosing bifurcated leg-tubes. In fact we're explicitly saying "trousers are a human thing, not a man thing," by doing so.

You could make a case for transmen wearing "manface" but it doesn't really work so well because it's equating punching up with punching down. The structural power imbalance matters.

Beautiful, feminine gay men like Fionne, I call TW (mods, Fi uses “men”, please don’t delete).

Those of the ball-waxing ilk: macho ma’ams

I’m not a fan of W-face myself, even before the Great Unfollowing. But I’m even less a fan of compelled speech - if other women wish to use it, they can (of course).

Karahair had a good analogy about English people oppressing Scottish people and compelling their speech and wearing tartan. Maybe people could use that!?

2B using a reference to the oppression of the Scots (or Irish, or whoever) is fine by me, though I suspect it would have far less impact and would be laughed off as ridiculous by most.

After all, it lingers on in anti-ginger sentiment, and we're expected to suck that up as normal and unremarkable and harmless, and if we point out the origins of the practice and imply it might be a bit xenophobic we're pretty universally shouted down as oversensitive and unable to take a joke.

Its not a matter of prioritising racism over sexism or vice versa

It’s the fact that for white women, sexism is a lived experience of oppression while racism is an intellectual exercise... hence even thinking “society now sees racism as wrong but sexism is still acceptable” (I only wish this was true)

Black and brown women experience sexism and racism both as a lived oppression

Blackface is not only racist, it is sexist against black women. It mocked Black women’s body shapes for how they looked as women and sex objects, often hyper-lascivious (sexist) and how they differed from (were inferior to) white women’s bodies (racist).

If you equate:
Black face = racism; and
Drag = sexism

You “invisible” black women, and the sexism they suffered in blackface

Just as the “default woman” is white
The default Black person is male

So more accurately:

Blackface: sexist and racist
Drag: sexist