Educate me

[kittyclouds]

I am asking a genuine question here .... there seems to be mixed feeling about RuPauls drag race (and drag in general or not?). Can you help me understand if you do have an issue with it, what that is.
Again, just really keen to learn others views ..

Why would feminist be expected to support drag?

From what I've seen on here, some women see drag, any drag, as a gross over-exaggeration of women. Like they're ripping the piss out of women and using it as a form of entertainment.

Openly mocking women and profiting from it.

That's what I've seen discussed on here before.

Sorry, what is the issue? I consider myself a feminist but I wonder what I am missing.
I'm being stupid.
These men are playing with identity.
I'm genuinely asking a question

Suggest you go back to the big thread on it... Lays out both sides in detsil

Openly mocking women and profiting from it.

While presenting themselves as 'womaning' better than women.

Have you searched for previous threads on this? Saves everyone writing things out again.

TL:DR;
for the same reason that we no longer have to tolerate the black and white minstrel show; its not acceptable for people in the oppressor class to parody people who are oppressed by their class.

Sorry new to MN, don't mean to rehash old topics.
So it's about appropriation of "woman ness". Thank you: that's helpful. How do I close the thread? Don't want to piss people off!

Threads don't close, you just stop posting.
We also tend to just discuss topics rather than have an 'educate me' preamble or massive apologies (everyone needs to practice assertiveness and it may as well be here as anyhwere.)

There's an advanced search function (button at the top of the page) so you can look at previous threads on any subject, or use google.

The thread will eventually fall down the list as people stop posting and responding. :)

Thanks. I'm actually quite an assertive person really but know online communication can quickly escalate hence the apologetic nature. I just wanted a straight response which I've had. Thanks all.
It is a bit of a scary place this MN though!

UR welcome. That was nice.

It’s not appropriation of ‘woman ness’ it’s using sex role stereotyping that’s pushed onto women to keep us below men in the hierarchy of gender. Women are harmed by the constant scrutiny on our looks, by the pressure to be sexy, to wear make up and heels to appeal to men. Drag queens take these things and exaggerate them to the extreme and use those for humour, so the very things used to keep women in our place as sex objects that exist for men, the things like sexy clothes we are both pressured to wear and denigrated for being sluts who are asking for it are being used for humour when men put them on. It’s like black face which is offensive to poc because white people can pretend to be black and use negative stereotyping like acting like a rap star or whatever for fun then they can just wash it off at the end of the day and escape it unlike poc. It minimises their experience and our role in it and drag queens do the same to women, the can slip into the sexy role stereotypes that harm us and laugh about it then they can slip out of them at the end of the day and go back to enjoying their male privilege.

I can’t say it’s an argument I feel terribly invested in unlike other issues harming women at present but I do think the argument is correct. Why is black face unacceptable yet drag is? (Because poc include men and women don’t matter so our oppression is ignored).

VMisaMarshmallow
I haven't made my mind up on this.
I will say I've been uncomfortable with it from the first time I'd seen drag on holiday as teenager.
Theater, musicals I love, but drag seems different there's this niggling feeling that they are making fun of women Next time you watch a drag show or programme look to see if there are any digs at women,any mention of women about how we should look or act, any mention of being a real woman, That's misogyny on display and it's not fun then.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3731420-Why-is-comparing-Womanface-to-Blackface-offensive
Here's a a thread that you could read. Op once you see misogyny you can't unsee it. But maybe this thread would be helpful to you to answer your question.

Men dressed as women in theatre is fine imho, assuming you’re talking a traditional Shakespeare performance or similar. That’s not about laughing at the exaggerated sex role stereotyping that keeps women in place firmly below men. Equally men wearing make up and skirts is fine, Nicky Wire is a great example, make up and skirts don’t need to belong to women as a sex, and drag laughing at exaggerated versions of sex role stereotyping is totally different from men not buying into restrictive gender stereotypes. I also think ‘drag’ is ok within the right context, for example I love Lisa Nova’s old ‘hot girlz’ satire with Kassem G in (bad) drag to act as a (knowingly unconvincing) girl, they are satirising the ridiculously vapid reality shows like cribs/Laguna beach & so on. These are fine imho, none are out to laugh at the expectations that women be sexy, slutty, superficial, while we are condemned for all those things also. Drag uses exaggerated make up (but not the silly version kassem g has on that looks like it’s done by a child) large fake breasts, revealing clothing, heels etc and uses derogatory misogynistic slurs as if that’s how women talk to each other, uses exaggerated flounces and over the top performance of ‘femininity’ to get laughs, to earn money, then they can slip out of their performance of femininity at the end of the night and return to male privilege, while we can’t escape our biological reality of being a woman as these harmful sex role stereotypes are used to keep us below men in the hierarchy of gender.

I think drag the way it’s done in drag race or traditional drag shows/performances, as opposed to men dressing as women in other ways, is completely different and I think it has obvious parallels with black face, which makes it worse imho than the likes of cultural appropriation that may well also use regressive and offensive tropes like dressing as a ‘gypsy’ for Halloween or similar. Drag race, like black face, makes fun of the things the privileged class uses to judge, demean, and belittle the oppressed class.

I think the feminist line of argument against drag race is 100% spot on, I just don’t feel motivated to argue it publicly the way I would self ID or sex work or the glass elevator or a number of other issues. I guess I might feel just as fucked off by drag race if some of the other issues were less of an immediate threat iykwim?

There's the drag queen who 'performed' an abortion on stage - I don't think taking the piss out of one of the most difficult decisions a woman can face is funny, nor is the drag queen who is named after a 6 year old murdered girl (Jon Benet Ramsey) and don't get me started on the convicted sex offender drag queens in Houston libraries or the ones who ask 3 year olds their pronouns or have the kids crawl all over them whilst lying down for fun...

I used to think it was funny. Now? Not so much.

These men are playing with identity.

The problem is that 'woman' isn't an identity.

Men should be free to wear whatever they want as men. They shouldn't need to pretend to be women to wear sparkly dresses and heels.

It’s the calling women (the old fashioned kind, with vaginas) ‘fish’ that pisses me off.

I've been mulling over my feelings on drag. Previously, I've said that acts such as Lily Savage, Dame Edna, Cissy and Ada are funny because the comedy isn't solely in the drag - it's proper comedy. Well written.

Someone dressing in an extreme form of 'feminine' and using it as an excuse to slag women off whilst claiming it's just banter or by behaving in a sexual way isn't comedy IMO, although no doubt some people find it funny.

Acting like a misogynist isn't nullified by a wig, sparkly dress and heels and giving yourself a euphemistic name. Playing with identity is fine, but it's not a comedy act.

it's proper comedy. Well written.

I think there is a difference between playing a character who happens to be female and dressing up as a stereotype.

Sometimes it's difficult to know where the line is, but I don't think the competitors on Ru Paul's Drag Race are gifted actors and comedians creating 3 dimensional characters.