How eyeliner defines my womanhood

[Shedbuilder]

I don't really have any words left:

www.bustle.com/p/how-eyeliner-defines-my-womanhood-54595

Tell me it's satire.

I'm fucked then as a woman, I haven't a hope in hells chance of working out how to get eyeliner on.

So I guess I'm.....I dunno a lost eyelinerless soul

You know who my fave girl band is?

Manic Street Preachers.

The good news, NewWay, is that women put in the work to widen the bandwidth of what it meant to be a woman years ago.

We had to fight for it, and it's still not fully won when women have to wear high heels and make up to be considered acceptable in certain fields, but we won the battle for trousers, comfy shoes, short hair, no make-up, playing football, fixing cars, "this girl can".

But it can all be rolled back and it feels like the gender stereotypes are starting to creep back in.

Men can widen the bandwith, but it takes a fight and it seems like it's much easier to push into the definition of "woman" than to change the definition of "man".

While I find the colonisation of womanhood frustrating, I genuinely do have sympathy with men who are rubbing up against the ridiculously small box of acceptable masculinity. I have a gay male friend whose partner often wears skirts and make up and he says he's genuinely afraid they will get beaten up one day. I don't think this fear is misplaced.

He's right and the fear isn't misplaced, but the answer isn't for women to budge up.

Women can be allies of feminine men, but we can't do the work for them.

'WHY have so many people - especially women - gone along with this utter bollocks?'

Yes. Just yes to this. God I'm tired

I love eyeliner and I wish buckets of eyeliner to everyone who wants it. Enjoy yourselves.

I managed 2 paragraphs of that article before I just couldn't take anymore

@lemmathelemmin

What about women who have a hysterectomy? Or women who are born without wombs?

erm, what? I began to publicly identify as a non-binary trans woman

i thought non binary was neither woman or man?

All it should be is " I'm a man who likes to wear eyeliner and stuff, I wish I could do that without fear".

Fair enough, I say to that.

My womanhood is defined by the five minutes I spend every morning plucking those annoying f**king hairs that have started to appear on my chin overnight. Obviously , a problem not shared with Gabriel.

I agree @sleepyhead

I don't care if he likes wearing makeup. But I do care that he expects his child to use his preferred pronouns.

"I'm GC, and if this person thinks that wearing eyeliner defines them as a woman, then that's fine."

Well, as a feminist, this will be why I don't call myself 'GC', because it's nonsense to claim to be critical of gender and then think that a man wearing eyeliner is expressing his actual 'womanhood', and say that those women who point out that eyeliner is purely gender in this context are expressing 'hatred'.

To be critical of gender as a feminist, rather than as a shorthand identity label, is to point out that this person is free to express themselves by wearing eyeliner with fear of violence or unfair discrimination, but it defines nothing about their status as a 'woman' and the suggestion that it would is precisely what feminists have been arguing against, in terms of gendered stereotypes, for years.

Agree mascotte. He should just have said that

I like wearing eyeliner. Men shouldn’t beat me up for this

He could off talked about male violence and he he is fighting against it

He threw out his boys clothes, must be a woman then, he wears womens clothes now ffs

The love that dare not speak its name.......

@Deliriumoftheendless Mine was Duran Duran. Nick Rhodes, there's a guy who could work a good eyeliner.

Yeah, but if he was just a man who liked wearing eyeliner he wouldn't be special, would he, because he'd be just like all the men who've been wearing eyeliner for years.

@DrDavidBanner I raise you with David Sylvian 😃

"How eyeliner defines my womanhood personality"

Fixed it.

Some people wear makeup, some don't.

It's funny how periods are nothing to do with womanhood and saying so is a thoughtcrime but saying that eyeliner defines your womanhood is all fine.

And just when I thought I couldn't be peaked anymore.

Women, on the whole, aren’t defined by eyeliner.But for reasons beyond her control, this one is

FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Littlemeadow123

@lemmathelemmin

What about women who have a hysterectomy? Or women who are born without wombs?

Well that’s completely different and not at all comparable. A woman that’s not born with a womb is still biologically a women just something went wrong and stopped the womb growing properly, or ovaries or whatever else.

These phenomenal occurrences do happen but the fact she will have xx chromosomes prove she’s a woman- womb or no womb!

It’s simultaneously hilarious and sad isn’t it.

I genuinely feel sorry for a human who is so unhappy in their own skin. I hate that they are made to feel so uncomfortable within themselves that the only way they can feel confident is dependant on eyeliner and then their external trappings.

At the same time their desire to zazzy up the outside does not equate to being a woman, and gives them no right to claim our identity from us, and it’s terribly sad that they can’t see how the answer to their problems is to fight against the patriarchical bullshit that says they can’t present how they want. Instead of taking on the hard fight they expect women to ‘be nice’ and move over.

They are so caught up in trying to escape their own unhappiness that they can’t see the damage that they are doing to women’s rights and women’s safety.

Women, trans and queer people should be allies in pulling apart patriarchy and toxic masculinity but instead we are turning on each other whilst the root of the problem remains unchallenged.

Oh yes @Mascotte!

Go back a few decades to when men could quite wear make up and dress flamboyantly and still be comfortable with their masculinity, I mean look at Prince! (Now he really was a sexy MF)

We seem to be regresssing.

My high school boyfriends wore at least as much eyeliner as that, and flouncier clothes, without attempting to colonize womanhood or invade women's spaces

Only because they didn't think of it