Drag and misogyny

[SnowWouldHelp]

Do you find drag as a concept misogynistic? It came up on Thinking Allowed where it was compared to blackface and I realised I'd never thought of it like that. I haven't actually any seen any either so I don't know much about it and wondered what other people thought.

MissBarbary

I don't like her vagina jokes either. I find many of her jokes not funny. However, she is not making them about anyone else's body, just her own. She is not oppressing a more oppressed group of people making a joke about her body. If she was making jokes and referencing other people's or a group of other people's vaginas, maybe the comparison would be relevant.

I am pointing out the difference between her jokes about 'her' vagina and when it is allowed by society to continue for a group of males to continue to denigrate females.

And yes. This is my opinion, and obviously it doesn't agree with yours and I have stated quite clearly why.

@SaturdayRocks

The posters being disingenuous are the posters trying to justify rubbish like this from Amy Schumer

This is not me - I absolutely agree with you. I’m not justifying AS’s humour (how desperate for material is she??), and I don’t think drag queens making offensive jokes at our expense is OK either.

Trying to role out female comedians making vile jokes as a way of excusing it is sad. But for me, personally, it’s definitely somehow worse when other groups of people do it.

Just as gay men and drag queens would be up in arms if straight women were making offensive jokes about them and their genitals.

Again, just get better material. Stinking genitals? That’s really the best you can do....?

I agree. Except I think Schumer is potentially worse because of her validation of such a misogynistic trope.

Some might find this an interesting read

www.stylist.co.uk/long-reads/drag-king-female-entertainer-male-impersonator-vesta-tilley-drag-queens/330986

If that's to me, yes. Why should women complain about drag artists talking about fish - here's this idiotic woman validating them.

For the reasons everyone else has already said over and over again. Because one person making jokes about herself is not anywhere near in the same league as men, who have oppressed women for centuries, making jokes at our expense.

When are you going to address that?

You keep talking about apologists but you are clearly the apologist here. You are shifting the focus totally away from the men that do this, to focus on one woman that does this and call her worse when she is both much smaller than the huge culture of men doing this and also blatantly NOT worse in terms of what she is saying.

Hmm. The girl who lost here college place in the US for dropping that word in a car comes to mind. It was ostensibly 'banter' but it's use was historically used in a derogatory and dehumanising way. A word that is now been taken back and 'owned' by the group in question as a means to take back power of it. Others using it is seen as inappropriate and indeed hateful. White girl had her college offer rescinded.

So, if I used that word, it would be called out as I am not the cohort it was used against as a derogatory and hateful term. Yet some black people maintain that their use of it is acceptable as they are the people it was directed against.

Similarly, one could compare men going on about women's parts by a group that are effectively punching down as they are the ones that denied/deny women equal status in public life and participation therein. Or make it very uncomfortable as women still have to put up with the 'banter' of men talking about them as smelly fish, bitches etc. All banter too and you obviously cannot take a joke by these fun men. Right.

If I kept 'joking' about smelly foreskin smegma and had a fake set of male 'in your face' genitals I kept hoisting, it would be come across as unbalanced and deranged.

I think those men are saying that at least they are not actual women and they can punch down. They're making it clear they are not the bottom of the pile. The biological fshy btches are.

I’m starting to get quite annoyed by the double standards and hypocrisy currently being touted as “kind”

The rule is don’t make fun of people who are in a historically oppressed group, especially if you belong to the oppressive group... unless that oppressed group is women. Then continue.

I know many people who are on board with veganism, only buy fair trade bananas etc. and love to lecture people about those choices. However, come the weekend they’ll happily shove white powder up their nose without a second thought to the chain of human suffering and exploitation that it’s taken to get it in that plastic bag and the horrific abuse that it goes towards funding.

I don’t understand how people who claim to care about other human beings have such huge blinds spots when it suits them and even worse, refuse to even acknowledge these blind spots.

@aSofaNearYou

If that's to me, yes. Why should women complain about drag artists talking about fish - here's this idiotic woman validating them.

For the reasons everyone else has already said over and over again. Because one person making jokes about herself is not anywhere near in the same league as men, who have oppressed women for centuries, making jokes at our expense.

When are you going to address that?

You keep talking about apologists but you are clearly the apologist here. You are shifting the focus totally away from the men that do this, to focus on one woman that does this and call her worse when she is both much smaller than the huge culture of men doing this and also blatantly NOT worse in terms of what she is saying.

Another straw man- you'll soon have a field of scarecrows.

A person making a joke about themselves and their body (even if it's in poor taste and crass) is totally different to the mass mocking of an oppressed group by a group that hold power, especially when society is apparently meant to welcome and celebrate the mocking because the unpleasant ridicule is actually super progressive don'tyaknow.

Yes, it’s an ugly parody of women. “Women - this is you, the way you look, speak and walk is ridiculous and repulsive, let’s all laugh at you”.

My thoughts exactly.

Another straw man- you'll soon have a field of scarecrows.

You know what, if you're just going to keep saying that instead of answering anyone's questions then it's just a waste of time anyone responding to you.

Nobody has made straw man arguments, you've come with no compelling case to back up why you are saying that, you've answered none of the points raised to you.

You are convinced you are out smarting everyone when in reality you are making yourself look a fool.

Loads of women on here make self deprecating jokes about problems they're having with their groin zone.

More than once I've seen women saying summer is coming omg my pubes look like spider legs coming halfway to my knees!

So that is worse than a man dressing up in a bikini and putting loads of thick hair down his legs and then setting a comedy routine around how it's awful and needs gone...

Yes that makes perfect sense to me.

All the women who joke on here about things they feel about their own bodies are not just worse than men making similar jokes about women's bodies. But in fact they are actively encouraging it and supporting misogyny.

The way to get rid of men being crass about women's bodies then is to never ever talk about our own problems/ observations in a light hearted way.

Super.

This is a massive and bonkers diversion!

Quite entertaining though!

Nobody has made straw man arguments, you've come with no compelling case to back up why you are saying that, you've answered none of the points raised to you

Exactly ! None of the points raised have been answered because there can be no justification for drag. Drag is misogynistic to its core. It is based on the degradation of women by a group of men using it to get back at other men

@aSofaNearYou

Another straw man- you'll soon have a field of scarecrows.

You know what, if you're just going to keep saying that instead of answering anyone's questions then it's just a waste of time anyone responding to you.

Nobody has made straw man arguments, you've come with no compelling case to back up why you are saying that, you've answered none of the points raised to you.

You are convinced you are out smarting everyone when in reality you are making yourself look a fool.

I have responded to posts but I'm getting a little tired of having to rebut inventions of what I'm supposed to have said. You did that and so did NiceGerbil

. I did not say anything of the things you or NiceGerbil attributed to me , or more accurately made up.

What have I made up.

You have said that one female comedian joking about her own body is worse than a whole load of blokes joking about women's bodies as a standard thing.

@NiceGerbil

This is a massive and bonkers diversion!

Quite entertaining though!

Is that your response to the the entirely made up comments of mine you were supposedly responding to? You know the comments going on about excusing white men and so on?

Surely Amy is parodying the drag/make trope that women smell with that hyped up extreme ridiculous description. That's my reading.

Ok MissBarbary

We must all be very stupid.

Could you please explain to us, clearly and simply, one last time...

Why is it worse for someone to make fun of themselves and their own personal body/ situation, than for someone from an oppressive class to make fun of people from the oppressed class?

Please try to use a different group of oppressed vs oppressive to highlight this difference, I.e race, disability, sexuality so that we can understand the equivalence.

Thank you 😊

She's not making fun of herself. She's parodying the stupid joke.

I'm not sure who Amy Schumer is, and I'm not really interested in finding out.

I can't really get my head around the idea that some woman being horrible about herself is worse than other people being horrible about her. Is it about feeling betrayed when a woman does it? I suppose I can see that?

I don't agree that members of x group being horrible about themselves/being self-deprecating gives outsiders a licence to also be horrible in the same way. I think this is a fairly simple social norm. If I walk into a pub and hear a group of male friends at a table calling each other some pejorative name about a shared feature, I don't saunter over and feel entitled to join in! Anyone who uses this excuse is being disingenuous, unless they would really, genuinely saunter up to a unknown group of large ex-rugby players they'd overheard calling each other derogatory names, and attempt to join in on it.

If you understand the social rule when a group of large, tough men is involved, then you understand the rule, and you should follow it even when there is no risk to your health.

@NiceGerbil

What have I made up.

You have said that one female comedian joking about her own body is worse than a whole load of blokes joking about women's bodies as a standard thing.

These. Both of your responses bore no relation to what I said- particularly the one about "white men"

Today 03:40NiceGerbil

Today 03:53NiceGerbil

You would honestly be ok with white men joking about stereotypes and playing up to them in the same way as is done in goodness gracious me?

And a straight man performing a gay man as on gimme gimme and a man making jokes about the woman as portrayed on gimme?

You wouldn't see that as racist/ homophobic/ misogynist?

I think that's s really unusual view but obviously it's yours and so that's how it is.

parody
/ˈparədi/
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noun
an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
"the film is a parody of the horror genre"
Similar:
satire
burlesque
lampoon
pastiche
caricature
take-off
skit
imitation
mockery
spoof
send-up
pappyshow
pasquinade
pasticcio
vulgar slangpiss-take
verb
produce a humorously exaggerated imitation of (a writer, artist, or genre).

To those saying make-up and high heeled shoes aren't inherently female/for women: although I agree that men can/should be 'allowed' to wear heels, make-up, dresses etc off they want to, the whole point of drag artists wearing those things is to appear to be, although in an OTT/cartoonish way, women do your point makes no sense. I
don't think anyone should be comparing a man who happens to be wearing eyeliner/a pencil skirt/wedge shoes with a drag artist.

Could Miss Barbary explain why it would be offensive and totally unacceptable for an able bodied person to pretend to be a person with cerebral palsy and make nasty jokes about this disability but not equally offensive for a male person to pretend to be a women and make horrible jokes about the stench from the female genitals? Are women such a sub class that we are not worthy of respect?