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.

Black men are not the subject of the abusive misogyny that is womanface (drag). So that is like saying white people didn't find blackface offensive at that time so it must be ok.

To black women, my question is why?

I haven't seen that, can you link to thread please as I'd like to understand why they feel that way

Yes, I really dislike it and agree it is an unpleasant parody of women.

I accept that plenty of the performers and watchers of it don't recognise it as such, but in my opinion that is because a poor attitude to women is so prevalent and ingrained in our society as to be unnoticeable.

It rests on the idea that women aren't 'really' oppressed despite egregious examples in very recent history that everyone would now agree are outrageous (such as it being legally impossible to rape your wife until 1991, women being denied the vote on equal terms to men until 1928, women being barred from university and required to leave any job they had upon marriage or childbearing (see the recent thread on here)). I only mention these as they're far harder to deny than ongoing examples that no-one wants to look at.

If you accept that women are an oppressed group, or even have been in the recent past, then drag becomes pretty indefensible because it's performed by the oppressor class. I don't buy the "it's a compliment / affectionate / just a bit of fun / not meant to be offensive / really nothing to do with the people parodied" line any more than I would buy that argument if people were grossly exaggerating and sending up stereotypical physical characteristics of disabilities.

The only remaining argument seems to be that it is a subset of the oppressor class (gay men) who are doing this and it's ok because they are also oppressed. First, it is by no means always the case that only gay men perform drag. Second, you don't get a pass on being judged for offensive behaviour towards one group because you're a member of another (it's not ok for disabled people to behave in a racist manner, or black people to behave in a homophobic manner etc.)

Perhaps this all sounds very po-faced (I actually am pretty fun at parties...!) but I don't for a second think it should be banned or people 'cancelled' for doing it. I try to practice what I preach and I think freedom of speech and expression is important even when I find a particular exercise of it distasteful.

However, I absolutely draw conclusions about the likely attitudes towards women - conscious or subconscious - of people who do it and enjoy it.

@Interestedparty132

No and black women have repeatedly asked for people to stop conflating the two. It’s nothing like blackface. Makeup and dresses don’t inherently belong to women and drag queens don’t claim to be literal women.

It's not just clothes and makeup though is it. If they don't claim to be literal women, is more misogynistic not less. At least if you have an unshakable belief you are one, it is not ridiculing. It's very comparable with blackface. I have never heard anyone but a genderist asking that the comparison not be made, however it is irrelevant who is asking. Unless they can explain meaningfully how it is different and the comparison is wrong. There is no pass on the requirement to be logical based on identity.

I would love to have a psychological evaluation of drag race of children’s attitudes around sex, gender and also mental health. The children that are obsessed with following the queens are the ones that dress-up in revealing outfits and poses with loads of make-up on and the ones shaving their arms and faces. They post to get likes and reply to every like and ‘fabulous’ comment. I don’t know which is feeding into which but it’s depressing seeing young people thinking sticking your backside out and pouting is the way to make yourself happier.

The jokes, the names, the deliberate exaggerations, all set on lampooning women and female/feminine culture (and duh not all women are feminine but that doesn't diminish the intention)

See, I find that much more offensive than I do drag lol.
I'm presuming this was in response to me saying
What I just don't get this. I don't look anything like a drag queen. I wear zilch make up, zero high heels and all the rest
If they want to express themselves that way, I say let them crack on.
It has no bearing on me
(I don't feel they're taking the piss as we're all different)

this gets commented that "some women aren't feminine" in response.
Erm, newsflash, I'm very feminine even without make up or high heels.
FFS man, is this really the feminism board

That middle bit was supposed to be a bolded quote oh well

It isn't appropriate to equate it to blackface. If you look into the history of blackface performance in the context of America, it was used as a early tool to dehumanise black people by the Klu Klux Klan and promote the Jim Crow laws. At the back of blackface was the implicit threat of lynching and oppression as a means to control the characters portrayed in blackface shows in the South. It is a deeply sinister and oppressive practice. Sadly ignorance and lack of thinking enabled it to go mainstream on TV shows in the 50s,60s and 70s where it became normalised and socially accepted. Thankfully it has been recognised for what it is.

I don't think you can compare it to drag as it doesn't involve the systematic oppression and removal of civil rights of another group. The argument may be that woman have had to fight for their rights throughout the ages and this is true, but drag queens are not organising and promoting the oppression of woman so it isn't a targeted attack per se.

That said, I do not like drag at all and it really saddens me that the BBC is promoting it so strongly through its programming. For me, it is an inaccurate stereotype being promoted that encourages negative forms of behaviour. I don't like that misogynistic language is normalised (bitch as a term of addressing someone else for example) and the hyper sexualisation of the female form as being the only thing of value. I don't believe that the liberation of men putting on an affectation of being a woman is a positive thing for society. The hedonistic enjoyment of one doesn't mean its good for all.

@Waitwhat23

I think I first fully realised how misogynistic drag is was when I saw Big Fat Quiz of the Year a couple of years ago when they had two drag Queens on to explain the terminology used in that community. They talked about 'fish' or 'being fishy' and I watched the comedians laughing and joking about the term and thought 'hold on, isn't that going back to the whole awful idea of women's genitals supposedly smelling of fish and being used as an idea to degrade them (generally by men)?'.

I just couldn't believe that such an unpleasant, derogatory term was being used to allude to women's body parts and that this was acceptable to laugh and joke about on mainstream TV.

This was when my thoughts around it solidified too Waitwhat. When Carr and the panel thought this was hilarious, I thought, do you even recognise the hate you are perpetuate there. Then I realised it is so ingrained to treat women with so little respect that, no, they will not recognise it ever. Because then they would have to own up to being complicate.

It's very comparable with blackface. I have never heard anyone but a genderist asking that the comparison not be made

You can't be looking very hard then, as several people on this thread have said they find it offensive.
The Black Mumsnetters board has had several posters repeatedly saying how offensive it is to compare drag to blackface on several threads.
Not going to link to any, (as don't feel it's my place to link there) if you really are interested you can have a look.
If you use the MN search function and type in drag, you'll no doubt get tons of threads to have a look through, from Chat, to AIBU, to BMN.

If drag parodies, stereotypes and insults womanhood, and perpetuates the idea that women are laughable and of little serious value, is that not the encouragement of oppression?

And doesn't that ingrained attitude mean that, when valued as nothing more than subject matter for cynical and misogynistic 'entertainment', women are more likely to be used in negative and even violent ways by men?

Yes, it often is. Maybe not always, but there's a huge amount of misogyny in the scene. Seeing what kickback female drag queens get is illuminating.

Here, females accused of 'cultural appropriation' for ... dressing as caricatures of womanhood:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5564761/FEMALE-drag-queens-accused-cultural-appropriation-male-performers.html

'RuPaul Andre Charles, of the show RuPaul's Drag Race, proclaimed drag was a male only act - and that women would probably be barred from competing on his show.

...

He claimed women drag artists lack 'danger and irony' - in part because men dressing in women's clothes is an overt rejection of masculinity.'

As a man it is hard to know what to say or indeed if I have any right to say it. Which brings me to an obvious point, of "as a man, does any drag artist have the right to express an opinion on whether drag is acceptable, and if they don't then why do they think that they have the right to do it?"

I've never really had a problem with drag, but I do have a problem with all culture that celebrates looks, showing off, overt sexuality and shallow consumerism. Reading this thread I'm tempted to put drag in the same box as jokes about race. I'm not willing to say "never!" but there are very very very few people who are capable of telling a race based joke without being racist, so the simple advice to almost everyone on the planet should be "just don't tell jokes about race". Likewise, as a man, you might be able to do drag which in no way offends or denegrates women - but I have a feeling you might be in a tiny minority if so.

I cannot see anything positive about drag other than it gives the drag artist the opportunity to do what they want... but that's not a great thing if them doing what they want negatively portrays and affects women. We're back to the whole thing about why re-enforce gender stereotypes, why not just be yourself?

I'm also very interested about the blackface comparison. I find it hard to see why blackface and drag is that different, similar to how I find it hard to see why there is something fundamentally different between identifying as a different gender and identifying as a different race. [As an aside a 100% white person could have "black genes" [not that there is such a think to my knowledge] due to a great grandparent, making them more black than a transwoman who has no female chromosomes... or am I missing something?]

I am tempted to say that only black women are in a good position to judge whether comparing blackface and drag is acceptable. It seems that some do think it's acceptable - I'd love to know whether it's a very small percent, a very high one or somewhere in the middle.

It is not the same order of magnitude as blackface but there are comparisons. Also it is happening now. In 2021.

It is on mainstream TV, it's gaining popularity and people who find it oppressive are being told it isn't. It's all just good fun. No harm intended. Women are fair game.

I can understand people saying it's harmless, I don't agree, but I simply cannot fathom how it can be perceived as not ridiculing women.

Listing the history of blackface just reinforces the similarities I see.

The oppression of women today cannot be compared to the oppression of black people in the 1930's, but theatrical parodying of inherent physical characteristics and characature of imagined behaviours has striking parallels.

Just saying they are not comparable doesn't hack it, unless you can say why it's not comparable, without resorting to degree, which we acknowledge already.

Interesting about RuPaul.
Had anyone noticed that the 2May the best woman WIN!" part has now been changed to "may the best DRAG QUEEN WIN!". I wonder if something has changed there. Or maybe it's just because in the last season there was a FTM trans person (biological woman presenting as a gay male presenting as a woman).
Maybe they found the "woman" part offensive.
I DO remember as the previous poster, an interview with RuPaul saying that women could never be drag queens and that they would not be able to compete on his show. So I suppose that times have changed. There have been some previous contestants (I can think of three off the top of my head) who have since come out as trans.
Not sure if that has changed his opinion but its all very confusing.

@Letsgetreadytocrumble

How can people say drag isn't misogynistic?

The word 'fishy' is used for drag queens that pass the best as an actual woman for fucks sake.

And then we have the drag names like 'Anna Bortion' and 'Cheryl Hole'.

And the whole thing is based on stereotypes about women being bitchy.

Not misogynistic my arse.

I think that people like to elevate the 'effeminate' man argument as a way to disguise the inherent misogyny in all of your points above.

So, what? The way for an effeminate man to cope was to parody womanhood? In what way is this appropriate now?

It is quite twisted logic. It takes a great deal of pretzeling to say that such a parody of women as an entire genre of entertainment is ok, because it is good for effeminate men to be able to do this (what is the term we see so often 'punch down') I feel. And when women's voices are now getting louder saying that this is not appropriate.... is anyone listening?

It is certainly a parody all right. The parody that discrimination against women is being taken seriously in any way.

I came across this, which puts it well enough:

I am tempted to say that only black women are in a good position to judge whether comparing blackface and drag is acceptable.

I don't use the argument for this reason, as some black women find it offensive and there are other ways of expressing the same point. But I'm not particularly convinced by the argument that they are all that different.

@Giggorata

I came across this, which puts it well enough:

That’s comparing trans-racialism with transgenderism which I agree are entirely alike in that a white man can be neither black nor a woman and the difference in treatment make no sense. It’s not the same as the drag v blackface argument though.

Yes absolutely. Couldn't agree more

I don't think men wearing stereotypically women's clothing and performing is inherently misogynistic. I think clothes are clothes and if men want to wear make up then they can. If they want to wear sparkly clothes, heels, and make up then fine. If effeminate men want to perform in a way that challenges toxic masculine norms then that's also fine by me.

However, I think elements of the drag scene are very much misogynistic as they're grounded in the mockery of women and their 'acts' seem infused with degrading so called jokes and an unreasonable focus on stereotypes of female sexuality. Some seem less focused on fun costumes and make up, and more focused on parodying a bizarre version of womanhood that's based on sex and being 'sassy'. I also can't stand the fact that so many of the stage names are focused on sex acts or the sexualisation of women.

@Interestedparty132

The history of drag is not that men did this to parody women. Gay men were bullied and ostracised for being effeminate and drag was a play on that. It wasn’t done to belittle women in the way that blackface was done to mock black people.

But it developed and is now used to mock women in every single nuance.

The difference is that women's oppression is lower on the pyramid.

Yes, this exactly. Watch as Drag Race, BLM, transmen in women's spaces etc. are all seen as worth supporting by the same people who think women should know their place. Women's rights last on the list again.