Guardian readers on 'misogynistic womanface'

[theilltemperedclavecinist]

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/apr/07/drag-a-sexist-caricature-or-a-fabulous-art-form

Drag can be compared to blackface and yellowface: those holding the reins of power utilise performance to mock those without power through a demeaning parody. This reassures the dominant group of their superior status while effectively silencing the group being parodied.

Come on, Guardian, join the dots. We know you can do it!

Ha! The same happened to me - it's some infernal MN formatting that is designed to make one look like an idiot... numbered lists don't seem to work.

I usually don't need anyone's help to look like an idiot 🤣🤣🤣

I too remember the sort of women who wore housecoats and who would never have dreamt of going out without a hat or headscarf talking over garden fences or doorsteps about other women who were "no better than they ought to be" or who had "fancy ways", together with a Nanny Ogg-style encyclopaedic knowledge of all local affairs. And absolutely to the mouthing/facial contortions to communicate without small people being able to understand what they were talking about. Or innocuous words that had a specific meaning - "Is he so" with raised eyebrows was a way of asking if a man was gay

Then a drag performer confirmed that woman = make-up and frocks. I felt so depressed for the future

But some women do wear make-up and frocks! If a drag performer came on stage in a t-shirt, shorts and grubby Converse with their hair scraped back in a pony-tail they'd look how I often do but no-one would "get" that they were playing a female character. It's got to play up to a gender stereotype to be understandable.

And much as I am often found to be scruffing around in shorts and trainers, I also bloody love a frock, heels and full make-up. I'm still a woman in both outfits!

This reminds me of about ten years ago when I argued that drag was misogynist with a gay friend and a straight friend (both men), who assured me I was misunderstanding it and was completely wrong. 😑

A whole generation of ordinary young lesbians has been taught that lesbian is a dirty, regressive and terfy term. Most call themselves queer, which means anyone can identify as queer, with no actual desire to be with someone of the same sex, or no consequences.
Lesbians who hold their ground about not dating/sleeping with people with fully male bodies are denounced as transphobic.
If any young lesbians have inclinations towards a butch presentation, they are being told on tik tok that they are, in fact, men. If they like a more androgynous presentation or switching it up, they are a they/enby. A young woman at Uni told me the other day that she went by he/they pronouns (had an obviously female body, with short hair), and was a non-binary butch who was in a relationship with a ‘beautiful woman’ (who was in fact a TW who was obviously male). Completely contradictory and incoherent formulations which didn’t even register to her. So, the contemporary conflation of gay = drag = trans isn’t surprising… despair-inducing, but not surprising.

I learned something new today. The non-verbal exaggerated lip reading is called mee-mawing. Not Sheldon Coopers grandmother, but an old northern English expression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mee-mawing

I also love that those strong matriarchal women exist in other cultures too. When I went to uni I lived in an area with a large Asian community and I’d often pass little gaggles of older women on the street corners with the same conspiratorial body language. My good friend who was of Bangladeshi heritage told me that the conversations she overheard as she went past were exactly the same type as the white northern women of my home town. Someone’s husband was lazy, someone was lax in their housekeeping standards, someone smiled too much at the man who ran the corner shop etc. My friend wore western style clothes and had judgments passed on her every time, what must her mother think etc. we had a good laugh about it.

@MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving I too have learned something today!

Well, this thread's an education, not least because the Graun actually published such a letter.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall during Guardian editorial meetings. I get the sense there's been some push-back to Viner.

Not the Guardian, but catching up with my reading, I see in last week's NS, several letters printed from GC women responding to the recent book reviews of Judith Butler and The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (there's a thread on it).

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5042222-the-anxious-generation

I dislike drag in general and Drag Race makes me sick but I liked Lily Savage because Paul O’Grady was clever in making social and political commentary via a likeable character not just being constantly crude and demeaning about what a woman is as Drag Race competitors pass off as entertainment.
I also think in these days when a man can put on a frock and lippy then claim he actually is a woman drag is a different thing from back in Lily’s heyday.

I agree. Paul O’Grady said that Lily Savage was giving a voice to working class women. So many of the old drag acts were funny on their own, not because they taking the piss out of women.

Great to see these letters getting sunlight in the Grauniad!

Like others I've ALWAYS been uncomfortable with men dressing up as women - even as a small child I disliked panto. My mum was matronly and well-endowed with a 'bosom'/shelf and I always felt men were mocking her shape - it just felt cheap, bullying behaviour.
And I have NEVER got on board with the drag thing, but put that down to me being heterosexual, so as long as it stayed in the pubs and clubs I just accepted it suited some people.

Drag should never have made it into schools, children's libraries and family-friendly events. It's simply not appropriate - it's grooming in plain sight!

Boundaries: eroding them is the whole point, and there's no better illustration that DQST.

Another fascinating thread today - and good to be able to discuss the nuances of drag and the varied history and development - along with acknowledging the current grim misuse of it with children.
And of course that the woman silencing Guardian has published those letters!