heliotrope-sard-deactivated2016:
I see, thanks for informing me!
Tag: femininity
Honestly, I am so bitter about “women’s” fashion. Call me a bitter butch if you want, I don’t care. I hate the cut-outs, the asymmetrical hems, the useless pockets, the decorative stitching, the revealing and the hiding, the babydoll sleeves (because we can’t just have regular t-shirts), I hate the shiny trinkets and the bright colors, I hate the message that we are simultaneously children and things to be used for sex. I hate the restriction and the swaddling, I fuckin’ hate it. I hate the platforms and the spikes we’re supposed to strap to our feet to make them small and our steps tiny and mincing. I hate the chemicals we’re supposed to cover our faces with. I hate the coiffing and the curling and the straightening and the detangling and the elaborate, hours-long rituals of trying to make our hair look like whatever rich blonde white woman is in style these days, I hate the whole culture surrounding it.
Call me a bitter butch but I don’t think buying into just a small part of it, spending just an hour ornamenting and styling instead of two, spending just one day a week tweezing and shaving instead of five, I don’t think that helps. You can’t win. Not by wearing red lipstick instead of pink, or blue lipstick instead of red, not by wearing too much eyeliner, not by pairing the funky Dr Martens with the sheer blouse; it’s not a rebellion, it’s shopping at Hot Topic instead of Hollister. It’s the same game. It’s the same waste of time.
You can’t win that game, but you can get out. I did.
The voices of butch women matter. Listen to them.
Femininity oppresses us all.
this whole ~women can do what men can do but while Staying Sexy~ thing is like, okay but women shouldn’t be forced into a position where we constantly have to negotiate our personal/professional life goals with How We Look??
you know what i want to see x100 more than a woman being a bad-ass in heels (by defying the laws of human physiology)? a woman being a badass without having to perform femininity to a t in order to cater to her male bosses.
As long as employers feel like they have to tell their female employees to put on more makeup
As long as women feel embarrassed to walk out the house without drawing on eyebrows
As long as women’s clothes are made uncomfortable, non-functional, and prioritize showing off our figures for the male gaze
As long as female celebrities without makeup smear the tabloids
As long as we spend hundreds/thousands of dollars on makeup and countless hours mastering it and extra time to wake up and apply it
As long as little girls are dieting from the age of 8
As long as women burn themselves to appease a male dominated space because empathy, gracefulness, and mercy are roles assigned to us,
femininity will never be empowering. It started as a tool to oppress and that’s how it will die. choice feminism isn’t getting anyone anywhere.
Honestly, we underestimate the severe psychological toll it takes on women when they’re forced, time and time and time again, to sacrifice themselves, to give up parts of themselves for the greater good, to keep social cohesion intact, for the preservation of values they want little to nothing to do with. But you know, we can ignore and dismiss that because patience and compromise are virtues, virtues associated with femininity, and they’re inherent in women and it’s in their nature to be able to practice these virtues to a greater extent and with more frequency than men.
When will libfems realize that are choices are influenced by our socialization and environment, and they don’t just come out of an innate sense of wishing to be delicate/demure/feminine? Femininity is NOT something NATURAL. It’s an artificial set of choices forced on women, that’s why those who don’t follow through are treated worse than those who do. Please think just a little bit.
For one, who are you to tell people what they should and shouldn’t wear? If I like the way my body looks when I’m wearing one then I have every right to wear one. Woman’s organs are made to shift and move around because the same happens during pregnancy. How do you think it’s bad for you?
It’s not just a matter of saying “that dress is ugly don’t wear it”, the only ‘positives’ I’ve read about waist training is that it makes women feel better because their confidence levels may rise because of the temporary illusion of their figure changing. The reality?
Instead of exercising or dieting, women in the 19th Century used corsets as a way to acquire a curvy shape with an unnaturally tiny waist. However, women of this era who wore corsets faced a harsh reality when it came to their health and well-being, wrote Samuel Thomas von Sommerring, a physician and anatomist, in his 1793 essay “On the Effects of the Corset.”
Along with fainting, rib crushing and persistent pain, organ rearrangement was the most dangerous side effects of the corset and could lead to serious illness and death. Women were suffering from tuberculosis, cancer, scoliosis and spine curvature as a result of wearing corsets, making it a painful sacrifice for beauty.
Knowing the history behind corsets and the consequences women have faced wearing them, it is absurd that so-called “waist-training” has been revived. There are dangers to wearing high heels and bras, but bunions and skin indentations are a small price to pay compared to organ failure.
Mary Jane Minkin, a clinical gynecologist and professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the Yale School of Medicine, said despite the hype surrounding the lasting effects of a waist trainer, women will not actually see any long-term results in muscular development or weight loss, adding that once the trainer comes off, the body will go back to its natural shape.
“It’s quite silly to be honest,” Minkin said. “While you’re wearing it, your waist will be smaller when you cinch it in, but after you take it off, there’s going to be no difference. It’s not like it’s training you to do something.”
Because pelvic and abdominal organs are slippery, they can shift during waist trainer use, which can interrupt digestive processes. Permanent health consequences only occur in an extreme circumstance in which a waist trainer was abnormally tight, but short-term consequences do exist.
Minkin said if the intestines are restricted by a tight waist trainer, they are unable to properly digest food and carry the possibility of regurgitation because food cannot pass through the digestive system. What is more unappealing than barfing on yourself at dinner?
Because waist trainers can be harmful and do not yield lasting results, wearing them to attain a permanently smaller waist size is useless. Women will see a difference while they are actually wearing the waist trainer, but it will not permanently alter the shape of the body, making the trend a pointless and laughable effort.
i’m also so bewildered by the way you assume altering your appearance in any way is playing into patriarchal norms? women are constantly told to “look natural” and never reveal the effort that might go into looking the way they want to look
blackvulva-deactivated20150627:
Make-up is not feminist and your choices were not born out of nowhere, sprung from the forehead of Zeus completely untouched by society and beauty standards.
You were not born with 3.00 off Covergirl coupons and an endless supply of Dark & Lovely.
Also when they say that we should ‘look natural‘ they mean that our make up should ‘look natural‘.
Can I be considered a radical feminist if I believe in the same views but wear stereotypical feminine clothes?
Of course you can! I know criticizing femininity but also performing it can feel like cognitive dissonance, but you do what you have to do to survive. I mean, all of the shirts hanging up in my room right now are pink, floral, or otherwise “feminine”! My main rule when it comes to clothes is to wear what’s comfortable, so if you’re comfortable in a sundress and flats then wear that! and if you’re comfortable in a t-shirt and basketball shorts, then wear that! – mod rfp
why are there some lipsticks like $30 please calm down you glorified red crayon
Celtyradfem 