Too feminine?
One of the things I like about this site is its efforts to help readers feel free from pressure to force themselves into rigid boxes. It seems to me that there is a lot of pressure from all sides in myriad ways. Many of us have felt pressure to be one way or another. Let's not add more pressure in any direction. On the one hand, there is the pressure to be a stereotype, but as many Taken In Hand readers will have experienced in their own lives, there is also pressure to avoid like the plague anything remotely resembling what might be called a stereotype.
Women who feel themselves to be “very feminine”, or “submissive”, and men who enjoy thinking of themselves as “a real man” or “very masculine”, are dismissed and derided as “stereotypical”. Such put-downs are just as mean-spirited and pressuring as pressure in the opposite direction. Individuals should feel free to embrace themselves as they experience themselves, and to explore in ways that seem best to them. No one should be pressured either to be feminine, or not to be.
Once when I was wearing one of my favourite dresses, I received a lecture from a well-meaning acquaintance about the evils of stereotypical behaviour. Apparently, this dress of mine (which is extremely comfortable and washable, unlike many of my dresses) is not just “too feminine” but “part of the problem” leading to “the subjugation of women.” In wearing this dress, he said, I am “potentially harming children”.
If your mind is boggling, let me assure you that the dress is not indecent or anything! It has a close-fitting top with a sweetheart neckline, long sleeves, and a long and flared skirt. What my acquaintance meant was that because women want to wear such dresses, little girls grow up wanting to wear such dresses, and little boys grow up attracted to women wearing such dresses, and that what we all should be doing is systematically rejecting this as being too stereotypical, so that people grow up free from psychologically confining ways of thinking. (Or something like that!)
Paradoxically, the result is that I do not always feel free to be myself with that person. If I don't want to get a lecture or feel like a pariah, I have to wear more unisex clothes that I know he won't disapprove of. Sometimes I wear what I want to wear, but sometimes I do ask myself if my attire will get me a gentle but negative comment, and if I don't feel up to it (occasionally I just want a quiet life!), I change. I don't think this is a good thing.
Although I wholeheartedly agree with my friend that there is pressure to enact the stereotypes, I do not think one can live one's life in the way he suggested. I do not think that one should be dressing to avoid disapprobation in the way I sometimes do. I think that it is a mistake to put pressure on people not to wear “feminine” dresses. And it is not just about how women dress, of course. There is a lot of pressure on women in Western society to be high-powered career women. Mentioning that you are not a feminist can provoke some to rage, as I have discovered on more than one occasion. Similarly, there is a lot of pressure on men to be ‘new men’ and to ‘get in touch with their feminine side’ (or else).
So when I say that it would be a mistake to pressure others to define themselves in ways that feel stereotypical, narrow, or otherwise wrong to them, keep in mind that I abhor pressure in either direction, not just one direction.
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Comments
#1 Re: Too Feminine?
I've got to laugh about this business of a man telling you how to dress because you are too feminine and this reinforces stereotyping of women. If he isn't being a male oppressor by doing that, what is he?
Instead of dressing to please this confused man (who is probably secretly drooling over you in the dress, unless he is gay), dress as you wish and when he tries to lecture you, point out that he is telling you how to dress just as if he were some mullah declaring you have to keep a veil over your face. I'd love to see his reaction!
I am amazed by situations like this. No one has ever suggested to me that my dress is too feminine, not feminine enough or even, like little Goldilocks, "Just Right." It boggles my mind that people have the nerve to say this.
I did once or twice get a negative reaction because I stay home with my son, but so what?
As far as mentioning that you are not a feminist, I can understand a certain amount of anger directed at you. After all you have benefited from feminism. You wouldn't have a job, you wouldn't be able to afford that oh-so-feminine dress without a man buying it for you, if women hadn't taken up the gauntlet and fought for their rights. You wouldn't be allowed to vote or own property and you would probably not even be able to read this.
So I can understand feminists being irritated. However, it might help if you were more specific. Since you have reaped the benefits of economic feminism it is impossible to claim you aren't that type of feminist. Do you know any women who hold jobs and feel they "should" make less than a man in the same position? Every working woman has to be an economic feminist or else she'd be a fool.
So why not explain that you agree with economic but not with some of the social goals of feminism. This might lead to a discussion and not to your being the object of scorn.
"Pat"
#2 Not a male oppressor
How nice to see that "Pat" is in favour of the freedom to choose to be “feminine” as well as the freedom not to be narrowly defined in a stereotypical way. However, to answer to this:
He is a man who cares deeply about oppression of all sorts, including very subtle forms that most people don't notice. He may be right. He definitely did not say what he said to oppress me or put pressure on me, he said it because my dress worried him. He admitted that he found it attractive, BTW, but it clearly troubled him. I experienced it as a pressuring lecture, but it was not intended that way.
P.S. Perhaps it was just a joke, but I really dislike the phrase “male oppressor”, because it brings to mind the vicious and sweeping generalisation of (all) men as being oppressors, rapists, and so on.
#3 Hahaha:-)
The story about the ardent feminist harassing you about your clothes makes me laugh. But on the other hand, it’s not a laughing matter, you know, do we want girls become women? (?!?what type of question is this?!?)
Personaly speaking I am quite disappointed to see that in my neighbour country (Germany) very few girls wear skirts now-a-days. Isn’t that a pity? (We say they are ugly, but that may be a simple prejudice:-) )
Here the fashion is very free and open. You can go sunbathing topless at many public waterparks and nobody harasses you (ussually). That’s something Americans envy us so much.
I cannot imagine in my wildest fantasy that somebody would accuse me of looking "too feminine". I am a little weirdo because I prefer kind of hippie/medieval style but I can bear the giggling.
What offends *me* are girls and women dressed as sluts. Can’t you see this is what lowers us and makes more stupid me feel we are sex toys? I feel like an Arabian woman next to a woman dressed solo in fe stripes of fabric.
This is something different people can view in different ways but I am afraid of looking too "hot" because of the danger of harassment, which is very real.
#4 clothing
I had the opposite problem as a kid. My mom wanted me to wear these weird homemade pink dresses, and I was a tomboy! Thank goodness for my father, he got me off the hook with that. He would tell my mom, "Leave her alone, let her wear what she wants to!"
Ironically, now I wear only skirts and dresses for religious reasons (in traditional Judaism women are to dress modestly--no slacks/pants, only skirts/dresses to or below the knee, long sleeves or 3/4 length sleeves, no sheer fabrics, no plunging necklines, etc.
Rather than feeling "oppressed" by wearing such modest female clothing, I actually feel liberated. When I talk to men, I don't have to worry they are looking at my body..they are FORCED to deal with my MIND, and ME as a PERSON. They don't objectify me now. How can they?
#5 to Pat
So many times feminists have said to me what you said to the boss--that if not for them, women would not be able to vote, own property, buy clothing without a man buying it for them, etc.
Speaking only for myself, I would gladly give back the right to vote. I use it rarely because there is no one decent to vote for most of the time anyway, and where I come from women would usually vote for whoever their husbands were voting for anyway. As my mom used to say, "If you vote differently from your husband, you cancel out each other's votes".
As for owning property, all that has gotten me are many massive headaches, what with how horrendous property taxes are here in my state (of the USA). I have tried talking my husband into selling this blasted money pit of a house and rent a house instead.
As for buying clothing with my own money, I don't earn my own money since I'm largely a stay at home mother.
So what has feminism done for me?
#6 What has feminism done for you?
Well, it has given you the right to vote whether you choose to or not. It has given you the right to leave your husband if he is abusive to you. It has given you a stake in the property you and your husband own, thus enabling you to discuss the possiblity of selling it and renting another. It has given you the right to a decent education, and the opportunity for a career if you choose one.
In short, it has given you a choice, which is evidently not important to you, but is very important to me. I submit to my husband not because society says I must, or views me as an inferior being to my husband, but because I choose to, and it gives me pleasure. It is knowing that it is through choice I do this, not from the dictates of law and society, that causes me pleasure.
And you only have to look at societies where women have none of the rights that you scorn, to see how grim life can be for them. Rampant, unrestrained patriarchy is not a benign instituiton.
#7 It depends on the fashion
I think it depends on the fashion and right now the fashion in Germany is that girls wear their jeans below their waists and their string tanga is showing, some of them also wear very short mini skirts. But I still don’t believe that it makes them look like sluts. If they look like sluts than what do the women look like that lay around naked at the lake? I just went to Munich to the English Garden last week and they have an Area in the Park just for people who like to sunbath naked. It`s not a closed up area, next to the park there are people walking around, riding bikes or on their way to work. The kids grow up with it and don`t think to much about it. For some reason in the States people believe that this would be harmful for children. I see no harm in it.
Autumn
#8 Lying around naked
I see no harm in it either, but since discovering Taken In Hand I have been surprised to find how many men there are who seem to think that women should dress like my grandmother used to. I find it quite startling, since my husband's idea has always been to get me to wear as little as possible, and he'd absolutely love to get me into a very short mini skirt, but this desire to cover women up seems to be a widespread phenomenon.
#9 Going naked...
I have to say, that the other night, the house was stifling I couldnt stand it any longer so I stripped off.
No-one was in the house and it was so freeing, so liberating. I didnt care what anyone thought even though I was alone, it felt good.
I wouldnt do it if my hubby were home as I would feel a bit self-conscious of my flabby bits and he is one to stay covered up.
I remember a few years back, stripping off and swimming in Loch Lomond at midnight with a friend (female). It was the most wonderful feeling (though we were conscious of any passing strangers). I'd love to repeat it.
I'm sure if we could go around naked, in certain areas then some people would have less hangup about their body, we would learn to accept ourselves and other's better than we do. We would learn that no-one has the "perfect" (and I use the word loosely here) body. It's our uniqueness as humans that makes us all beautiful.
Grace :-)
#10 covering up
Louise, I think a lot of the men who would find Taken In Hand attractive perhaps tend toward the conservative side. And the conservative men I know want their woman not to reveal what she has for other men to see. For a time I did wear revealing clothing and I FELT slutty in it. I know how to dress in a sophisticated, attractive way without revealing too much. Men like mystery, they like something left to their minds to wonder about. As Mae West used to say, "I like to leave something to the imnagination...I never believed in giving them too much of me!"
#11 Men and mystery
My husband doesn't seem to be much of a one for mystery, his one idea has always been to strip me naked as much as possible, and he still talks with nostalgia of the mini-skirts I used to wear when I was young. Far from wanting me to cover up, he wants me to reveal myself as much as I can. Last year he got me to buy a swimsuit that was somewhat more revealing than the one I had previously been wearing, and this year, making progress, he has got me into a bikini. What's next I shudder to think.
I prefer this attitude though to him wanting to cover me up, which I think is creepy. His desire to show me off is slightly embarrassing, but flattering too. If he started wanting to hide me away from sight I'd wonder what was wrong with me. It's quite touching really that, after 23 years, he still thinks I'm worth displaying!
#12 Re: covering up
I don`t think it has anything to do with Taken in Hand whether a man wants his woman to dress conservative. My husband likes to show me off and at 44 I still weigh the same as I did when we met and people have told me that I look 10 years younger. So I don`t see why I shouldn’t wear mini skirts and sexy tops. I don’t believe I reveal to much by dressing sexy, there is always something that other men may be wondering about. But I don’t care whatever imagination they might have, I don’t let them touch me.
Autumn
#13 Not a feminist?
Just wondering what you mean by that. the boss, if you beleive women should vote and should be free to choose their own lifestyles (as you freely do) you are a feminist. Don't let the male-hating, all-intercourse-is-rape vigilante variety change the meaning of the name. I am an ardent feminist, and revel in my choice to live my life the way I choose, in the relationship of my choosing and my partners. I would be shocked to hear that someone is not a feminist, because I could not wind through my head enough to understand what they were saying, and I would not beleive they understood what they were saying, either.
#14 hahahahaha
Wow. Did you tell your friend that the only pressure you felt was from him? Or that the only time wearing anything made you feel in any way controlled or dominated in an unpleasant way was with him? (I'm sure it's not the 'only' time, but you know) It's that same: "you can choose to be anything, but this one very un-PC thing that *I* personally think hampers your liberation."
You aren't liberated or empowered if your choices are proscribed in the other direction.
I agree with what you're saying on "feminism.' I don't identify as a feminist. I don't think women should all be subjugated or forced into any mold that doesn't fit them especially not based on their gender. Some would say that makes me a feminist and if they wish to describe me as such, that's fine. And there are feminists out there who that's as far as they go.
But for me, the connotation of the word feminist is currently "feminazi' and I have no interest in being a part of that. Also I just don't personally like the word because to me the word ITSELF puts the focus on "women."
Any time you have a group that has been oppressed you have to have a group of oppressors, and I don't like the way feminism, in the name of equality and fairness, sometimes ends up only causing the gender divide to be even wider.
I don't think there is anything wrong with any labels anyone appropriates to themselves and I'm certainly not going to tell them they are wrong, but I personally don't care for the term "feminist' nor do I label myself as such.
I believe in humanity, not gender, to talk about "equal rights' between the sexes is still bringing gender into the issue of basic humanity and what that means. IMO.
#15 response to Not a Feminist?, posted 15 March 2007
My response to the author of the post "Not a feminist?" comes more than a year late. (I just found this website). Nevertheless, I am compelled to restate what I've believed to be the definition of a feminist.
I'm the kind of woman who adores a man who embraces the traditional male role in a relationship. There is nothing more comforting than knowing that I'm safe, protected and cared for in a loving relationship. I enjoy being a submissive and very feminine woman who looks to a man for making decisions in our best interests. And, when necessary, I fully expect to receive the appropriate correction, punishment or discipline which he administers in a loving yet firm manner.
Sadly, the definition of feminism has been misconstrued by some women and dictated by too many women. A feminist is a woman who is capable of making her own choices.
My choice is based on what I believe and know is right for me: to be that submissive woman I know a man cherishes as his possession. I'm thrilled knowing I belong to him.
Another woman's choice may be different, and that's okay.
Please don't judge women who make the choices that you wouldn't necessarily make for yourself.
D
#16 Small children and dresses
I have found that when I am wearing a dress, children comment to their mothers, 'that's a pretty lady.' It's so sweet. I don't think my wearing dresses scars small children for life, and I don't think people grow up believing that a woman who wears a dress has no brainstem or ability to function on the planet. In fact, I think wearing a dress sends a very obvious signal to the brain (even of small children) that this is a lady who is soft and kind and not threatening, long before they ever learn the word 'feminine.' But it also helps to have a sincere smile on your face, because in Roald Dahl stories, even witches wear dresses, so a dress cannot automatically make you feminine. ;-)
#17 Re: "Once when I was wearing one of my favourite dresses,
Re: "Once when I was wearing one of my favourite dresses, I received a lecture from a well-meaning acquaintance about the evils of stereotypical behaviour. Apparently, this dress of mine (which is extremely comfortable and washable, unlike many of my dresses) is not just “too feminine” but “part of the problem” leading to “the subjugation of women.” In wearing this dress, he said, I am “potentially harming children”. "
Okay, first "a disclaimer" ;) Keep in mind I'm a guy: and with Aspergers on top of that! And yes, you gals are absolutely adorable in nice dresses. And can certainly be professional in them. Which brings to mind that most of the things seen in fashion news don't strike me as attractive.
I would have responded to his comments in a not particularly "ladylike manner" in a way, and a little bit confrontational too.
1. Show me the evidence that I AM harming children; give me the names of the children I've harmed.
2. And not being stereotypical can itself result in wearing a stereotypical "uniform".
3. And you don't look like the Father Almighty to me, get over yourself.
(where I know the "you don't" bit is what you don't want to start with when discussing things with your significant other)
later,
Forrest
(and yes, that's really my name)