I’ve been reading a lot of contemporary feminist literature of late - in particular, Ariel Levy’s ’Female Chauvinist Pigs’. And a recurring comment on the state of feminism today has made me really question my own behaviour.
It is the idea of ‘Female Chauvinist Pigs’ - that we are becoming our own worst enemy. That women are becoming as sexist and consumed by raunch culture as the male chauvinist pigs we spend so much of our time protesting against.
I read an article in Shortlist last week - a magazine for men that doesn’t have tits or vagina on the cover - that sums it up perfectly.
Now that I think about it, I have encountered so much female chauvinism. It's not just men rolling their eyes when they heard the word 'feminist' anymore - women are doing it too. 'I would call myself a feminist... But I don't want to stop shaving my legs and wearing a bra'. Come on girls, wise up.
But I am also guilty. I've read Nuts in the local kebab whilst waiting for my chips and haven't batted an eyelid. Is burlesque dancing really ‘empowering’? It is still stripping, after all. So many times has a male friend complained about a one night stand in a derogatory manner - ‘She has some fucking fine ass, but she wouldn’t go down on me! And now she’s calling me… Fuck that, she’s only backup gash anyway’ ‘Oh my god!’ I reply. ‘She wouldn’t give you a blow job? That’s just shit. Yeah fuck that.’ What exactly was I saying? Oh, it’s fine because that woman isn’t me, and since I do not know her, she doesn’t really exist. Furthermore, my loyalty lies with my male friend, to which engaging in this sort of ‘banter’ is just stationary - in fact, it makes me a cooler girl because I am now ‘one of the lads‘. But if I heard a man talking about me or a girl friend like that? I'll tell everyone that the only reason I didn't blow you is because you'd already blown your load when I so much as removed my bra. Plus, I felt that going down on a 2 inch piece of cocktail party meat just seemed like a pointless exercise.
I have Dita’s ‘The art of the Teese’ on my book shelf and I have spent time drooling over the many glossy photos of her half naked. I have argued with friends over who’s the best porn star and drawn cartoonised women with impossible hourglass bodies and enormous breasts and hair. I am not gay. I am just, perhaps, like a lot of others seduced by the glamour of these women. Maybe I am obsessed with them because I want to be them.Either way admiring a beautiful woman is one thing - talking about our fellow sisters like a male pig is another.
Nicky Marchant
Burlesque is about dressing the way you secretly want to dress*, removing only the clothes you want to remove, and making it into a joke if you want it to be a joke.
ReplyDelete*If the way you want to dress is not in a style that could be in any way described as "burlesque", then your interests lie elsewhere. Which is cool.
The theory is fabulous, yes. But the way it has been interpreted today in practise.. is it just posh stripping?
ReplyDeleteOne of my friends asked something that was quite similar to "Is it just posh stripping?" As someone who includes burlesque in her hobbies, I thought I should look at it in my blog. I basically agreed with the women at the Ministry of Burlesque, it is about what I do for me. It's kind of a bit weird when people refer to it as stripping, because I don't think I would actually strip on stage in the normal meaning of stripping. I have nothing against stage or screen nudity as long as the performer is able to make a free choice about it.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem lies in the context and history of burlesque- it very much was stripping, or as close as polite society came to it at the time. Nowadays, because stripping has come so far from burlesque, burlesque now seems a bit more niche and a lot less raunchy, much more 'harmless fun'.
ReplyDeleteWell, no, the history of Burlesque is a lot more like Cabaret--political satire, dressing up and acting out cartoonish scenes with a message. What Burlesque seems to have become (in popular consciousness anyway) is Dita Von Teese with her tits out.
ReplyDeleteExactly. If you look up burlesque as a definition or thesaurus you get 'parody'.. who laid down the rules for neo burlesque that you have to strip? (Probably men.) Dita admits herself she is no role model, and she had to do a lot of stripping in 'seedy bars' to get the high status she has today. I love burlesque culture.. and its feminist status is definitely a grey area. I just think it is a little naive for people to be so quick to label it as 'empowering', when to place stripping without nipple tassels under the same description would be clearly ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI don't think its feminist status is a "grey area". I have emailed in a post (and picture) to explain why.
ReplyDelete