no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Which she'll never actually do because it would be assault and also honestly she probably wouldn't win a physical confrontation. Whereas men WILL harass her for being shirtless, don't you think?

Actually -- this is so layered, I can agree with you but there's a price... I think she's a hero in that she looks fierce and iconic in an "images of the feminine" way and absolutely resolute -- and if she's willing to bear the burden of the disconnect between how the world should be and how the world is, that's her personal undertaking and I wish her strength and cheer and beauty to balance things out.

you put it better than i could have, but yes -- i agree. i have a tendency to live in that disconnected zone so i guess it's not surprising that i would applaud her.

I have no problem with toplessness qua toplessness at all but you can't look at this in a vacuum. She does look fierce but exactly in the way that male comic book artists draw women as fierce, right down to the in-your-face sexualization. I might feel a little more impressed if she didn't land smack dab in the middle of acceptable beauty standard and stood around with her boobs out holding a sign, too. Basically I applaud her message and her fierceness but I feel like the fact that she looks and acts lime what dudes wish feminists looked and acted like (sexy, fierce lady warriors) dilutes the radicalness of her act.

I'm looking at this from an American perspective, though, which is not entirely fair to the woman's intent but I think still works for the purposes of this discussion.

xp pretty much what Laurel said. I definitely don't live in that disconnect, for a lot of reasons.

she can't help what she looks like and whether or not she's attractive
it's the spirit of what she's doing that i like

I'd be interested what men actually DO in that sitch, tbh. You know, I was imagining the worst, some kind of hooting circle that would stay a little way back and enjoy the show, or random outbursts of anger because she's acting against the status quo...but it's also likely that they just put their heads down, tried not to look, and went about their business feeling intruded upon. Which is honestly hilarious. Because that's what they expect women to do, isn't it.

No, but it does matter that she's attractive, because that's the territory that harassers are trying to claim. If she weren't conventionally attractive, she'd represent territory that men are told they shouldn't WANT to claim because it would reflect poorly on THEM if their desires were out of line with the norm. Which is a whole other thing....

it sounds like from the article that there were a group of women doing this, or am i misreading?

Yeah but I didn't say it didn't matter; I said she can't help it.

That's true, and you're right. Maybe they only chose to photo her for the paper for that reason? There are too many filters here with too many different agendas/bodies of influences to really grasp. So maybe it's better just to admire the spirit of the thing. :)

i just think the dynamics of it being a group action are different than were it the action of a sole individual

I know she can't help it. I'm not holding that against her nor do I think it means her convictions are weak or anything but I think it weakens the gesture as activism. That's all.

Though sarahel has a good point abt group dynamics and whether this one woman who fits so well what we want a fierce sexy warrior woman to look like was pictured in the paper for that very reason.

I was going to revive this thread yesterday to ask about hair dryer diffuser attachments but never got around to it. I like this conversation better. :)

i'm trying to figure out exactly what the gesture is? Is it "look don't touch"?

I was referring to the toplessness specifically not the overall protest against being fucked up on public transit.

Summary: being smoking hot, thin, young, and perky while topless in public does not feel that radical because that's kind of what dominant cultural narratives claim young, thin, etc. woman are best suited for. American POV disclaimer.

Fucked WITH not fucked up. Different issue totally.

i kind of read it as "MY body stay away but if you want it so bad here it is ARGHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH" like a crazy person running naked through the forest on a rampage.

knowing what i know of ukrainian men, and i have not had a whole lot of good experiences outside of one particular student who liked to tell jokes, they will look down their noses at her and preemptively reject her on the basis that she is crazy. no offense to ukrainian men (i am of ukrainian descent) but some of the most obnoxious students i have ever had have been outrageously self-important ukrainian men.

I've got a stodgy second wave streak a mile wide.

― Regular Stormy (Jenny), Friday, October 1, 2010 9:03 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hi Jenny, this is the best way of putting this i've ever encountered, i'm going to start using it immediately. me, too: stodgy second wave streak.

Do you all have any girl friends who make fun of their friends/acquaintances that they think are prettier than themselves? I.E., when they are making fun of someone you haven't met or seen yet, you know that they must be pretty, or being seen as "competition" in some way by the one making fun? It works the other way too, i.e. praising/becoming friends with girls they view as less attractive than themselves, or not their competition in some way. I think this is such a fucked up way of viewing the world (duh) and it seriously makes me nauseous.

I mean... no?

Well, you're lucky and living in a grown up world and I envy you.

I can think of one friend right off the top of my head who I think is unquestionably, by any standard, not considering style or taste or character or anything else, simply objectively almost always the most beautiful person in the room. This is not her fault, and I don't think she particularly cares, and as I see it, she makes a strong effort never to trade on her looks at all. I'd feel like a horrible person for even mentioning it.

Do you all have any girl friends who make fun of their friends/acquaintances that they think are prettier than themselves?

if i do, they don't make fun of them in my presence

Also I make fun of all my friends, probably, for their peculiarities! But I like to think: not ones they themselves haven't in some way put out there. :(

Tbh I'm having trouble thinking of how yr scenario would even play out, without the speaker being given sidelong glances and possibly taken aside and talked to afterward? Or at least it wd represent her really poorly to anyone who heard.

xpost I'm not talking about model looking people who do this, I'm talking about objectively average-ish people who do this.

Do you all have any girl friends who make fun of their friends/acquaintances that they think are prettier than themselves? I.E., when they are making fun of someone you haven't met or seen yet, you know that they must be pretty, or being seen as "competition" in some way by the one making fun? It works the other way too, i.e. praising/becoming friends with girls they view as less attractive than themselves, or not their competition in some way. I think this is such a fucked up way of viewing the world (duh) and it seriously makes me nauseous.

― hoos wears orange camo pants ffs (roxymuzak), Friday, October 1, 2010 3:22 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not exactly this, but i had a roommate and friend a while back who was ridiculously beautiful, in an unreal movie star kind of way. she hadn't had many female friends over the course of her life, and i am unsure how to express this (maybe i'm being sexist, i don't know), but i think at least part of that was a direct result of how she looked. my other female friends at the time didn't make fun of her, but they often, for example, expressed disbelief that she could possibly hold the feminist views she professed to hold because she wore too much makeup (possibly irrelevant item: she didn't wear much makeup at all) or some other seemingly hostile observation that i could only understand as jealousy or at least assumptions based on what she looked like. it was depressing.

Like this person will just make fun of someone (her friend) for looking old, or something (behind their back obv), when they are like obviously a very cute person. Maybe wanting people to agree so that her self image will improve? But still, how would that improve your self image?

xp that seems like a very high school way to talk about people.

Thinking about people who invariably talk about appearance, the only person who comes to mind is my mother. and of course, that's different–she's usually talking about people my age, which makes me uncomfortable.

xpost

it is really crappy that anything exists in the world that causes people to feel like that/do those things.

That sounds really mean. And depressing to be around.

xp that seems like a very high school way to talk about people.

we were all in our early twenties, and i'm not in touch with any of those people anymore. maybe that's not the way they are anymore.

hmm, the only time something like that comes up in conversation is akin to discussing a personality quirk or a known fact in terms of relationships with others. Like "attractive friend A" should be the one to approach the bartender to try and get us free drinks, etc.

it would be nice if the pressures that i assume lead to these behaviors were expressed directly instead of at the expense of other women. like, "it sucks that so much of women's perceived value is tied up in how they look." but i guess i'm stating the ridiculously obvious.

i guess some friends of mine (not just women, also guys) will occasionally be catty when it comes to an attractive woman's appearance and her relative success in the music scene.

yeah i have to say lots of the dudes i knew back then made hostile comments about this woman, too. those had a slightly different tenor, though; those dudes tended to be rejected suitors.

What my mom-in-law does is kind of the opposite, praising how beautiful someone is around them, in really kind of boundary-free ways, until they are clearly super uncomfortable. She does this to her daughters, especially, but one time she started in on me, telling my husband how lucky he was "to be able to love a woman with such firm and beautiful breasts and strong calves" etc etc...awkward!

omg Abbott

Your MiL is really...different. Isn't she.

my mom is kind of like that, actually, though (i hope!) not to that degree. i think that is kind of an opposite response to the same social pressures. like, i think some women i have known developed slavishly devoted friendships with v beautiful women as though those women's beauty is an accomplishment to be admired.

Oh man, yes, exactly! That is how my mom-in-law is about her daughter the hairstylist. "I am so lucky to have a daughter who gets to be beautiful and make people beautiful for a living." With real pride, and it's sweet but also a little awkward. I think that really is the #1 thing you can do, in her opinion, is be pretty.

sometimes i think my mom thinks that, too. :( except, on some level she knows better.

that is such a weird thing - how does she not see that it's dead obvious what she's doing? she could at least be a bit more subtle and undermine her 'friend' in a way that isn't so blatantly demonstrating her own insecurities!! xps to rox

i know my mom doesn't think like that. she always accentuated the virtues of kindness and usefulness

Sometimes my mom-in-law will start in on how "real" (meaning not skinny) my body is, and how laudable it is to be that "real of a woman." And it's kinda hard not to get fuckin' offended, because she's so obsessed w/everyone's weight, and her own weight. But OTOH it doesn't seem like a back-handed way of calling me a fatty: it seems, well, real. It's just a weird thing to praise someone for, it's weird praise, I don't know how to take it.

i don't want to be all let me tell you about my mother, but she's a complex case. i think on some level she experiences the mandate that women be beautiful as a real imposition, but her response to it is expressed...contradictorily. i don't mean to run her down; she's an excellent person.

xp

oh Abbott, that blows. women who are fucked up about this stuff project such weirdness into the world at other women.

the majority of my close female friends has always been prettier than me (i don't consider myself an ugly duckling or anything, i just have lots of super cute friends), so i got used to being the wingman. when i was younger i was envious of their good looks, but and sometimes jealous (i would be lying if i said i was ~never~ jealous), but now that i'm ooooold and married, it matters a lot less.

xp horseshoe - seriously!! One of my friends' moms was really hung up about weight and beauty and stuff like that, to the point where they were discussing what form of plastic surgery she should have at age 12.

I have known people like Roxy describes, definitely, but I can't stand that kind of crap so we are not friends.

I also have a friend our age who is like Abbott's MiL! She's a handful and that is only one way her neurosis manifests itself so I guess I just kind of ignore it. She will also exaggerate ppl's desirable qualities to the point of making shit up (like she would tell ppl that I was a genius and had the grades for law review but turned it down bc I didn't believe in their politics, which is nonsense from beginning to end).

I have another friend who always talks about how nice and smart and skinny women are, like including "skinny" in her short list of A+ personality characteristics. We don't talk much anymore, tho not just because of that.

that is such a weird thing - how does she not see that it's dead obvious what she's doing? she could at least be a bit more subtle and undermine her 'friend' in a way that isn't so blatantly demonstrating her own insecurities!! xps to rox

― just1n3, Friday, October 1, 2010 3:50 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

^this, mainly. it's hard to respond to because it seems so sad for the person doing it, and obviously so. like, aren't you embarrassed saying this? usually i'm just like "what? i think she looks good."

If someone is that weird about others I just can't handle being pals w/them, usually. This is why I have about three friends.