Clara ([info]anotherthink) wrote,
@ 2007-11-05 14:35:00
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Current mood: irked
Entry tags:gender, whining

nothing new to see here
Coats believes makeup on men is not a good idea for the general population. "A guy should look like a guy. I think in general, guys just look better natural."
Ah yes. Skin blemishes are "masculine"; spending a lot of time and money to pretend you don't have any skin blemishes is "feminine". The twenty-first century sure is full of utopian gender equality!

Similarly, when I read software blogs, I often see bios that describe developers as living "with a beautiful wife", but never with an intelligent/brave/funny/hard-working wife; and female bloggers (there's, like, one female software blogger anyway; there used to be more, but that's another, much worse story), never say they have beautiful husbands.

And why am I clicking on headlines containing the word "guyliner"? Um, I guess it's been a long day?


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[info]sbisaac
2007-11-06 02:07 am UTC (link)
Wait ... is Pete Wentz a hipster? I call bullshit.

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[info]anotherthink
2007-11-07 04:30 pm UTC (link)
I don't know if he counts or not.

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[info]sbisaac
2007-11-08 05:49 pm UTC (link)
I'm just saying that the article called him "the world's most approachable hipster." I'm a little hung-over; maybe in my addled state, I can't recognize obvious sarcasm. But is it news that male rock stars want to dress up like women? I thought that was the whole point of being a rock star!

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[info]cruft
2007-11-06 02:30 am UTC (link)
"While symbolic makeup is sometimes worn by men in traditional societies, it is especially the preserve of women and girls precisely because, in addition to its particular symbolic functions, it is an enhancement of feminine beauty."

Furthermore, "...when we seek to enhance and make the most of feminine beauty on earth, we are pursuing an ancient art which is literally cosmetic. We are bringing ourselves into line with the Cosmos itself, by maximising our small part in its order and beauty."

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[info]dragonladyflame
2007-11-06 02:45 am UTC (link)
There was a fabulous movement in the late 1800s to disempower suffragettes that used a lot of suspiciously similar language. Except a lot of it also claimed that pretty women had better character. We have a few such books in stock ....

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[info]dragonladyflame
2007-11-06 02:45 am UTC (link)
"Take Jean Paul Gaultier's Brow and Lash Groomer: It is ingeniously designed to look like a pen. It's also mascara. 4VOO's impressive-sounding Confidence Corrector is a product better known as concealer."

I heart marketing.

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[info]vahkvahk
2007-11-07 02:48 pm UTC (link)
I've noticed that older men (by which I mean "older than me"), when they are trying to stress how capable a young female is at some historically-male-dominated task, also tend to try to compliment their physical form. Like "Jenn is a very good programmer, and she's very pretty too" or "Kathleen is a fine executive, and very beautiful". I've wondered about this for some time -- at the very moment they're trying to stress their acknowledgement that women can be successful in these men-dominated spheres, they very carefully reduce them to sex objects.

I think there is a fear that saying a woman is a good executive or whatever might be an implication that she is not very feminine (since being an executive is traditionally a masculine power position), and since, clearly, all women wish to be feminine, that would be an insult. So I think it's an earnest (but ill-executed and ill-advised) attempt to make sure one's compliment doesn't accidentally turn into an insult: "She's a good executive (which I value) and still maintains her femininity (which I assume she values)".

Despite perhaps being similar on the surface, I think this is very different from a younger person saying something along the lines of "Man, she knows how to program -- she's hot!" This I think has more to do with letting someone's personality and knowledge influence your attraction towards them (possibly even more than their looks), which is probably a good thing. Kinda like how I fawn over every female bassist I see, because they are in the intersection of "feminine" and "bass player", which are two things I find attractive -- it's not sexist any more than being straight is sexist.

As to why male bloggers mention their beautiful wives, it's probably because male geeks have this secret fear that they'll never be popular or successful with women, and they assume everyone else will assume they've been unpopular or unsuccessful with women unless they brag. And somehow, despite our best attempts at being fair, physical appearance shades our feelings of attraction, and that leads the way to what defines popularity or success. Why don't geeky women brag about their husbands? I don't know -- perhaps you have some insight.

Plus, maybe they mean she's beautiful on the inside.

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[info]anotherthink
2007-11-07 06:26 pm UTC (link)
it's an earnest (but ill-executed and ill-advised) attempt to make sure one's compliment doesn't accidentally turn into an insult
This is certainly possible; though I sometimes get a vibe that some people are surprised that a woman can be both good-looking and good at something; the same sort of applies to men, except the default assumption is that most men are more good-at-stuff than good-looking.

it's not sexist any more than being straight is sexist
Well, some people would go so far as to say that being straight is sexist. But extremism aside, I think there's something useful in interrogating the concepts of "femininity"/"masculinity", which aspects are constructed, which aspects it might be good to try to move past. E.g. if a straight man finds a woman attractive because she has the "feminine" quality of an hourglass figure, fine. But if he finds her unattractive because she has the "unfeminine" quality of being assertive or finds her attractive because she has the "feminine" quality of being bad at math, I'd suggest he interrogate his concept of femininity. Obviously there is a big extent to which we can't change what we find attractive, socially constructed or not, but I think there's some benefit to being aware of these things.

Why don't geeky women brag about their husbands?
Well, there's a small sample of female tech bloggers to begin with, but most of the ones I've seen say little about their personal life; possibly because they're hyper-aware of the risk that they'll be seen as defining themselves by their partners. In general I don't have any problem with people bragging that they've landed attractive significant others; but I'm bothered that the most relevant attractive quality in a straight man's partner is her looks, while if a straight woman were bragging about her partner she would be unlikely to mention looks first.

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