the right to be equally objectified

[sophiaserpentia]

Originally published at Monstrous Regiment. You can comment here or there.

The officials who run the Miss Spain pageant have changed their eligibility rules so that mothers and transsexual women are allowed to compete.

It’s a strike for… equality?

Won’t it be a shining moment in transgender history when, say, three to five years from now, a galla wins the title of Miss Spain and goes on to have a huge public tussle with the people who run the Miss World pageant?

Eyup, i’m looking forward to it.

It’s kind of sad that the right to be equally objectified alongside women-born-women seems in some ways like a step up. I could write a lot here about the origins of beauty pageants, their fundamental heteronormativity, reinforcement of the male gaze, and, and let’s not forget that modern pageants exist to sell products by bathing suit companies. That stuff is not really what i want to write about today, and it’s easy enough to research if you care.

The average galla, like the average WBW, wants to feel that people think she’s pretty.

I don’t mean “hot” or “doable” or “sexy,” or “i’d hit that.” I’ve been told many times by numerous men that i am an acceptable recipient of their transitory lust — as long as i promise not to say anything to their wives. Few of them bothered to waste the air it would have taken to call me pretty.

So at this point in life i am not concerned about whether or not someone will invite me to bed. But do they think i’m pretty?

Prettiness is… i don’t know. I shouldn’t call it “validation.” It’s more a kind of acceptance, a kind i’ve been starved for my whole life.

I don’t know whether it’s something we’re taught while we’re growing up or if it’s just a reflection of a natural desire to belong and be accepted. It doesn’t matter; either way, it’s too often used as a way to manipulate girls.

It’s not that i think it would confirm that i’m a woman to be told i’m pretty. But most girls, i suppose, are told at least a few times while they’re growing up that they’re pretty; but your average galla, at least those my age, were never told it.

I think my mom said it to me once when i was 14, or at least something to similar effect. I had come out to her, and at first she kind of freaked out. One night, though, she showed me how to brush out a wig, and gave me a few other pointers on dressing and presenting a bit more femininely.

How can i express what that felt like after 14 years of being firmly repressed?

And how do i square this up with what many of my feminist friends have told me, of how it was drilled in their heads non-stop from the time they were small that they had to spend a lot of their time primping so they would look pretty? It is no surprise when WBW meet gallae and hear us “squee” because someone told us we’re pretty, and conclude that we’ve just bought into the social superficial nonsense surrounding femininity and have no idea what it’s really like. I can’t blame them; they were overdosed on the thing which we were starved of, and not only does either treatment make us all pliable it also divides us, causes us to mistrust each other.

Honestly, i don’t find it ‘liberating’ to spend more time in the morning making myself presentable, or to pay thousands of dollars (and cry many tears) to have facial hair removed so i will be more acceptably pretty. But it is ‘freeing’ in the sense that it means i do not have to continue to abide by the course that was set for me by god and country during the first two decades of my life. From my perspective, it more closely resembles the freedom to live life on my own terms.

I am jumping from the fire into the frying pan.

Comments

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

I think you're jumping the other way.

It will be much more liberating when we smash the entire idea of "beauty" as some objective marker through which women of all types must compete to "prove" their "value".

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Well, like i said, not exactly a step up really, but at least something that feels more like getting to live on my own terms. I can hope the idea of beauty crashes down someday, and even work to bring that about; but i have to find a way to live in the world today too. As it's set up i don't think there's any way for any woman to "win" the beauty game. But we all have different points of least discomfort i guess.

[dorisp.livejournal.com]

I agree with this poster and I also want to add that there is nothing to feel guilty about in regards to wanting to feel pretty. In fact, wanting to feel pretty is an intrinsic part of being female. It doesn't seem you are doing anything out of the norm. In fact, the things you are doing that make yourself more pretty (hair removal, etc.) are things that any woman would do. I think the base definition of "pretty" is "not like a man" so getting rid of masculine things like facial hair makes sense. After those base requirements, I think prettiness is really determined by the beholder. It's very nice to be told your pretty, but try to think of all the times people have told you you're beautiful which is a far better compliment as it not only includes physical appearance but intellect as well.

[goldoyster.livejournal.com]

I disagree.

A lot of females don't care about being called "pretty". Some resent it, in fact. I'm sure if you think about it you'll see what I mean.

Hair removal, etc are all societal, temporal trends. In Ancient Egypt women had to shave their heads at puberty and don those wigs. . now we condition and get highlights, etc. . .some never cared, some always will care, some cultures seek to hide it (muslim), others seek to glorify it (beauty pagents), etc etc.

There are so many sorts of people out there, I say whatever makes someone happy, for whatever reason -- go for it! Who I am to say no, to say something is wrong. Personally, even though I think beauty pagents are messed up. . symptoms of an illness, it clearly is something many are drawn to, so let them go through that and come what come may.

I just won't be watching. Never have, never will.

[goldoyster.livejournal.com]

p.s. really good thought provoking post Sophia Serpentia. Well, most of your posts are for me. So thank you!

[nationelectric.livejournal.com]

Vaguely related:

I appreciate Garance’s thought experiment (which, in my opinion, is really the best way to view her proposal) because it at least attempts to examine women’s interests beyond an overly simplistic it’s-my-body-and-I’ll-flash-if-I-want-to watered-down “choice” feminism that disingenuously posits a world in which power is no longer gendered and individual decisions have no ramifications beyond the individual. But her experiment fails because it looks at only the half of our culture that punishes women for sexualized exuberance. What about the half that rewards women—with attention, praise of their hotness, and even (slightly) more sophisticated things like assumptions about how cool and free and comfortable they must be with their bodies and sexualities—for showing their goods?

The Girls Gone Wild phenomenon has been produced by a culture that, for all the progress we’ve made around de-stigmatizing sexual expression, especially for women, still conceptualizes female sexuality as being primarily about display that brings pleasure to (presumably male) observers. But what about women experiencing their own pleasure in ways that render an audience irrelevant? Girls and women are steeped in cultural messages saying it’s more important to look like someone else’s version of sexy than to experience sexual pleasure. They’re taught that you might want to make out with another girl because men think it’s hot, not because kissing girls might feel good. Girls wear the latest short skits and lacy tops to schools where their sex ed is abstinence-only, and a mini-gaggle of pop stars got famous for saving themselves for marriage while simultaneously cultivating junior-sexpot personae. Movies about girls exploring their sexuality get harsh treatment from the MPAA while their boy-focused counterparts become hits with far raunchier content and, not coincidentally, lots of scenes where guys watch their female classmates undress. Just one example of many is “Coming Soon,” about a trio of high school girls’ quest for an orgasm; the film’s masturbation scene had to be significantly trimmed to earn an R rating. “American Pie,” on the other hand, was an R-rated hit revolving around male masturbation—and the only time a girl gets close to touching herself, the guys are secretly watching her on a webcam.

By pointing this out, I’m not denying that it can indeed be fun and sexy to show off your body, and that the attention you get in response can also be sexy (though as all women know, it can also be incredibly creepy). But if we’re going to make any change in, to use Garance’s phrase, the supply side of late-teens porn, we need to change the cultural context of sexuality at all ages. We need to examine where the sexiness of being looked at comes from: without question, the consistent, multifaceted, exhausting—yet inexhaustible—barrage of messages that female sexuality is about making a display that gets someone else off has a lot to do with it.

-- http://www.campusprogress.org/features/1569/whose-pleasure

[cennetig.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this. I was wondering recently why there doesn't seem to be more transgendered women who are content with presenting as "average". It seems like a lot of transwomen go for what I would call a hoochi mama look akin to pam anderson types instead of more girl next door types. Of coarse I may just be noticing those who are actively seeking to draw attention to themselves. Regardless, this was a nice short explanation for me.

[hearthstone.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's anything wrong with being pretty, or with wanting to be pretty. It's often a form of external validation, but I don't think that's necessarily always a bad thing--it has a purpose, and I can understand why it is important to many people.

The problem I have is that, culturally, women are often expected to be pretty, and considered of less worth if we don't conform to the attractiveness norm. I've known women who, if they happened to run out of milk, would put on nicer clothes and a bit of makeup before they'd run out to the 7-11 for ten minutes. (Personally I figure that if I'm clean, I'm good to go. :))

Being pretty isn't something we owe the observer, although many observers seem to think so.