Transition As Transaction: “Passing” And The Commodification Of Womanhood

[MaidofOrleans]

Uhhh everything is a commodity. Just look at what's happened to breast cancer. People have to make a living. This is just more anti capitalist feminist noise.

[tekla]

But one aspect in particular interests me here, which is how the primacy of "passing" as the implicit goal of transition is hooked up to extremely narrow, culturally-rigid standards of female beauty and feminine dress, appearance and mannerism... which are each in turn inseparable from commerce, commodity, transaction and the beauty industry. (quote from article, emphasis mine)


I don't find that very far off.  It's not an occasional deal, but almost the manta around here that consistently - and constantly - holds out the most mainstream and one-dimensional stereotypes about gender.  There are times that I have to check my calendar because I swear I'm stuck in some bad 1950s time warp (complete with the 'man to take care of me' -- presumably so I can sit and eat bon-bons all day).  It's an image not forged out of real life, but directly out of the media.

What is held up as the 'feminine ideal' all too often is not a reality, but an image - mirage if you will - made up by the advertising industry to sell more stuff.  And while many women (and men too, in the reverse) are attempting to break free of those confining notions, many trans persons seem to want to double-down on them.

Sadly, I'm sure the author could find many examples in here to support her thesis that all too often in the trans world true womanhood (or manhood) is a matter of buying, not being.

[mixie]

One way to consider what she's saying is to look at the way Western women stereotype Hijabi Muslim women who cover their heads as being "oppressed" by the patriarchy in the Arabic world.  It is rarely regarded as an empowered action even though nearly all of the women I know who do cover,  do so out of a sense of autonomy and respect for their own body.

They will often look at American women as sexually objectified in society.  Women in western cultures are so used at being in the public eye that they don't comprehend what it is like not to have to be prepared to be looked at all the time.

A few years ago I did a paper on my experience taking photographs of my sons.  For the most part they were completely uncooperative in the shoots.   Pictures woud be ruined by a shifted eye or collapsed posture.   I got so used to this that I was startled when I visited my girlfriend and found that her girls posed, smiled and were completely used to being expected to sit and be looked at.

Laura Mulvey  discusses this as the female gaze of "to be looked at ness"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze

[spacial]

I think it's interesting that, according to some feminists, when non-Western women do things that are distinctly female, such as covering themselves, even wearing cultural jewlery make up and so on, it' their culture. But when western women do it, it's a sign of an oppressive misogynist, All men are rapists, society.

http://www.ssps.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/profiles/jeffreys

As I said, I'm sure this young woman has something to say, possibly even interesting. But I don't understand a word of what she's written. And I have a feeling that was the point.

She has said nothing.

She has nothing to say.

She just wants to rattle her cage.

But much like the Emperor's new clothes, anyone who notices she and similar are talking nonsense, are generally rounded upon by those that are still too scared to say it.

[Carbon]

I think it's interesting that, according to some feminists, when non-Western women do things that are distinctly female, such as covering themselves, even wearing cultural jewlery make up and so on, it' their culture. But when western women do it, it's a sign of an oppressive misogynist, All men are rapists, society.

http://www.ssps.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/profiles/jeffreys

As I said, I'm sure this young woman has something to say, possibly even interesting. But I don't understand a word of what she's written. And I have a feeling that was the point.

She has said nothing.

She has nothing to say.

She just wants to rattle her cage.

But much like the Emperor's new clothes, anyone who notices she and similar are talking nonsense, are generally rounded upon by those that are still too scared to say it.

The fact that you couldn't understand it doesn't mean that she didn't have anything to say.  I can't understand some writers but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with the writing or the people who like it.

Edit: Also Natalie Reed actually criticizes the whole "makeup and jewelry are misogynist" thing in this article.

"And these deconstructions can also manifest as their own problematic, femmephobic tendencies towards things like regarding femininity itself as the problem rather than issues like femininity being simultaneously coded as weak and submissive while imposed upon women as an expected standard."

In other words according to Natalie Reed things that are regarded as feminine aren't a problem, it's just the way those things are regarded as week, submissive, etc while also being portrayed as an obligation for women.

[spacial]

Good point Carbon.

I was attempting to allude to the use of excessive language as a distraction from the lack of argument. Your previously made the point: It's basically about how "womanhood" is treated as a commodity and that while most women have to do all this stuff in order to be seen as valuable trans women have to do all that stuff just to be seen as women at all.

And men need to do XYZ to be seen as valuable. (The penality for men is to be beaten up, humiliated, ect.).

So, we're all comodities. Potential cannon fodder. Those with testicles get to be blown up while those with ovaries get to reproduce the next generation of those with testicles. (Woopee)

Thanks for pointing it out.

[Shana A]

Reminder of Rule 10


10. Bashing or flaming of any individuals or groups is not acceptable behavior on this web site and will not be tolerated in the slightest for any reason.  This includes but is not limited to:

Feminists, women, men, etc

[spacial]

My apologies. It was never intended as a personal attack, rather attempting to highlight impressions of the writing style by emulation.

Though I fully understand that it came across as excessively sharp.

You are perfectly right, correct and justified to delete it.

[tekla]

The fact that you couldn't understand it doesn't mean that she didn't have anything to say.

Word.


See: Steven Hawkings, A Brief History of Time.

[spacial]

Thank you tekla.

But your comment is made in reference to a post, I believe was directed at me, the reply to which is now a heavily abridged version, lacking any substantive point.

I guess this will remain one of those subjects that is available for suitably polemical lectures aimed at the so far, unenlightened and the terminally destructive males, but which few can criticise, since to criticise demonstrates we don't understand.

Long live stupidity.