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How long it takes to be a woman
I found this post quite interesting. It's a video put out by Glamour (one of those magazines that tells women to be anxious about wearing the wrong foundation) about men and women's hygiene routines, and how long each take. It's pretty gender essentialist (I imagine trans woman and trans men have a vastly different experience, to point out the obvious) and an overgeneralization (after spending time in Mexico City with rationed water, I do know how to take a fast shower) but I think the point still stands—the performance of femininity robs you of time. Like, a lot of time.
What's interesting is the comments. BoingBoing skews white male, and there are dudes lining up to say that, no, my wife doesn't do that, or this is just about people being vain and doing what society expects, as if women don't face serious financial penalties for non-compliance. As if there isn't an election on where one candidate looks like a puffy orange bezoar and the other looks like a regular woman who pushed an illegal war in Iraq, and all the media emphasis is on her appearance and whether she smiles enough.
Nowhere did I see a woman pop on and say, "nope, this doesn't describe me." The women are all like, "yeah it takes longer in the bathroom because you guys can just whip it out and we have to sit, how is this rocket science?"
At a certain point, I feel like people are deliberately not getting it. Not just with gender, but with any site of oppression. You get the same with "colourblind" anti-BLM folks, who just want to pretzel-logic their way around the obvious, which is that black people are getting killed and jailed en masse. It's exhausting.
What's interesting is the comments. BoingBoing skews white male, and there are dudes lining up to say that, no, my wife doesn't do that, or this is just about people being vain and doing what society expects, as if women don't face serious financial penalties for non-compliance. As if there isn't an election on where one candidate looks like a puffy orange bezoar and the other looks like a regular woman who pushed an illegal war in Iraq, and all the media emphasis is on her appearance and whether she smiles enough.
Nowhere did I see a woman pop on and say, "nope, this doesn't describe me." The women are all like, "yeah it takes longer in the bathroom because you guys can just whip it out and we have to sit, how is this rocket science?"
At a certain point, I feel like people are deliberately not getting it. Not just with gender, but with any site of oppression. You get the same with "colourblind" anti-BLM folks, who just want to pretzel-logic their way around the obvious, which is that black people are getting killed and jailed en masse. It's exhausting.
no subject
At 12, I was overweight and, uh, well-developed. To this day, there is barely a button-down shirt that will fit over my boobs and look flattering, and with more limited shopping options back then, there were exactly zero. I ended up looking naturally more dishevelled and slovenly than the other children in the band. Since then, I was aware of just how "neutral" dress codes are intensely gendered, and how much harder it is for women to appear professional.
And I'm now a medium-sized cis white lady, albeit an "ethnic" one. For larger women, women of colour, trans women, the standard is basically impossible.
no subject
I've usually been underweight, which has different problems, but not nearly as many I'd guess. Certainly not as much social disapproval :-/
no subject
It's fine now because I live in a city and have internet and can throw money at the problem instead of being stuck with whatever's cheapest at the one mall in town. But for preteen and teenage girls built like me—of which there are an increasing population, owing to earlier onset puberty—it's a nightmare, especially where school dress codes are enforced. There's practically nothing a busty girl can find that's modest, flattering, and affordable.