on mulling over previous link

[alexandra_thorn]

The author of the post I linked to in my previous entry talks about the uncomfortable experiences she has had with unwanted sexual attention from men. Toward the end of her post, she writes the following:

"Sometimes though, maybe a few times a week, I'll think I might want to wear something more girly, like I used to, and I always, always decide against it because I don't want to deal with attention from pushy men. It's just not worth the effort. I don't know when the last time I dressed femme was, except that it was more than two years ago. And it sucks that I can't just do that without having to deal with unwanted sexual attention. If strangers talk to me, I tone down any feminine affectations to the point of probably seeming asexual or vaguely masculine.

"Why do I do this? Well, overall I'm happier this way than the alternative. When strangers talk to me, it's always innocent and friendly and not at all sexually charged. I feel considerably less threatened and I've experienced ZERO unwanted male attention since I started doing this. It's just really stupid that I have to do it at all, and I'd certainly be MORE happy if I didn't HAVE to do it, ALL the time."

This quote is just a tiny fragment of what the author has had to say, but this bit catches my attention like a snag. What intrigues me here is that this seems to be the exact opposite of the narrative I usually hear. The more familiar one goes like this: many women put on exaggerated feminine affectations and will even try to act "stupid" because, for them, sexual attention is a form of positive reenforcement. According to that narrative, these women are unable to feel personally validated except in terms of their sexual attractiveness, and as a result will lose track of their own identities in favor of presenting the one that other people want to see.

These two narratives seem like sides of the same coin, and I'm not sure which is more concerning.

Comments

[jbvb]

I think both aspects are manifestations of several underlying problems: First, the traditional (biological or gender-role driven, I don't care) courting passivity of the human female in all cultures I know anything about; neither relationships nor sex are likely to happen to men who don't ask. Second, bad cultural memes still abound: 'coy (or innocent) woman' vs. 'aggressive, dominant man' has manifested in the most unlikely (to me) places in the past few years.

[alexandra_thorn]

First, the traditional (biological or gender-role driven, I don't care) courting passivity of the human female in all cultures I know anything about; neither relationships nor sex are likely to happen to men who don't ask.

I agree that the archetype is common, but I'm not sure how it interfaces with arranged marriage... certainly a common cultural phenomenon.

[jbvb]

I hadn't considered arranged marriage, because in what I've read about it, it appears to generally be initiated by one or both sets of parents, and only gets into the "unwanted sexual attention" space by focusing on the lack of consent apparent in some arranged marriages. Also, in what I've read it appears that the absence of consent is as likely to pain the male as the female...

[alexandra_thorn]

the most unlikely (to me) places in the past few years.

Care to elaborate?

[noneuklid.livejournal.com]

I almost don't even see this as a different side of that coin. The poster you quoted wants to dress up 'femme' because she enjoys it; something about it appeals positively to her self-image. The fact that she sees male attention as a negative seems to me no more odd than similar hyper-focus in others... those who take being thin or having large breasts beyond the point of attractiveness as become absorbed in a self-image.

The comparative mildness of wishing to dress up effeminately is of course an important difference, but the underlying issue seems basically the same. Effeminate clothing was created to be -- by definition -- sexually distinctive and therefore sexually attractive. This is equally as true of a mini-skirt, a hostesses's neck-cut housedress, and a burka; in each case the point isn't what's shown but what's elaborately concealed. The point on the scale at which wanting to wear a skirt (or whatever) falls is exponentially less than developing an eating disorder, but the interesting underlying psychological question is the same: this desire for beauty (well, positive self-image, but beauty is a convenient shorthand term) both absorbed from and then diverged from the mainstream. When, and why?

(It's also true for clothing that sexually distinguishes men; this area has been blurred in the last century, but there's still a fetishization of typically male-role clothing like business suits or firemen's slickers.)