Obvious When You Know

[Anthony Simon]

I mean, if this is right, "obvious when you know" is not your problem at all. You know - and have known from early times - it's that you're supposed not to know and have had to spend your whole life denying that you do.

Ouch! You're not supposed to be able to see all the way to the bottom of the pool, Anthony. You're supposed to say, "Gee, it's kind of muddy--I can't see anything here."

But to stay on topic--even though I have an instinctual feel for how women go about being women, the little details get in the way. I have to be willing to just go out and in some cases make a fool of my gal self. Like learning a foreign language on vacation, there's no way to get it perfect without stumbling around some.

"The devil is in the detail." I mean you can make yourself understood in a foreign language, but without a grasp of details you're still going to sound like a foreigner.

Small detail that just came to me--blouses and skirts. When do I tuck in the blouse, and when do I let it go over the skirt? As a guy, I have the same issue, and I don't have to think about it--I know what looks appropriate in each case. As a girl, I just don't know. I have a 'feeling' about it, but as we saw in the button case, my feelings can go against the reality of what everyone actually does.

I know, with me, I tend to leave the blouse loose over the skirt. Like I'm trying to create this illusion of a middle-aged woman who's got a bit overweight and so is happy to forgo the figure-hugging stuff. There's some sense that that's the woman that's turning up when I dress up and I just try to go with that.

[Paula G]

Interestingly I have found recently that it is more often me than my wife telling my 14 year old daughter what clothes go with what, how to put together an outfit, and how much make up to use - I have to be careful not to go into any detail on how to use it though - she is soaking up how to be a woman, all the little things (like "don't sit like that dear, it's not very nice") as well as some of the big things. We're never conscious of the lessons, but every conversation, every show, every film all adds up.

Of course the same is true with boys learning to be men, just hope that they are not raised on a diet solely of Bruce Willis.

[Anthony Simon]

There's a well-known feminist who (partly I'm sure as a way of annoying other feminists and so gaining publicity) said that she learnt about how to be a woman by copying (famous UK drag atist) Danny La Rue. So...

I'm not sure that Bruce Willis (and the other guys like that) aren't out of date as role models right now. I think people like David Beckham are probably more important. I mean he's a guy who's worn his wife's underwear and made it into a kind of metro-sexual acceptable thing. He's also very successful at what he does (or has been) and a very narcissistic sort of guy. If I had to say the sort of person who has influenced the (youngish) men I see wandering the London streets, it would probably be him - just because, whatever the specific image they present, there's so much "look how wonderful I am" attitude. You end up with some sort of generic image of a cool guy who's on top of his game.

But I do think there is very considerable aggression under the surface.

[Anita]

Paula wrote:

We're never conscious of the lessons, but every conversation, every show, every film all adds up.

Of course the same is true with boys learning to be men...

I see that one thing that always hurts is when you're growing up, and as you add up all those conversations, shows, and films, you see that you are not going to fit. That hurts, and it's hard to deny.

I saw that as a teen-ager, I didn't fit the mold to be a rock musician. Instead of trying to change, I accepted this, and quietly died inside for a long time. Then I decided I would make that mold work for me no matter what, and went for it. Mixed success, at that. The third stage was going outside of it completely, as a 'girl,' and having more success as a result. I mean, I still used parts of the mold, but I also turned them upside down at the same time. I didn't fit the 'girls with guitars' mold, and I sure didn't fit the boy mold anymore.

That is amusing, about your intuitions concerning your 14 year old. Yes, you can't be TOO good at makeup tips, can you?

Anthony wrote:

There's a well-known feminist who (partly I'm sure as a way of annoying other feminists and so gaining publicity) said that she learnt about how to be a woman by copying (famous UK drag atist) Danny La Rue. So...

She'd get a lot of mileage out of that, I can see. I get a grin just reading that statement. The best feminist response would be to ignore it, but it would be hard not to take the bait.

[Anthony Simon]

Anthony wrote:

There's a well-known feminist who (partly I'm sure as a way of annoying other feminists and so gaining publicity) said that she learnt about how to be a woman by copying (famous UK drag atist) Danny La Rue. So...

She'd get a lot of mileage out of that, I can see. I get a grin just reading that statement. The best feminist response would be to ignore it, but it would be hard not to take the bait.

It was Camille Paglia. Here's a bit from an article from 1993:

http://www.geocities.ws/karenspecial/whatdrag.html

Academic live wire Camille Paglia says male-to-female drag queens symbolize strength, and that they have shaped her own feminist theories. “It’s a persona that’s far more aggressive and self-reliant than that of the established feminists who whine to committees about a date they had last night. … The drag queens have an incredible mouth. They can defend themselves by word and by deed. They know they can’t go to the police if they get roughed up. They are like these warriors. RuPaul is magnificent – a new persona for the 21st century.”

For the notoriously individualistic Paglia, drag queens celebrate the “magical procreative power” of women. She says they have “allowed [her] to learn what it is to be a woman.… I’m basically a drag queen.”

It's fairly predictable what your sister [Anita's sister is a feminist professor who thinks CDs have no credibility] would make out of that. But still...

If anyone's interested, Paglia apparently states these views in one of her essay collections. I remember her giving an interview with them in them in the 90s (probably to the London listings mag Time Out). It would either have to be her first or second book to fit with the dates. The second apparently has a review of a book on CDing, but the first looks better...