Sexism And The Victorians

[joreth]

A friend pointed me towards someone's journal who started discussing the concept of sexism in the Vintage Dance scene local to where he lives.  Now, I have no personal exposure to that scene, so I can't really speak on the reality of the situation.  But someone else wrote his own journal entry and veered off a little into the confusing issue of

Comments

[joreth]

Yeah, that was essentially what I was trying to say too. Some people just don't seem to get that it is possible to dress a certain way because it pleases ME to do so, not because I want attention from other people. It doesn't please me because of how others perceive me, it please me period.

Although I'm certain people *do* notice me, my point in my choice of attire was not to *get* that notice. And I shouldn't have to dress in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable or unhappy just because some idiot thinks when I dress nice, it's to specifically get his attention.

[corpsefairy]

What I found especially funny was that in his initial post, he specifically asked what kind of compliments people wanted to hear - and then when I answered his question and explained why, he replied that I obviously had psychological problems

[joreth]

this particularly annoys me because I am often annoyed with people who apologize to me for staring when I walk around a con wearing, say, a copper bikini. Hello! I'm dressing to be looked at!

So I find myself irritated right now because he can't tell the difference between honest and respectful appreciation and harassment, regardless of how subtle it is.

I know that people are going to ogle me when I wear the Leia and that's fine, but if you want to give me a respectful compliment, tell me the construction of the costume is good, not how hot I look in it. And when I say "that kind of compliment doesn't make me feel good", don't then tell me that I must be a mental case because I have different likes and dislikes based on very different life experiences.

[hypnagogie]

I don't think that you should have to dress in sweats. I do think that you (and anyone) should be aware that the things you do affect other people in various ways. I do think that we all have to live in the world, and that means that other people react to us and we react to them, and those reactions aren't always favorable, or the way we would like them to be

[joreth]

That misses the point. As I've already addressed, of course we should be aware of how our actions affect other people. If you go back to what started the discussion, it was about sexism in a specific venue where the men use their positions of authority to harass young women. The original poster is refusing to allow the men to take any sort of responsibility for their behaviour on the basis of his hypothesis that the women dress attractively so therefore we should accept their ogling and the only way to avoid poor behaviour is to wear sweats. This doesn't address the poor behaviour on the part of these men in the first place

[hypnagogie]

I was referring to your attitudes in general, not so much to him personally.

[joreth]

My attitude in general is usually on the other side of this debate. He asked our opinion, I didn't offer it just for the hell of it. He didn't understand what was so wrong and creepy with 50 year old men overing around the underage girls in corsets - after all, if a woman wears a corset, she must want 50 year old men to leer at her, since that's what 50-year old men do.

[aclaro]

It doesn't seem to me like any of this has to do with what one wears, but about being courteous and respectful in all situations. There is a distinction between a compliment and an aggressive come on, an appreciative stare and a catcall. The latter is not about appreciation, but about power. There is a kind of aggressive male attention which makes all women feel uncomfortable. A man who does this, does so not to get results, but to feel powerful. If his intention was to make you feel good, obviously he would try to find out the best way to do that. A man who insists that a woman deserves certain treatment because of what she is wearing, is a man who wants his power trip to be excused.

[joreth]

That is what I was trying to get across and, apparently, not succeeding. The original post was about sexism in a particular subculture, as exhibited by the older men complimenting the young female's bodies under the guise of the character of the event and making women feel uncomfortable.

So when this poster asked for women to tell him what kind of compliments they prefer, a few did, and he responded with "well, you have psychological issues and I'm going to continue to compliment women's appearances because I like to be complimented on my appearance".

He's completely missing the point that the whole issue started because some women felt there was a legitimate problem, not that some militant feminazi got up on her soapbox to destroy all the men.

Re: brick walls

[corpsefairy]

Wow, you must get all sorts of clueless comments. I can't even imagine.

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