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downtown Toronto, yet glance disapprovingly
at the girl who is dressed like a slut holding
a poster which says "Proud Slut" (video here)
Mark Richardson over at Oz Conservative has a post on a television program about an Australian women's magazine called Cleo which came out in the 1970s. He writes that Ita Buttrose's (editor of the magazine) climb to senior management was never curtailed despite the mythical "glass ceiling" that prevailed, and Buttrose having children (her boss took care of her nanny bills) during her "career" at the magazine.
Mark Richardson writes:
The female staff of Cleo were shown going off to listen to a young Germaine Greer. When they came back to the office the consensus was that Greer's feminist politics were good but that she was too aggressive in how she presented them. One of the staff then summarized feminism this way:Yet these young women want it all, which is a manifestation of Richardson's liberal autonomy theory of self-definition. Ita and her friends want the high power careers. They also want time off to have their kids, and if not, special compensations for child care (as in the nanny that Buttrose secured from her boss). They then divorce their husbands, who most likely grumbled and didn't support whole-heartedly their all-consuming careers. They then have affairs, possibly get married again, and divorce one more time. Ita, twice divorced, is single again at forty, although it is highly likely that she will remarry, or "cohabitate" to prevent the strictures of marriage from dampening her autonomy.It's how we're defined - not a woman, not a wife, not a daughter but as a person.That is of course liberal autonomy theory. It's the idea that we are made human by being self-defined, rather than by unchosen categories like our sex.
But one variation of this new-age feminism that differs substantially from the vanguards' is the emphasis on femininity. This isn't really surprising, because it is part of women "wanting it all" including subscribing (to their advantage) their natural sexual manifestations. Richardson continues:
But Ita Buttrose didn't follow [liberal autonomy theory] in the way that the most radical feminists did. She didn't look on women wearing lipstick or having sexual relationships with men as being a betrayal of feminism. She was a forerunner of a "sex positive" feminism. If Ita Buttrose wanted to be liberated from sex roles, it was more by pushing a single girl lifestyle in which women were "liberated" to pursue casual sex and careers.
It was a variant of feminism more likely to appeal to young heterosexual women and it has undoubtedly been influential.The reality out in the trenches, though, is a little different. Yes, glossy fashion magazines showcase the latest shades of coral lipsticks, and lovely silk scarves hang on (some) mannequins in shop windows, but young woman are not wearing these feminine attire. Instead, they opt for variations on black, gray, and perhaps navy. The only "color" that might be thrown into the mix is white, but sparingly. A daring woman might wear red, but usually on unfeminine items like sneakers. Make-up hasn't totally disappeared, but where it is prominent is in punkish, exaggerated black kohl and thick mascara.
I think what is going on is that women secretly yearn for femininity (although I think this is an actual biological reaction and need, rather than an "autonomous desire"). But they cannot succumb to this need for fear of appearing to reject feminism, as Richardson shows above. Imagine the schizophrenic back and forth that must be going on in their minds!
As I wrote above, one way young women can avoid this schizophrenia is by sporadically, and in a limited way, adding feminine touches - such as having children, but avoiding caring for their children, or wearing lipstick, but pursuing high profile, and highly demanding, careers. In the end, the result is the same, or probably worse. There is now a much longer list of wants, desires and needs - from careers, to children, to lipstick - that women must satisfy (or fulfill), and many contradicting or restricting each other.
One thing I've noticed here is that young women are wearing extremely short skirts, and now in spring, they're donning very short cut-out shorts, often (as though this will help) with dark tights. These skirts are dark, dreary, and ugly. At least the sixties brought color and pizazz with mini-skirt fashion.
My assessment of this depressingly ugly trend (many of the girls are over-weight, so we are forced to look at bulging body parts as well) is that it's that schizophrenic attempt at reconciling femininity with autonomy: I will dress how I want, but I will also look like a girl. It is the "sex positive" (to use Ricahrdson's coinage) compensation of reconciling femininity with autonomy. But all they end up looking is like prostitutes, which is the last thing - consciously, at least - they're after.
Toronto recently had a "proud to be a slut" walk to protest a police officer's comment that women shouldn't dress as sluts if they want to be safe from "sexual assaults" - of course the officer has since been forced to apologize. The march is a jumble of contradictions. Many of the women were dressed in the uniform black/gray formless clothes, but a few came out in the fashion-less cut-outs I discuss above. The "sluts" seemed to get disapproving looks from their serious, un-slutty "sisters" despite the message of the walk. Signs such as "proud to be a slut" were everywhere, held both by the dowdy and the slutty. And even men joined in the march. "Everybody deserves respect no matter who they are or how they chose to look" says a spokes"woman" in a back leather jacket and piercings on her face, who clearly isn't a slut.
It isn't only young women who are caught in this tangle. I've written about sexagenarian actress Helen Mirren, and describe her manifestation of what constitutes beauty (see photo below) as looking "like those Madames in Western brothels." Yet, this matured woman stills lives in a schizophrenia of contradictions by embracing the ugliness (or anti-beauty) that is in order in our modern world.
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