Word of the Day

The word of the day is obloquy. It means, according to Answers.com, "abusively detractive language or utterance; calumny." Here: I will use it in a sentence for you.

"To mention Simone Weil is to be reminded of the obloquy to which women are subjected if they deny themselves the arts thought necessary to their true nature, their 'womanliness' (Heilbrun, 1979, p. 70)."

Ms. Weil

Heilbrun goes on to describe fashion as "the mark of women's slavery" (p. 70). Then she quotes Adrienne Rich as saying that women are taught to "lie with our bodies" with makeup and such, and to "wear clothes that emphasize our helplessness" (p. 70).

One Big Lie
Raymond Spekking/Wikipedia

Heilbrun goes on to say that "Lying, with one's body and one's words is, among the oppressed, a dreadful necessity. . . Only women, I think, have also consistently lied to themselves (p. 70)."

Fashion is not about competition between women, although it is often framed that way, on the old principle of "divide and conquer." Diet, fashion, and acting feminine are all about pleasing and maintaining dependence on a man. While it is true that the woman who better pleases men lives better, competition with each other is secondary. There are, after all, more than enough men to go around. The end result, however, is that for as long as we see ourselves as in competition with each other for men and through men, sustenance, we cannot find common cause. And for as long as we spend our money, time, and talents on frivolity, we are not applying those attributes to accomplish big things in the world.

I believe that it was Naomi Wolf who, in The Beauty Myth, estimated that what American women spend every year on face cream alone would fund one battered women's shelter in every state in the nation. The end result, and therefore possibly the goal all along, is that women are frittering away their freedom and their power on pantyhose and mascara. They are trading self-determination for lies that will attract a man to be responsible for them. Because we have been taught that this is what we must do, that this is how to be successful women, we have been co-opted into trivializing ourselves. And then condemned for our frivolity.

IBTP because I believe that no woman who is conscious of this trade-off would continue to make it, would continue to lie to or about herself in this way, would voluntarily fritter away her time, money, and talents on keeping herself in servitude. Women who do see it, articulate it, and opt out are subject to a number of tactics to bring them back into line. They are told they need to fix themselves up. They are called plain, ugly, mannish, or dykes, or slobs who don't care about their appearance. They are warned that they will never get (or be able to keep) a man. They are subjected to all sorts of obloquy.

And for that, you bet your bippy I blame the patriarchy.

Heilbrun, C. G. (1979). Reinventing womanhood. New York: W. W. Norton.

The politics of shoes

Naomi Wolf 's thesis in The Beauty Myth (1991) was that the 'beauty industry' keeps women down by demanding the attention to our appearances that it does. It siphons off physical and mental energy from other pursuits. It drains our purses. Sometimes, as in the case of cosmetic surgery, it kills us. Her book asks questions like:

• What could we accomplish with the 45 minutes we spend every morning doing our hair and putting on makeup if we put that same time and energy into our careers? Or politics?
  
• How many battered women's shelters could we fund with the money we spend on face cream?

Right after Geraldine Ferraro was nominated for Vice President, a shoe company ran an ad in a women's fashion magazine with the tag line, "Every woman needs a platform to speak from," over a picture of an admittedly hot shoe with a three-inch platform. I knew right then that Ferraro was going to lose. A 3-inch heel, be it platform or spike, is, it goes without saying, most emphatically not the sort of platform we needed. The advertiser viciously trivialized the platform Ferraro was running on. The ad's creators overtly sought to channel all our political ambitions into a "suitable" direction for women and girls, and away from real power--as Wolf points out, much in our consumer society does. It's almost as if the shoe guys were saying,

"It's ok girls. You aren't ready for the White House, but here's this cool consolation prize--a pair of shoes you could break your ankle falling off of. Be careful when you walk, but hey. At least you'll look sexy! which is all you girls really want out of life anyway, right? Not to mention that we guys are much more comfortable if you stay in that space, ok?"

Now Dr. Isis has some truly hot shoes in a recent post. I bet she looks spectacular in them. And I am not, repeat not, criticizing her for wearing them. I like them. And given her station in life, they are obviously not the consolation prize. But Dr. Isis and I grew up in very different times. I was just coming of age when the second wave of feminism hit young women of my generation like a tsunami, and that, believe it or not, has a lot to do with how I feel about shoes.

Rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters sprang up everywhere in the '70s, as did self-defense classes for women. And one of the things I learned early on was that high heels are literally crippling. For one thing, they actually damage your feet, legs, and back. No biggie--lots of things we consider fun or fashionable are not good for us. Take chocolate, for example.

But feminists back then equated spike heels in particular with the ancient Chinese practice of foot-binding. If it was hard for a woman to walk, and her activities were thereby severely restricted, it was obviously going to be easier to keep her in her place--to wit, submissive and dependent. And as the women who ran the self-defense classes pointed out, it is damn difficult to run, kick, or fight wearing spikes. (Although removed from the foot, they do make pretty good weapons.)

So to me shoes are important to mobility. If I'm not mobile in them, I won't buy them. These are my office and classroom shoes. They are simply the most stable, comfortable shoes I have ever owned. They are Brooks and you can buy them here (although I got mine cheaper on e-bay). I have two pair (the other pair is tan) and if they ever start making them in purple, Dr. Isis, I shall have a pair of them, too!