I absolutely do. I’d say we all do. But just because we use stereotypes, consciously or unconsciously, all the time doesn’t mean we should. However, humans like to categorize, and make intuitive connections. They aren’t always right.
Oh, I do believe that it is largely based on male expectation, something that happens with the support and cooperation of many women, even as many would rather not, and many don’t - it’s an iterative process. It’s not always as simple as “Patriarchy!!!,” though I think it is that simple when it comes to sexist employer grooming standards. But in other cases? Not always so simple to separate society’s pressure from women’s personal choices. A more stark version of this is headscarves and veils in Islam. I see them as one of the ultimate symbols of patriarchy, but depending on the individual woman, it could be the personal and entirely voluntary choice of that individual to cover her hair because that’s her free choice. I have no real way to know how she would act in the absence of the patriarchal society she was raised in, though pictures of Iran before the Islamic revolution give some pretty strong hints.
Anyway, it is a stereotype that women take longer to groom even if it is true in the aggregate. You can’t just go up to any individual woman and say, “You take longer to groom than a man because of Patriarchy!” because you do not know that about any individual woman just because she’s a woman.
Okay, it’s late, and I’m up because I have four boys over for a sleepover. My son’s best friends are triplets, which means it’s all three or none at all. So, forgive me if my logic is less than stellar, but it smells in his room (I’m stereotyping, but damn, boys do smell at 13) and I’m trying to make sure the house doesn’t go up in flames.
Just because it’s evolved into a stereotype does not negate the fact that it is a product of privilege. To be honest, I’m 43 and a woman and I’m damned-ass tired of having this argument. I’ve spent too many hours, too many brain cells trying to explain, trying to defend this inalienable truth. Male privilege exists in many, many facets of our daily lives. My first instinct here is to apologize for a rant, but hey, that’s a stereotype, right? Women always saying they are sorry. I’m not sorry. I’m just tired of this argument.
I think you misunderstand me, Jilly. I’m not claiming that patriarchy and privilege don’t exist. What I am saying is that taking a generality about a group and making a claim about an individual is stereotyping. What may be true for a group as a whole may not be true of a random individual from that group. So, it’s a stereotype that women take longer to groom (which the stats I’d think would bear out as a true stereotype, in the US at least), but I can’t just go up to a woman and assume she, as an individual, takes longer to groom than a man, because many don’t. That doesn’t mean patriarchy isn’t real, though, nor that there is no such thing as male privilege. I suspect that you are making a Large Point, and I am making a Technical Point about the broader nature of stereotypes, and they aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
This is completely true, however, there are people who frame issues and make it more of an attack. I honestly think this is detrimental to various causes. And once this happens too much, even pretty neutral articles like this lead to overly defensive reactions. It gets all lumped into a “side” and ignored or countered.
In this particular issue, it is clear women are expected to have more upkeep, both due to biology and cultural norms (which are a complex web of what men expect of women, what women expect of other women, and what one expects of themselves). Like you said, I can look at that and go “ok” and acknowledge it. I won’t feel bad about it, per se. Then again, I have never commented on another person and suggest they should wear more make up or shave or whatever. If you are a person who does comment on other peoples’ appearances negatively, then perhaps one might want to reflect on this and decide to STFU in the future.
I grew a van dyke, not because it was cool in the 90s, but because I hate shaving. Thank god for hipsters and war vets making beards cool again. I grew a beard originally from depression, but now because I hate shaving and I am sure I’d be the weird beard guy if it weren’t for the shift in fashion.
Transgender intrinsically includes cross-dressing and drag, for good reason. Not intertwining them is also troublesome because some people with gender dysphoria use crossdressing and drag to help them cope until a point where they are able to transition and/or seek treatment. Only giving rights to people who have a medical diagnosis or specific treatments doesn’t work as it deprives those who cannot get those of their rights.
This is where you’ve got a wrong grip on the concept. In the case of privilege, it’s assuming to know something about society’s treatment of an individual based on their membership in a group.*
*Technically, it’s about whether society perceives the individual to be a member of the group.
I’m thinking more of in some cultures it’s good to have a bone through your nose, and in others it’s frowned upon. Cutting the foreskin off, getting tattooed, wearing makeup, filing your teeth into points, wearing a penis gourd. Mandatory for some, anathema to others, depending on the randomness of where the person was born, and the arbitrary standards of normalcy and beauty the culture imposes.
Just wondering if anyone here has ever seen Rob Becker’s “Defending the Caveman”.
It’s a bit dated now but back in the nineties when my wife and I saw it, we had a lot to talk about afterwards.
For example we were painting our new house, and she showed me paint samples of fifty absolutely (to me) identical shades of beige-tan, and asked “Hon, which one do you like best”?
After running through several randomization routines in my head, I stabbed a finger at #38 and said, “This is it”.
You could see her lip twitch ever so faintly and I sensed her eyes caught in mid-roll skyward as she replied
“oh. You like that one???”
Now I know this little scenario came from the difference between those who hunted and those who gathered.
Best thing that ever happened to me, grooming-wise, was early-onset male pattern baldness. I’ve been doing clippers since I was about 25 and been nothing but triple zero since I was 35 or so. “Shampoo” and “wash face” are indistinguishable activities.
Again, it smells upstairs and I’m hoping the filtering software I installled works.
