The Internalized Misogyny of the Follow

I’ve been on a bit of a dance hiatus for a long time after feeling a bit of a plateau and some serious anhedonia issues that left me feeling uninspired by dancing. However this week I finally got back in the saddle and made it out to a dance. Overall I found myself having somewhat lackluster dances as tends to happen after you’re gone for a long period of time, but my last two dances were with Anthony Chen and they were fantastic. Now that in and of itself is not a surprise, as it’s always fun to dance with Anthony, but what surprised me was how I felt about myself and my dancing during and after the dancing.

In the past, one of the things I’ve loved about dancing is the feeling of losing myself. I don’t have to think, I don’t have to plan, I can trust someone else to guide me and get me where I need to go. I’m not generally very good at trusting others, particularly with my body, and so for a long time I thought that this was progress: I could trust someone with my body, to place my body, to let someone else be in charge for a while and let myself simply go with what was happening.

It’s a feeling a bit like being on a roller coaster: you feel almost out of control, but you trust that you will be safe.

This dance was different. I found that instead of being told where I was supposed to go, I put forward my own energy and found someone else there with me. I contributed. I usually am extremely self-conscious of adding any flare or styling to my dancing. I get scared of screwing it up or looking stupid. I worry that it won’t fit into what my lead is doing. This wasn’t even on my mind during this dance. I simply DANCED and happened to be with another person. Each time one of us added some energy in, the other saw that and raised their own energy level to match. It was lovely.

I realize that this is not a revelation. There has been a robust discussion ongoing in the dance community about changing attitudes towards the lead/follow relationship and about the importance of equal partnership in dancing. I even was aware that this was the ideal in dancing for a long time before I had this dance (there have been few others where I’ve actually felt that I could achieve something close to this ideal). Rather what was a revelation was my own personal attitude towards the experiences of dancing equally and dancing not in partnership. I cannot speak for anyone else when it comes to these types of attitudes, but I strongly suspect that there are other women out there who share them.

I feel more comfortable when I’m not in control of my own body. I feel more safe. I feel as if I’m doing something right when I give up some of the autonomy that I have and let someone move me. It feels like an intense relief to me. Looking objectively at these two experiences, I can see that I dance better when I am on equal footing with my partner, but I am deeply uncomfortable with contributing something of myself to the dance. Instead, I simply want to get it “right” and do what the other person is asking me: be the perfect follow that is just an extension of the lead.

I have noticed this in other areas as well. For all that I hold feminist ideals and strive to be independent and autonomous, I often feel the most comfortable when someone else is telling me what to do, particularly when it comes to questions of the body. I prefer not to be particularly ostentatious with my body. I know that I have internalized these attitudes because society has told me to be more submissive than men, has told me that my body is dangerous, has told me that my body is an object.

Some people might deny the link between the objectification of women and the tendency for female follows to be passive in their dancing, but I know that it is true in my personal experience and I strongly suspect that it may be true for others. I worry that by encouraging women to be follows and that by continuing to teach follows to be an extension of the lead, we are solidifying the internal misogyny of many women. I know it has encouraged me to continue taking a backseat in my own body and in my own motion. It has not encouraged me to take up space, something that I have always found difficult and that I have actively worked to do. It has not encouraged me to be intentional with my body.

And so I worry that the way dancing is approached by many women is from a mindset of internalized misogyny that not only sets them up to dance worse than they could, but also to continue to put themselves in vulnerable positions. I don’t think it’s a stretch that the way we present our bodies and relate to others in dancing can carry over to many other places, even so far as sex (I’ve found that I’m very passive in both contexts out of much of the same motivation: fear of screwing up, fear of disappointing my partner, fear of looking stupid). But more than that, it seems that dancing could be a wonderful place to experiment with new attitudes, new rules, and new behaviors. It’s a fairly safe space (the worst that happens is you have a bad dance), and it’s one of the few places where we actively learn what we’re supposed to do with our bodies. In my mind, this gives dance teachers (especially those who are teaching beginner students) a great deal of power to make a positive impact in the lives of their female students. It certainly means that they should be careful with the language they use (e.g. I once heard a teacher refer to follows as a trailer hitch. Not helpful), and at the very least spend some good time with follows early on in dancing to set up the concept of equal partnership in dancing.

I’d really like to encourage other follows to think about the dances they prefer, the dances that make them feel comfortable and ask themselves about how that might reflect on their relationship with their body or gender. I’m certainly going to be more intentional going forward about not letting myself slip into a passive role, and I am setting myself a goal to learn how to lead. I would be very interested to hear other people’s thoughts about the relationship between gender and style of dance. Sound off in the comments!

Don’t Tell Me What To Do With My Body

People do stupid things on the internet. LOTS of stupid things. I recognize that this is a fact, however despite that fact, I think we can do better. I have been on the receiving end of a fair amount of these stupid things lately, and I think it’s important to remind y’all of some basics of internet etiquette, and just general life etiquette. I don’t like to have to tolerate people aiming stupidity my way, and I really do think that if we refuse to tolerate unacceptable things, others are less likely to do unacceptable things. Today, I particularly want to discuss reactions when someone discloses to you things that they might be doing for their mental or physical health.

 

The biggest thing that I want to talk about is unsolicited advice. I understand. You want to feel helpful. You want the other person to feel better. If you think you have an idea, why wouldn’t you share? You could make a difference, right? And what if they’re doing something that you don’t agree with, going to an alt med place? Then it’s your DUTY to tell them they shouldn’t be going there. Right? It can only be good to offer suggestions and advice to someone who’s struggling and who’s told you that they’re doing things to try to improve their health.

 

Wrong.

 

Individuals who deal with physical or mental health problems, in all likelihood, have a far better understanding of their condition and the available treatments than you do. They spend a lot of time immersed in it, thinking about it, researching it. They have not made the decision to go to therapy/go to the chiropractor/take meds/etc. without some thought and without weighing the other options. They most likely have heard the suggestion you’re making before, either from other well intentioned individuals or from their doctor or from their family or from the internet. It’s likely they have a good reason that they are not currently doing what you’re suggesting.

 

It’s incredibly condescending when you swoop in and tell them what they should be doing, as if they had not already consulted with a doctor or therapist or family members and thought about it for themselves. It is incredibly condescending to assume that this means you know more about their body or mind, and how to treat their body and mind than they or their doctors do. It’s also incredibly condescending to assume that they have not thought through the treatment options. PARTICULARLY online, where you likely know little to nothing about this individual except the information they have just provided you, it seems incredibly offensive that you would assume you can diagnose or treat them, when they live with their own symptoms and treatment plan and understand the pros and cons of what they’re doing far more intimately than you ever will.

 

In addition, if you feel the need to criticize what they’re doing already, remember that you don’t know why they are doing it, and you have no idea how effective it is for them. You might not like the idea of meds. That’s wonderful for you and you don’t have to take them. But you have no idea whether or not meds have saved the life of the person you’re talking to. Keep it to yourself, because they are taking the treatment path they are for a reason. Particularly if you’re worried about something that you feel is potentially useless, remember that you’re talking to an intelligent human being who has their own agency and who may know that they’re getting a placebo effect and embrace that shit. Assuming that everyone who engages in a certain therapy or treatment needs to be educated by you is really quite vain, and assumes that everyone who does it hasn’t done their research or is stupid. If you’re really worried about someone’s actions, ask them why they feel they should go and what they get out of it, and if you’re still worried then ask if they’d be willing to hear a suggestion. I tend to find these behaviors particularly hilarious when carried out by self-proclaimed skeptics who also happen to not be doctors. If you are not qualified to give health advice, then stop giving health advice. Being a skeptic does not qualify you to give health advice.

 

Health and healthcare are incredibly personal choices. They belong to an individual and their doctor, and any other close friends or family they choose to share with. And IF someone is kind enough to disclose to you that they have to do xyz for their health, but they DON’T ask you for any sort of feedback on it, then the correct response is to be happy for them that they’re doing something to improve their health, or ask if there’s anything you can do to help, or perhaps ask them how it’s going.

 

Just because someone has spoken about a particular treatment does not mean it’s up for discussion. Particularly for people who struggle with chronic or severe disorders, their medical treatment may be a huge part of their life. It may be something that comes up often in conversation because it’s a huge part of their life. I know it’s difficult for me to go half an hour without mentioning therapy because I spend a large percentage of my life in therapy. It’s part of who I am. And I’m not interested in hiding that element of myself. Particularly because I know of the stigmas against mental illness, I often disclose strictly for increased visibility of the mentally ill. In no way does the fact that you know that I have a mental illness or that you know I go to therapy give you license to comment on whether it’s a good idea for me or not.

 

There are some exceptions to this. If someone actively solicits information or advice, then GO FOR IT. If someone is complaining about how horrible their treatment is and how it’s not working at all, then it might be an appropriate time to jump in with an alternative suggestion. Or if someone is doing something that might actively endanger them or another person, then gently pointing out some of the alternatives or problems with their choices is appropriate.

 

So with all of this said, please try to remember that when someone mentions their health, that is not an open invitation to comment or criticize. Even if they say it in a public forum. It should be fairly clear when they’re discussing their health choices in a way that opens it up to conversation, usually prefaced by something like “can we talk about my health choices?” Just because someone says something where you can hear/read it, doesn’t mean they want your feedback and doesn’t mean you’re not a condescending ass when you act like you know more about their health and life than they do. Particularly when you’re talking about what they should or should not do with their body, you can butt out until asked.

 

For these reasons I’m going to be updating my comment policy as follows: if you offer me unsolicited health advice, PARTICULARLY about my mental health, my meds, or my therapy, I will delete your comment. This is my own space on the internet and I have the right to keep it as safe for myself as possible. You have the right to give people as much advice as you want about health in your own forums, but this is my forum and I don’t have to listen to it.

Thoughtfulness, Tragedy, and Autonomy

A few weeks ago I wrote about some of the rhetoric that we use around women’s rights and their autonomy in terms of their own bodies. In particular, I focused on women’s health, and how the dialogue around women’s health tended to have two modes: “this is serious, debilitating, and tragic” or “A WOMAN DID SOMETHING WITH HER OWN BODY WOOHOO!” I believe that this type of dichotomy exists in all sorts of places in women’s lives, and that it doesn’t do women any good. When we are talking about women’s lives, almost nothing exists in the black and white places of life. More often than not, there is a dialectic. Something can be empowering and good while also being thoughtful or difficult. To look at a particular example from my own life: my attempts at recovering from an eating disorder are clearly a form of taking my own empowerment in hand and standing up to many of the expectations of women in my life. However at the same time it is something that comes with a great deal of pain, a great deal of stress and anguish and difficulty, and a great deal of thought and reflection. Most of the empowering things in our lives come only after deliberation and reflection.

 

Because of the role of oppression in women’s lives, we need to be extremely careful about understanding how the personal and the communal interplay in any individual decision that a woman makes. For example, I am all for applauding when a woman exercises her rights over her body, but having some empathy for the fact that it might have been a hard or confusing or thought-filled decision is probably a good idea. Societally, when a woman takes control of her own body and does something like have an abortion or have a mastectomy, she is helping to break down patriarchal values and oppression for everyone around her, including herself. However personally, these may be decisions that required some thought, that were painful or uncomfortable, or that just were not fun. We are allowed to both praise something and show sympathy for whatever toll it might have taken on the individual who enacted it.

 

Having empathy about the experiences that women go through while they are exercising their rights allows us to hear the individual experiences, something that has always been hugely important to the women’s movement. We cannot try to improve women’s experiences unless we actually take the time to hear what those experiences are.

 

Particularly in the realm of women’s health, we can both applaud someone for the fact that they have done something bold in their personal choices, while also recognizing that most health decisions and procedures come with some price and that we should be aware of that. We should recognize and celebrate that women go through complex thought processes surrounding their mental health. We should make it HARD for conservatives to view us as stupid little womens who don’t know anything about their own health and who just frivolously run around cutting pieces of ourselves off. We should respect each other enough to make thoughtfulness (without tragedy) part of the dialogue about women’s health. It’s something that is often missing. More often we hear about morality, or about rights, or about access, or about money. Rarely do we stop and listen to deliberations that women have to go through in order to make their healthcare decisions, particularly when they are in oppressive situations that limit their access. When thoughtfulness does come into the dialogue, it’s often as a way of casting women’s healthcare and health choices as something tragic, difficult, or heartbreaking in a way that men’s health is not (few people talk about how thought-filled the decision to get a vasectomy is, despite the fact that people probably put a great deal of thought into it).

 

Indeed the idea that “thoughtful” necessarily means difficult is simply wrong and unhelpful. We are thoughtful about many things. Sometimes they’re difficult and also positive (deciding where to go to college), sometimes they’re difficult and heartbreaking (whether to pull the plug on a dying relative) sometimes they’re not difficult at all and they’re just great (like trying to decide which flavor of cupcake to buy…that takes a lot of thought let me tell you) and sometimes they’re not difficult but they kind of suck anyway (like choosing to get a pap smear, which I always think about and always know what I’m going to answer and always hate the answer to anyway). We think about all kinds of things and we make decisions based on thought processes all the time. Saying that something requires thought or reflection doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t know what we’re going to answer or that it will hurt us or that it will have a negative consequence. It just means we wanted to make sure it was the right decision.

 

We need to create space for the ways that women actively navigate their lives, and the balance that they must constantly keep between their personal needs, their personal decision making, and the societal pressures around them. We need to keep in mind that while a woman might have really loved getting that abortion because it was exactly the right thing in her life, there are social repercussions and we should be empathetic to that. We need to keep in mind all the sacrifices that women make nearly every time they make a choice about how to exercise their autonomy. And the more we do this, the less we will have black and white thinking and dichotomies, and the more we will have a conscientious dialogue with other women about how frustrating it is to navigate the world we live in, in which there are almost no “right” choices, only better choices. I think that definitionally, as women, nearly every decision we make has to be thoughtful (obviously there are some exceptions, but when you’re part of an oppressed group you’re forced to be more conscious of your decisions). And because of this, we are always aware of the costs and the benefits of our decisions. Now we need to start recognizing that process in others.

Tattoos and Embodiment: The Power of Self-Mutilation, Piercing and Tattoos

There are very few ways that we get control over our physical bodies, particularly our appearance. We don’t get to choose things like height, build, weight (much), skin tone, eye color and shape, facial features…we can barely even control out hair most of the time. And philosophically speaking, people today rarely view their body as really THEM: generally it’s considered more of a house for your soul or your mind, broken away from the real you. And so it seems to me that asserting ownership over our own bodies is something really extremely important.

Particularly for traditionally marginalized groups whose bodies are considered public space, having a way to mark your body as your own, or physically change your body in order to feel more in tune with it or to connect it to your emotions is a powerful action. When you change your body in some physical, permanent way, you are loudly declaring “This is mine. I can do with it what I will. I can change it to suit my desires, and I can brand it as my own”. It’s liberating to see your body changed in some way that you have imagined and then acted out on your flesh. It’s sensual in its own way, and the pain that often comes with it is a visceral reminder that you’re alive, you are embodied, and you are solid. It creates an adrenaline rush of knowing what’s about to come. It can be a powerful emotional experience that connects you very deeply with your body.

In addition, for those people who have powerful negative associations with their bodies, tattooing or piercing over the site of negativity can mean a lot. I have scars from self-harm on my hips and legs, and have plans to tattoo over at least some of them as a metaphorical way of reclaiming that territory. Our bodies go through a great deal that leaves us marked in ways that we can’t undo. Some of this is by choice, some of it isn’t. But the choice to cover or change the marks from the past is a strong statement about who we would like to be in the future.

Many people view tattoos as “rebellious”, “tacky” or “low class”. Many of the reasons they’re viewed that way is because marginalized groups often use them to assert their autonomy or their belonging in a group. They mark someone as different, as particularly themselves, and as a BODY. We don’t like being marked as bodies. We often view it as objectifying. We don’t like to be viewed aesthetically, we prefer to be judged based on our intellect or personality. But the fact  is that a major part of our selves is our body. The inherent recognition of this in the act of bodily mutilation or piercing or tattoos is deep, and you can’t escape it when you’re undergoing the process. You feel more connected to yourself in certain ways. It’s one of the reasons that self-harm can be so grounding.

Tattoos also signify a great deal to others: they can tell about our experiences, our emotions, our aesthetic taste, our interests, our values, and our group membership. They use our own bodies to convey messages of our identity, something which is extremely powerful in integrating your body into our identity. In addition, they can signify things to ourselves. They can remind us of our past, of something we care about, of self-care, of good or bad things we’ve experienced…especially for those people whose voices are rarely heard, using your body as a canvas is one of the loudest ways to get a message across.

Some people say that the body is beautiful and shouldn’t be tampered with. But for those who are in marginalized groups, they haven’t really hard this about their bodies in particular. Their bodies are often viewed as wrong or bad. The few times they do hear these things, their bodies are generally objectified. It can be hugely empowering to make your physical presence different to fit your conception of self. It changes your narrative about self, takes your body away from the societal narrative of beauty, or brands visibly on your body that you have autonomy and are more than a body. Of course these are all comments about tattoos personally chosen: being forced to get a tattoo says the exact opposite of all of this.

It reminds you that you’re a body, but also that your body is yours, and that it has its own needs and desires and some autonomy. It’s not just an object. Its senses are how you navigate and manage the world, and the act of the tattoo reminds you viscerally of your senses and your physical boundary with the world. The constant reminder of that is an act of asserting yourself into space.

Reminding ourselves of our bodies, of the ways we can control and identify with our bodies, and of how we can present our bodies to others as part of our identity is a big deal.

Also I really want the tattoo in the picture, so I felt like I had to write this.

Pinups and Pecs

“If you want to write something, or need a(nother) topic, I keep having discussions about if guys can do “sexy” and “pin up” photos like girls seem to be able to do. Proceed. I feel like you might enjoy that topic, somehow. I might be nuts. I probably am.”

 

So a friend of mine posted this on facebook as a suggestion of something to write about and it struck my fancy. I feel like there’s a lot to unpack in this discussion. So first of all, why do girls “get” to do pin up and sexy photos? Is that really ok? I’ve had discussions about this with others who are worried that even enlightened women trying to take back this trend may be contributing to objectification, or perpetuation a lot of old images of women. I think that that’s a danger, definitely. I think that if and when a woman chooses to do a pin up type photo, she should try to be subversive about it; in traditional pinups, women look submissive, domestic: they’re often shown doing cleaning, or in traditionally “female” settings. I feel a lot better about pinup calendars or pictures if the woman in it is being sexy in an assertive way, is actually looking the viewer in the face, is in a different type of environment than the traditional pinup.

 

And the thing is that I actually LOVE the idea of pinup type pictures. Because very rarely does the average woman get to do something that celebrates her body, her beauty, and her sexuality. I love that different body types can be celebrated in pinup pictures. I love the idea of something like suicide girls. I do wish that more types of women were celebrated in these pictures: I wish more women of color, trans/genderqueer women, overweight, older…all kinds of women got roped in when we choose to a pinup calendar or photo session.

 

But they aren’t. And I worry that’s because as hard as we try to do pinups for ourselves, to celebrate ourselves, and to be subversive, as woman showing off our bodies we cannot help but be subject to the male gaze. It’s just there. And no matter what we do about it, there will be men objectifying us. To me that’s just a really shitty thing that rains on my body positive parade, and it makes me really scared to promote or participate in pinup pictures because I don’t want to perpetuate objectification by using “the master’s tools” as it were.

 

So what about guys? I think that guys are in a really unique position when it comes to pinup pictures. Men really aren’t very traditionally in pinup pictures. There is the classic sexy firemen calendar, but those aren’t nearly as ubiquitous and don’t have the same vintage thing going where anyone can replicate the feel. You kind of have to be a fireman (or have a bunch of oversized hoses lying around) to do the sexy fireman calendar. So there is a blank slate when it comes to men doing pinup pictures. There’s no history of objectification (as far as I’m aware at least…anyone in comments feel free to disagree) that would put a historical lens on the pictures and make them problematic. And very, very rarely are male bodies put on display in a sexual way. Rarely are men told to celebrate being beautiful, being sexy, being hot. I think pinup calendars could be a GREAT opportunity for men to make body positivity part of the male conversation, and I think that particularly it could be incredibly beneficial to make it part of the straight male conversation, because generally flaunting your body is considered gay. Only effeminate men let people look at them and do any sort of objectifying apparently, because it’s a woman thing to be the object. But here’s the thing: BECAUSE men are not considered the object, because they are assumed to have autonomy and assumed to be an equal in any relationship (even the relationship between subject and viewer in a photograph), they can bend the traditional notion of pinup to be one that asks us to reconsider how we view women in pictures, how we view sexuality, and how much autonomy we grant those women we see in sexy pictures.

 

And just as I mentioned with women, this is a WONDERFUL time for different types of male bodies to be on display, to be celebrated, to be considered beautiful. Perhaps even more than women, men have a single body type that is ever shown as the pinup (mostly because all women’s bodies are more objectified), and so seeing more men as attractive and sexy and proud and embodied is a beautiful idea to me. Maybe I should go join a nudist’s colony. But it would also help young women to start to see a variety of body types and begin to understand the different bodies they might  encounter. More exposure to real bodies is the healthiest way to build attraction, sexuality, and honesty

 

I personally think that men in pinups is exactly the wonderful kind of subversive parody that Judith Butler would promote and love, but I think it’s even more active than a parody because it’s a challenge, and active question to the viewer about how they see the picture. If it was a genderbent pinup, then all the better (men in maids outfits anyone?). I don’t think that I want to see men be objectified the same way women have been, but I also don’t think that ever WILL happen. I think what IS important is to allow the power that a man’s body has to infiltrate the submissive space traditionally occupied by women, and to rebuild that space in such a way that says the space doesn’t have to be submissive or objectified. This is a place where I believe men can do far more for feminism and women than women can, because of the privilege that men already have.

 

So I personally think that male pinups are a great idea. I don’t think it’s an infringement on a female space, I think it’s a reimagining of a traditionally oppressive space, and I really don’t see how it would lead to the objectification of men since men are nearly always assumed to be the subject and have autonomy, complexity and thoughts. Very rarely are they reduced to a body alone.