I Don't Know Why, But...

I went for it.

And I went back for more.

Victoria's Real Secret

Via Wikipedia: Victoria's Secret was started in San Francisco, California, in 1977 by Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus Roy Raymond, who felt embarrassed trying to purchase lingerie for his wife in a public and awkward department store environment. [...] The stores were meant to create a comfortable environment for men, with wood-paneled walls, Victorian details and helpful sales staff. [...] Men could browse for sexy styles for their girlfriends and sales staff would help estimate the appropriate size, pulling from inventory in the back.

I am extremely relieved I wasn't imaging things the entire time I thought Vicky was working for someone else. A store selling sexual liberation to women in the form of heteronormative expectations of what it means to be attractive- pushed up, stick-thin, and okay baring it all (for their lucky guy). "Feminism," a la Cosmo, the magazine re-invented so women could make themselves desirable to men at the hands of Helen Gurley Brown:

"Cosmo is feminist in that we believe women are just as smart and capable as men and can achieve anything they want. But it also acknowledges that while work is important, men are, too. The Cosmo girl absolutely loves men!”

Consider these purchases I'm proud not to make.

Sex, Gender, and Shoes

"Men Shouldn't Wear Uggs." Why?

Well, clearly we shouldn't be asking because it's obvious. Take a look at any of the comments made at the above link to find out the truth(!) about Uggs- that they're "meant for girls, not guys," and that, more importantly, guys who wear said boots are gay and, therefore, not "real men."

One contributor asks, "honestly, what kind of man wears Uggs?" while another comfortably takes stabs at men who wear them by reminding us that "if you are a guy and you wear uggs, you are forever gay. There is no turning back. Not that I hate gay's or anything, but, yeah, you're a faggot if you do, plain and simple. Sorry for putting it so bluntly." (Note to poster: if it's so offensive you need to damage control within the same post, reconsider.)

Wearing Uggs counts as "fagging it up." Who would dare to disagree? According to this group, we have found an easy way to classify others and discover four important things about gender in our society.

1. Men who don't wear shoes designated strictly as "men's shoes" (Ugg Boots does market to men, mind you) or men who wear shoes women can also wear are (a) gay, (b) not real men, (c) faggots, and (d) probably a mix of all of the above. The difference? Gay is his sexuality, faggot is his identity, and his masculinity will never be recovered because he has done something other men, who pride themselves on their own masculinity, don't do. Their standards, which they perceive as society's standards, are ones they will unabashedly use to label any and all men who do not fit (read: conform) to their mold of masculinity. Any man who strays, in the tiniest bit, from the American, commercial, capitalist, and disgustingly sexist mold of men is not qualified at all to fit in this category.

2. Being one, two, or all of the things above renders you undeserving of dignity, respect, and common decency. If you are willing to break from masculinity, you do not deserve the fellowship of other men and should be ready to face the consequences of assault and attack for doing so.

3. Masculinity is defined rigidly and the mold leaves no room for variances. All men must fulfill every element of masculinity to be considered "real men."

4. The gender dichotomy is found in the realm of shoes and is not to be disturbed. Shoes cannot be for everyone, they can only be for females or males, or, in the case, "girls" or "guys" (coincidentally, a twelve year old cannot share shoes with an adult male, but I think nobody here studied journalism).

The internet is a microcosm of the world, and this is a disturbing reminder.

Post Script

feminism

1. Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

2. The movement organized around this belief.

Public Enemy: James Kalb

Evidence: http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/node/2

Dearest James Kalb--

Today, whilst perusing the internet, I stumbled upon your lovely pot o' knowledge website entitled "Turnabout." It was an adventure not worth pursuing from the get-go, with the original link taking me to one of the most ignorant responses to gender theory and feminism - coincidentally, also one of the most popular - that I have witnessed. I have yet to decide what upsets me more: that you actually had, and still have, the power in your possession to convince people of your absurd and hateful ideas, that you are allowed to openly post on the internet under the titles "anti-gay" and "anti-feminist" as categories, or, and this honestly may be worse, that you were writing and updating your beautiful and brilliant "anti-feminist" page four years ago, as I sat in a classroom environment watching my friends to be taken advantage of by boys-will-be-boys rape culture and a homophobic administration.

Your approach to feminism is one that is, in the least, dismissive and bitter, and at most, a prison of contempt. Your explanation of gender roles lies in "nature," a far too old cop-out of substantive argumentative power and an altogether weak explanation for an ongoing process of socialization that has fed into patriarchy- a system you, as a male, seem to have (surprisingly) little contempt for in contrast. It is seeminlgy so difficult to you to attempt to deconstruct systems of hierarchy that you rely upon tradition and nostalgia to compete with progressive ideals, another typical argument.

For someone who claims, on his page, that feminism is irrational, you are surprisingly lacking rationality in the repetition of tired, unacceptable, and overly-defeated arguments based in nothing but your own experiences as a male. You have no compass for understanding how patriarchy damages society because you are invested in normality, another tired concept. I need to challenge your fundamental beliefs in investing in failed ideas like male domination and the nuclear family, which have imprisoned countless American souls, and probably should not be publishing that kind of response online. However-

I am four years too late, but I am not letting this one pass quietly. 

1. "All societies have been patriarchal, at least in the very broad meaning of that term now accepted, with men mainly responsible for public concerns and women for domestic matters and the care of small children. Always and everywhere men, while exercising no general right of domination, have predominated in positions of formal authority."

You are correct, all societies have been patriarchal. You fall short, however, when you claim that this is biological based on logic that men have never "exercised a general right of domination." Applying this to American society, which I'm sure you consider quite disgustingly progressive, would prove you wrong, and it makes me dumbfounded to attempt to find your train of thought. Do you care to explain to me, perhaps, how women with no right to vote, and women who were legally property of their husbands in colonial times, did not find themselves challenged by a male society's legal "right of domination?" In countries where marital rape is legal, is there no "right of domination?" In a country where women have to fight for equal pay, are they not being "dominated" by men of equal professional status? You have fallen quite far from logic, reason, and history.

2. "The aim of feminism, therefore, is to create a new kind of human being in a new form of society in which age-old ties among men, women and children are to be dissolved and new ones constituted in accordance with abstract ideological demands. In place of family ties based on what seems natural and customary and supported by upbringing and social expectation, feminism would permit only ties based on contract and idiosyncratic sentiment, with government stepping in when those prove too shaky for serious reliance. There is no reason to suppose the substitution can be made to work, let alone work well, and every reason to expect the contrary. Feminism does not care about reason, however, or even about experience of the effects of weakened family life. It is in fact ideological and radical to the core. There can be no commonsense feminism, because doing what comes naturally gets a feminist nowhere."

Sir, I have spent an entire life out of the kitchen. It has gotten me everywhere. I am offended by both your insinuation that the nuclear family is safe, normal, and healthy, for as a child of a single parent- a single female parent, nonetheless- I seem to have come across much more depth of knowledge than some others. I similarly seem to be one of the most driven, ambitious, focused, and passionate of those I have come across in my lifetime, especially the products of patriarchal and disempowering family models you admire. My life was spent in the world, out of the home, and away from the vacuum- what I do naturally is not determined by my gender. It is determined by my nature. I am interested in how much of your opinions you derive from your anatomy. Fill me in.

3. "[Feminism] has set women free mainly to be low level employees and unattached sexual commodities."

The wage gap, the glass ceiling, sex slavery, and media sexualization do not qualify as feminism. They are, in fact, in line with the anti-feminist movement you so proudly want to spearhead.

I have nothing to close with, and nothing much more to say. I am not so much surprised by what you mentioned in your piece, but more disgusted and shamed that someone outside of Ann Coulter could muster the thoughts you have put into words. I'd like to close with a thought similar to that which you used at the end of your article, when you stated that "the more explicit, articulate and successful [feminism]s opponents the more damage can be prevented. " This is the line, you see, which proved to me that everything you wrote was in jest, because you were nothing but explicitly and articulately failing to battle a movement that will someday overcome your shallow, privileged lens.

Enjoy the view from the top. I'll meet you there.

Signed,

Carmen.