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Clara Rice: Through the Mirror of Beauty Culture

Throughout Westernized cultures the body is an important identity project for girls who are coming of age and entering adolescence. This has both positive and negative domains; the positive being that our bodies are our sites of agency and empowerment, the primary vehicles through which we move through life,  and the negative being that our bodies are objects of scrutiny and sanction which fuels girls dissatisfaction and depreciation of their body self-image, as  Carla Rice explains in Through the Mirror of Beauty and Culture. The ways in which social imaginings and peoples gazes affect the genders differently and have had varying impacts on how the genders tend to construct their body self-images.

More specifically, women’s and girl’s bodies through media, medical systems, and beauty culture have positioned in such a way that they tend to be objects of the male gaze. As Clara Rice explains in Through the Mirror of Beauty and Culture, this determines most relations between men and women in society, and also the relationship between women and themselves. An advertisement that Rice talks about for example is one that exclaims: “your husbands eyes... more searching than your mirror”. This is incredibly problematic because it blatantly supports and progresses a patriarchal societal system in which men have the power over the evaluation of a woman’s looks. Women tend to not be the facilitators of what society accepts as attractive, when in reality individual women should get to be the facilitators of their own looks and what makes them personally feel confident and beautiful uninfluenced by what societal norms may prefer. Sadly, due in part to our capitalist and consumerism driven society, women are more often than not encouraged to remake and shift their differences into something deemed more desirable.

Moreover, although every woman is subject the male gaze, certain women are exponentially more subject to what Clara Rice describes as the “stare”. Disabled and/or racialized women experience the stare, for either being hyper-sexualized (often of racialized women), or due to the “car wreck phenomenon” where people want to look at the damage but can’t seem to actually pull themselves to do it (often of disabled women). 

Often, throughout North American history fairer skin has been help up as the beauty standard that women should strive for. This has caused countless women to purchase skin lightening products, which in many cases have caused these women unnecessary physical harm. Historically, Clara Rice explains that darker skin resulted from women who tended to work outdoors, while women with higher social statuses were not obliged to work outdoors, resulting in fairer skin. To this day, our society tends to support fair skin as the beauty standard. However, today for white women more specifically, the more sun kissed and tanned their skin is, the more desirable they become. 

Additionally, women’s hair has been scrutinized in terms of beauty standards. Long flowing straight or slightly wavy hair (often what white women’s natural hair tends to be), has been depicted as another ideal beauty standard. This creates a variety of issues for racialized women. Traditional black hairstyles such as braids, dreadlocks, cornrows, or afros have been deemed unprofessional and described as “untamed” and “primitive”. 

Women’s body hair has also become a domain for judgement in terms of a women’s appearance. Body hair on women is seen as “unsightly” and “ugly”, causing women to spend time and money on hair removal processes, whether it be shaving, waxing, or plucking, to name a few. Studies regarding women’s body hair tend to have conflicting results, with some finding European white women to be generally naturally hairier, while others conclude that black, South African and “Mediterranean” women are naturally hairier. Although studies tend to be inconclusive regarding a woman’s body hair, racialized women tend to believe that they are exponentially hairier than white women due to the white dominant culture in Westernized society. This has caused racialized women to be viewed as more masculine and hyper-sexualized throughout society. 

Furthermore, a woman’s breasts tend to be a cornerstone in measuring her level of attractiveness. Both breasts that are seen as too large or too small are viewed as a medical problem, rather than merely just a medical one. Today, a sizeable minority of women seek surgery in hopes of enhancing their body self-image or ease emotional turmoil, or at times physical pain, Clara Rice explains in Through the Mirror of Beauty and Culture. Although for each individual it may improve their confidence and enhance their self-image, it can be problematic for the masses. This is due to the fact that the surgical alterations only further contribute to the hierarchy of bodies and narrows the gap for accepted difference in terms of appearance. Moreover, Clara Rice found that seeking surgery as a means to alter appearance resulted in one of two things; one being that the women are changing their personal situation which can in fact lead to enhanced body self-image, or two being that the surgery results in harmful body image problems and risky body image operation practices. 

In conclusion, in order to change our appearance driven and dominant conception of beauty, we should instead create a feminist aesthetic. Clara Rice describes this as an inclusive theory of feminist beauty and sensory pleasure that incorporates the “ugly”. We must re-frame beauty in such a way that it avoids body shame and is not merely reduced to the visuals but rather extends deeper and incorporates peoples beauty in who they are, while it affirms the “ugly” and included anyone who seeks it. 

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Fancy Feast’s Sex Toys Will Never Do The Hardest Work For You, in Relation to StFX’s Notorious Sex Toy Bingo

Being an incoming freshman student to Saint Francis Xavier University, I was welcomed with one of the more well known frosh week events; what was called “Not Your Grandma’s Bingo” in the itinerary and us students later learned its official name “Sex Toy Bingo”. Sex Toy Bingo is exemplary of a sex positive movement that’s made available to the entire student body population. With this being said, Sex Toy Bingo also takes into account certain crucial facets that a successful sex positive project should entail. 

A criticism of sex positive movements is that they fail to acknowledge the fact that sex is in fact not always positive, and we cannot simple push the idea that it can be if we (we being the members of a sex positive movement or project), simply will it to be positive. For countless people, dominantly women, sexual assault and rape are a prime example of negative sexual encounters. Furthermore, contrary to most sex positive project’s punchlines, sometimes a “yes” doesn’t always mean “yes”. Power relations and other pressures come into play when discussing consent with partner(s), and it’s important that we recognize the complexity of consent, and scrutinize over this trademark slogan of sex positivity. This is something that was in fact a theme throughout the frosh week Sex Toy Bingo. It was emphasized that consent can look different for different people, and it must be ongoing throughout whatever someone and their partner(s) are participating in. A simply “yes” is not a binding contract for the duration of the sexual activity, rather one should and needs to make sure that their partner is consensually involved and happy to be there throughout the entire duration. Nothing says that someone cannot change their mind and back out after they have originally consented. Moreover, Sex Toy Bingo was not a movement pressuring students to participate in any sexual activity, and it was not exclusively celebrating those who do. As Fancy Feast says in Sex Toys Will Never Do The Hardest Work For You: “Oh, you’re not a kick-ass feminist sweetheart who GETS WHAT SHE WANTS in bed? Sorry, hunny, you’re hopeless”. Here, she emphasizes the fact that those who don’t participate in sex (for whatever the reason, and they need not make it public information why they currently choose to abstain) should not be shunned from sex positive movements, when sometimes people are. Sex Toy Bingo was an optional event in the first place, allowing those with any discomfort or disinterest to be left with the option of being uninvolved. However once there, the facilitators did make sure to point out that those who did abstain from sex for whatever reason were not “abnormal”, or that they should partake in order to fit in with the majority. 

Sex Toy Bingo also did not “put it’s blinders up” and only focus on stereotypical heterosexual vaginal intercourse, it spanned out to cover all different sorts of sex and emphasized that as long as all parties consent, then it should be celebrated and accepted. This concept is also covered in  Sex Toys Will Never Do The Hardest Work For You when she explains that “ Sex positivity posits that as long as the choices that are being made are consensual for all people involved, then it’s great, and that people should be respected and celebrated for making the choices that are best for them”. 

Finally, Sex Toy Bingo made sure to include sexual health and wellness education, including but not limited to: the different forms of contraception, sexually transmitted disease/infections, and consent. This was another successful and important decision for the facilitators to include within the event. It’s important for those participating in sex to be educating on their own safety and well being throughout the process, and what resources the student body has here on campus. 

Overall, in my personal opinion I believe that Sex Toy Bingo is a successful sex positivity project in terms of being inclusive, educational, and actually enjoyable at the same time While also placing emphasis on the fact that a sex toy isn’t the answer to “curing one’s sex life”, as Fancy Feast explains when she says: “ “something great, please, but nothing that could replace me”, although with the right toy for the right person it can definitely be a positive enhancement.

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Eli Clare: Freaks and Queers

In and around the eighteen to mid nineteen hundreds, freakshows were popular within the entertainment industry. Those who preformed in these freakshows were essentially anyone who was not a white, cis-gengered, able bodied person, and the further they differed from this idea of a “normal” or “standard” body, the more freakish the individual was considered to be. This meant that a racialized person who was also disabled either physically or cognitively was considered to be among the most freakish to the audience. The performers themselves knew that thy themselves were not the freaks, but rather it was society that deemed them as less human and less worthy, therefore they were often put on display so that white able bodied people could walk away from a freakshow feeling better about themselves.

Society had marginalized and limited people with differences from the norm so much so that often times the performers had no other choice but to become an act in the freakshow in order to avoid poverty and homelessness. Incredibly limited jobs were made available to people with disabilities/differences from the norm, so this tended to be their only option. The entire concept of a freakshow is incredibly exploitative, however sometimes performers were able to have some control over their acts and as Clare says “grasp an exploitative world, and as often as possible turned it to their benefit”. However not every performer was this lucky. Often times performers with cognitive disabilities had no say in their acts which reveals truly how exploitative the nature of these shows really was. 

With the medicalization of disability (and colonized people of colour fighting for civil rights) came the decline of the freakshows. This is due to the fact that these disabilities lost their mystery once they could be scientifically and medically explained. Although this may seem like a positive transition (and in many ways it was), it also brought with it negative aspects. One for example was that the performers were often left to live in poverty or homelessness due to the fact that performing was their only option and source of making a living. Simply because the freakshow ended does not mean that society then created jobs and opportunities for these racialized and/or disabled people. Furthermore although the freakshows technically ended, they essentially continued to live on, simply under another title. Disabled people were no longer be paraded around for an audience, but rather medical professionals. They were often subject to medical experiments and examinations, stripping, photographing, and used as “training tools” or a way for medical professionals to further and pool their knowledge. Even though the entertainment business no longer used “freaks” as a source of income, disabled people were still treated as the “freaks”, simply in another setting. 

We have come a long way today, however there is still inequality in treatment and discrimination against people living with disabilities. 

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Fancy Feast: Sex Toys Will Never Be Able To Do The Hardest Work For You

Sex positivity projects and movements have proved to be beneficial to some, but unintentionally can negatively impact others. At it’s heart, sex positivity is a movement and ideology that tries to change currently attitudes and social norms surrounding sex, and sees any consensual activity as both healthy and pleasurable. For some this in an incredibly empowering movement, however for others it can be incidentally limiting. 

In sex positive movements it is common to change the language surrounding consent and shift it towards a more enthusiastic approach. The change from “no means no” to “yes means yes” has the intention of indicating that sex is a positive interaction and that the consenting parties involved should have an enthusiastic and excited approach. However this too has it’s critiques. Although I believe it’s unintended, I think that this saying doesn’t take into account many other societal norms and ideologies that can take advantage of this particular outlook. Someone can be likely to say “yes”, when other factors are at play in their current situation that can influence how they truly about partaking in sexual activity.  A verbal yes does not always genuinely translate to an enthusiastic and whole hearted yes. For example, one may say “yes” if there are social hierarchical differences between them and the person asking them whether they consent... a boss and an employee, a coach and a player, etc. These power relations can most definitely push people to verbally consent even if they may not want to participate in sexual activities.

Furthermore, sex positivity can pressure people who don’t want to participate in sexual activities to in fact participate. Sex positivity can sometimes glorify those who do have sex while it casts a negative light on those who choose to abstain. Additionally, there is a plethora of reasons for one to not want to participate in sexual activity. Sex is not always positive, and for many people (predominantly women), sexual encounters have proved to be negative rather than positive. Many women have faces sexualized violence throughout their lives for example.

In terms of buying sex toys, for some it can be an enjoyable, explorative and exciting experience that is positive for both them and their partner(s). However for others buying a sex toy is similar to putting a band aid over a bullet wound. In other words, a sex toy wont “cure” ones sex life. Often times Fancy Feast encountered people who wanted to buy a toy that “could do the fucking” for them, so that they  personally didn’t have to put forth the effort to learn more about their partner(s) bodies and essentially put in the work to please them. In reality, a toy doesn’t have the capability of drastically changing and curing someones sex life because we are all constantly faced with the challenge of navigating biases, traumas, fears and power imbalances that our society fosters. 

Overall, when having sex positive conversations it’s important to include all aspects, not just the idea that having sex is the only thing worth celebrating. All different kinds of sex that is truly consensual should be celebrated and accepted as well as people who are abstinent. There is no one right answer, rather a sex positive movement should range from not having any at all, to having it as much as one may want. 

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Audre Lorde: The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Audre Lorde in my opinion broke barriers with her work on the erotic. Within this piece she talks about the sheer power that the erotic holds, (so much so that people tend to fear it), and that as women we have been conditioned to suppress the erotic and become untrustworthy of “the power that arises from our deepest and non-rational knowledge”, as she says. Due to the suppression of our erotic, women have been kept an inferior position to that of men. Lorde says it is this that causes us as women to resemble that of “ants who maintain colonies to provide a life-giving substance for their masters”.

Initially, when reading this, I felt some resistance and confusion towards her approach. I am one of the people she speaks of that has been taught to suppress my erotic in most aspects of my life, believing it to be reserved predominantly to the bedroom, not realizing that the erotic spans far beyond that. She argues that the erotic has been misnamed by men and used against women, morphing it into something that its not. 

In its essence, the erotic provides self connection, and discovering ones own ability to feel joy and passion as deeply as we each can. it serves as a reminder to each of us how deeply we are capable of feeling. It’s a beautiful and empowering feeling. It is because of this power that people have tried to tame and constrain it. Now within society it has been skewed to be perceived as the pornographic, a direct denial of the erotic because it represents suppression of true emotion. It has been turned into something she calls a “plasticized sensation”, and I agree with her. 

The most eye opening argument she made that resonated with me the most is that the erotic should seep into every aspect of our lives; even though this is the exact thing people fear the most about the erotic. Once we understand that erotic does not belong explicitly to the bedroom, and we allow it to flow into the other aspects of our lives, we begin to demand more. We begin to work towards that joy and passion in our jobs, school, extracurricular, whatever it may be, and we scrutinize over ensuring that the things that we fill our lives with genuinely do bring us this deep joy and passion. If we all implemented this way of being driven by our erotic our world would look enormously different than it does now. 

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Anne Hathaway #FF number three (Instagram)

Anne Hathaway uses instagram (https://www.instagram.com/annehathaway/?hl=en) as a platform to talk about and inform people of many feminist issues, and also celebrate accomplishments and people. From celebrating women in athletics and women of colour authors writing about white privilege, to fighting against anti-abortion movements and violent immigration policies. She is someone who definitely uses her status and platform to promote this sort of activism.

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Repost number three

https://www.tiktok.com/@kimemeaa/video/6740753491817450757

This tiktok, coming from a Muslim trans woman touches on multiple feminist issues. One being representation, since Netflix produced a movie about a white, economically stable, educated young girl and the absolutely unbearable struggles she faces every day for wearing size thirteen men’s Nike’s. Her “struggle”, being someone coming from many domains of privilege over shone those of trans women, people of colour, and those of non-christian backgrounds which are predominantly viewed as outside the norm in North American culture. 

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Repost number two

This jumped out at me because, first of all, I laughed, and second of all because it hits multiple feminist issues. Not only does it address gender inequality in the workforce and the devaluation of women’s work in comparison to men (not to mention the even larger difference in pay between women of colour, particularly indigenous women, and men), but it also talks about gender reveals. Personally, I disagree with the idea of gender reveals, because one is automatically assigned gender norms since even before birth, which can be problematic for an enormous number of reasons. Some of these reasons being but not limited social norms and how they continue to reinforce patriarchy, or whether that child even identifies with their sex from birth in the first place. 

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Repost number one

This twitter post hits an important concept in a funny way. Many people I have conversations with surrounding feminism don’t like to call them self a “feminist”, even if they themselves do believe that feminism concepts are actually common sense, as mentioned in this twitter post. I have heard many times that this is due to the fact that feminism itself isn’t what they have the issue with, it’s identifying with the word “feminine”. This in itself shows the power that patriarchy and gender norms/toxic masculinity has within our culture, down to the point that it penetrates our language. 

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez #FF number two (Twitter)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an activist and american politician who serves as U.S representative for New York’s 14th congressional district. On her twiiter account, https://twitter.com/aoc , she has become the voice and face of many political fights and movements (many of which are issues that are feminist battles) that challenge the current policies and norms that allow different groups of people to be oppressed while others remain privileged.   

#FF

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womanlymag  #FF number one (Instagram)

Womanlymag ( https://www.instagram.com/womanlymag/ ) is an Instagram account that describes themselves as being dedicated to the “art and health of the global woman and the non-binary”. Through posts including but not limited to health and wellness, dis/ability, sexuality, gender, sexualized violence and/or domestic abuse, indigenous women’s issues and recognition of indigenous women, and the celebration of all sorts of different people and stories that don’t fit into our current societies mental models, this account has provided a haven for some to be connected to. This account applies to and celebrates many women and people that have and continue to be marginalized and unaccepted within society. 

#FF