katstevens | Urge to (in for the) kill.... rising

Oh dear, La Roux gets feminism wrong AGAIN

First it was 'girls look a bit stupid playing guitars', now this:

What's your stance on the way that female musicians either choose to or are forced to use a sexuality that's essentially just designed to appeal to men?

"It's really patronising to women. I know that there's far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top. If you're a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That's what a real woman is, when you've got the sex eyes. I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or having relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you tw4t. It's a funny culture, it's definitely a funny culture. Those women are just insecure, but they'll turn round to me and say 'you're just jealous 'cos you want a tan and you want big boobs, stupid boy-looking girl'. You can't win, they wouldn't believe me for a second."

Jebus, is she *actually* saying that by dressing in a certain way, women are inviting men to abuse them? I think she is. Sigh.

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She is EXPLICITLY saying that women are inviting abuse by dressing in a certain way ("Women wonder why they get beaten up... because you attracted one, you tw4t"). There is no ambiguity about this statement. I hope she's fucking proud of herself for being such a COMPETE AND TOTAL WANKER.

I think she's said something ambiguous and not very well thought out, but, if you were looking for ways to get her out of it, I think the bit in the ellipsis is important. It could be taken to mean that there are certain sorts of men, i.e. arseholes, who think that women are sex objects and abusable, and that these men are attracted to their sex-object ideal, to yer tarted-up tan-and-big-boobs girls, who have also embraced this aesthetic without considering the implications of possible validation of the distorted world-view of aforementioned arseholes, leading to potential problems. But then again maybe she's just a lass who's sang this song that people like, not a professor of sociology.

I take the mentioning-in-the-same-breath coupling of getting beaten up and having relationships with arsehole men to mean that she sees them as related. And no, she might not be a professor of sociology, but she's clearly either totally stupid (thoughtless at best), or doing this for the controversy and the publicity which will arise from it. I could almost forgive her the former (I mean, at least if people tell her she's wrong she'll learn something and hopefully retract it) but the latter? Scumbag, lowest of the low behaviour.

Did you also notice her extraordinarily poor grasp of what it means to be a lesbian?

"She had short hair, I don't think she was a lesbian, she wasn't some big butch woman coming over and going [adopts big butch voice] 'yeah wicked, you make lesbians alright'"

WTF???????

I mean...she has history here (cf "girls shouldn't play guitar/drums because they look butch"). And as I said below she's being sold, not least by herself, as a strong female figure and role model in pop, a smart woman whose opinions matter. And because she's got a "kooky" image and doesn't dress like a Pussycat Doll, people unthinkingly buy into this even when she comes up with this bullshit.

I think this is what annoys me most - if this is most intelligent female role model we can come up with then we are in big trouble.

To go all meta for a second: that annoys me too, somewhat, but what bothers me more is the idea that any women in her position must needs be assessed for Role Model potential, even if all she wants to do is perform some tunes!

Agree - am v wary of castigating people for being Bad Role Models b/c it's dumb to think of pop stars, athletes or whoever as being people whose behaviour/opinions/conduct should be copied. But La Roux is explicitly setting herself up as a role model/feminist inspiration and trailblazer so GNNNGGHH let her have it with both barrels, really.

La Roux is explicitly setting herself up as a role model/feminist inspiration

Well, yes, I think if you do try and claim or imply you are such, then you deserve to be picked apart for this. Of course, I do think it's worth analysing whether some people/performers may, to a certain degree, feel a sense of compulsion to present as such - because if a large proportion of analysis of performers is centred around whether or not they're a good role model, people may feel required to have that conversation. A bit like the conversation about the attractiveness of female pop stars; even if LR sets herself up as opposing the "status quo", she's still operating within that narrow framework and appears to believe in it, so no real change there.

I'm wondering if the role model thing may be more of the same, although there seem to be far more people who want to give the impression that they *are* opting out - "I'm not a role model for anyone" is surely as much of a cliche now as "we make music for ourselves, we don't really expect anyone else to like it but it's a bonus if they do"?

I'm meandering. What I mean is, I think this is perhaps further evidence of the, shall we say, limited thought processes LR may have engaged in before chiming in on this subject. Unfortunately, she seems to think she's being profound. Tcch, young people today, etc.

If I can diagnose someone's Fucking Problem from a reported interview (and I rather think I can!), her Fucking Problem appears to be that she sees the central, defining role of women as being attractive to men.

Therefore the problem with marketing female musicians as glamourous and available to the male gaze is, to her, not that it bolsters the assumption that this is the defining role of women, but that the (shall we say "hegemonic"? I think we shall) hegemonic definition of sex object is too narrow for her.

And a woman who is abused by an arsehole man must have been doing the whole central role of woman thing wrong.

So lesbians are not even playing the game, and any suggestion of lesbianism is really tantamount to coming at the whole damn applecart with a boathook, and should therefore be vigorously defended against.

Her Other Fucking Problem is that she seems to have internalised some teasing from mean! pretty! girlswithtits! far more than is good for her or anyone else. Her first Fucking Problem takes precedence, so she acts out "I am valid despite what mean girlswithtits say" as "I can and do fulfil my defining role of attracting men"

It's bloody fucking annoying that someone who seems to hold to this bag of shite view is held up as some kind of smart role model.

Therefore the problem with marketing female musicians as glamourous and available to the male gaze is, to her, not that it bolsters the assumption that this is the defining role of women, but that the (shall we say "hegemonic"? I think we shall) hegemonic definition of sex object is too narrow for her.

Yeah - and that broadening the hegemonic defn to include, eg, HER, is somehow subverting it. AARGH.

Her Other Fucking Problem is that she seems to have internalised some teasing from mean! pretty! girlswithtits! far more than is good for her or anyone else.

Totally. I can easily picture myself saying something very similar when I was a miserable 14 year old indie snob who hated girls in make-up and short skirts (and they hated me, because I was a miserable 14 year old indie snob).

Urge to (in for the) kill.... rising

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