Tuesday 27 November 2012

Moustachioed lady sex bombs: am I encouraging objectification?

We all love Facebook, right? The immeasurable fun of "friending" people you went to school with and judging them for their life choices (HAHA YOU WERE MEAN TO ME IN MATHS IN YEAR NINE AND YOU STILL LIVE IN SOUTHAMPTON AND HAVE AWFUL HAIR). Posting the sort of things you'd say around your actual friends before realising that people you went to school with, former colleagues, and friends of your parents may not necessarily expect your status updates to consist solely of rants about abortion laws liberally sprinkled with The Dreaded C Word. And always, always, that moment when you read someone's status and think "oh shut the fuck up".

Of course there is a Facebook page entitled "Reading someone's status and thinking 'oh shut the fuck up'".

I only found this out when someone shared a recent photo from said page:


My response was, fittingly enough, "oh shut the fuck up".

This piece by Jem Bloomfield at Quite Irregular sums up the damaging message behind these kind of statements - specifically during Movember:
This campaign, intended as a project by men for men, has immediately been turned into a pretext for demanding that women submit themselves and their bodies to male approval.
 LOLZ! The very IDEA of women having facial hair is TOTALLY HILARIOUS! Because there isn't a multi-million pound industry devoted to women removing socially-prohibited hair from all over their bodies! Because the only hair we produce naturally is a L'Oreal swishy wig! Real girls don't have to shave (and wax, and tweeze, and thread; and exfoliate, and moisturise, and pop ingrown hairs, and go to the doctor to get antibiotics when those ingrown hairs get massively infected) - only the GROSS ones do that! Like only the GROSS ones fart and eat and have opinions! Only the GROSS ones are like DUDES! Only the GROSS ones are actually fucking people.

I THINK I'VE MENTIONED THIS BEFORE BUT APPARENTLY IT HAS NOT FIXED THE WORLD YET WTF.

I'm just going to say: I would look fit as fuck with a moustache.


 Actually: google image searching for the above picture has reminded me that moustaches on women can be exceptionally hot. Like those tumblrs where ladies share pictures of their hairy underarms - it's something you expect to be unappealing because you've been brainwashed by Patriarchy Inc., but when faced with a variety of fit, unapologetic women proudly showing off their bodies, "euww" was really not my first response. My first response? Was a bit NSFW. Maybe it's the incredibly sexy confidence, maybe it's some association between hair and virility (caaaaaavemaaaaaaan), maybe it's just aesthetically pleasing if you forget you're supposed to find it icky.

Do me a favour? Spend half an hour alone on google with safe search off. You might find something you like.

2 comments:

  1. This reminds me of a friend's facebook status. One of her students had had a word with her in private after class and recommended epilation or whatever it is you do to get rid of a moustache. Her reaction was "Yewhat mate? I'll have you know this moustache is a fucking BABE MAGNET."

    It's true as well, it makes her look like a dashing Spitfire pilot.

    ReplyDelete