We were talking the other day about an especially popular Manosphere fairy tale — you know, the one in which evil women in their “prime” years in their twenties have lots of sex with charming assholes (and none with hard-working decent nice guys), only to panic when they hit the age of thirty or so and suddenly become ugly monsters.
Well, apparently the evil women have come up with a technical solution to that whole “getting old and ugly” problem. I have uncovered secret evidence in the form of a pamphlet or leaflet that the women of the world evidently circulate amongst themselves.
Very clever of these sneaky women to call this magical age-defying balm “Toilet Soap,” to make us men think it’s a product only used for cleaning toilets, which is something women apparently do on a regular basis. But no, they put this so-called “Toilet Soap” on their faces!
I have been unable to find any of this “Lux Toilet Soap” at the local grocery store. So I’ve been trying out other toilet cleaners to see if they have the same age-retarding effects. So far I have had little luck. The Clorox Toilet Wand is harsh and awkward to use. Lime-A-Way Toilet Bowl Cleaner gave me a rash. The less said about my experience with the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Cleaning Gel, the better. I have not yet tried Lysol’s Power Toilet Bowl Cleaner, as I am pretty sure Lysol is intended only for vaginas.
Also, fellas, I don’t want to alarm you, but I have been doing reasearch on yet another way women try to trick us into thinking that they’re hotter than they really are. It’s apparently called “make-up.” I will fill you in on the details as I learn more about it.
@Fade
Don’t know if that helps, but it would bother me because I have better things to think about than how to move and act when I’m wearing skirts, like the worst thing that could happen would be if someone could see my underwear. It makes it sound like you have to be constantly uncomfortable just to look good in a skirt at all times.
It’s another small way of saying ‘a lady doesn’t have to be happy, she has to be pleasant at all times for everyone’.
There’s so many, sometimes contradicting things women are supposed to do to look good.
Have to say, that’s why a list of face tips bugs me a little, even though these things are nice to know (though I heard the water thing is a myth, it’s just generally healthier to drink water instead of soda). It sounds to me like I have to do this, have to look young, old can’t be pretty.
I know that’s rarely the intention, but the combination of that and general beauty standards often makes me feel that if I don’t find the time and money to do all that, I’m some kind of a failure.
I want to get wrinkles someday. I want to look my age, because getting older means more experience, more knowledge, more life lived and I want to be proud of that.
@Fade, I have a bit of a moustache as well! And hair on the backs of my fingers and on my toes 😛 I used to be really paranoid about it and even used to remove the hair from my hands but I’ve realised that it isn’t actually all that noticeable, and that hand stubble looks even odder!
I draw the line at leaving the hairy toes though, that gets done with a razor in the shower.
I have the disadvantage of having the greek hairiness but I have pale skin so it shows up.
@TomBcat and Marie
Thanks, I think that helps clarify it a little. Shaming on women who don’t wear skirts like that and acting like what other people see is more important than how you feel.
I mean, I want to wear skirts cuz I think they look nice, but I want to llook nice for me, not random passerbys.
@Historophilia.
When I used to go outside a lot, I had more olive toned skin, but now that i’ve just spent almost like…. three continuous years inside due to depresion, I’m pale, too.
@tomBcat
You aren’t a failure. And internet hugs if wanted. 🙂
I know it bugged me (me and fade were both there) because she started it after I said I was trying to find my fashion sense, and I mentioned I want to try cargo pants and some skirts, prompting the thing. It was both unwarranted and also went against what I wanted to do, I didn’t want to wear skirts to look lady like. Idk if that makes sense. So it was unwarranted, not what I wanted, and also kinda slut shamey.
In principle, I hate this kind of gender normativity. Telling women that they have to be as modest as possible and never show signs of not being feminine is quite sexist. However, I must say that I think acting ladylike itself can be very enjoyable for someone who has dysphoria like me. I mean, I obviously care about transitioning and going full-time as a woman much more than anything else (especially conforming exactly to gender norms), but acting ladylike can help brighten up my mood, which isn’t very pleasant most of the time. It’s like a guilty pleasure.
@fade
Dittoing. Though I need to get used to leg hair now (gotten used to my face hair already :D)
@histrophilia
Omg! I have hair on my toes too! Not on my fingers though, or at least not noticable.
I should add that, if it weren’t for the pervasiveness of gender normativity in society, I probably wouldn’t even see acting ladylike as a guilty pleasure.
@Aaliyah
Sorry. I didn’t mean my stuff (and I’m assuming Fade didn’t mean) as in there’s something wrong with being ladylike, just that the advice was unwarranted, as no one had wanted to know how to be ladylike in a skirt when she started talking about it.
I see your point TomBcat. Though with the face tips, it’s good for generally keeping your skin healthy and happy, not just to anti-aging or whatever.
I’ve have both very sensitive skin and a tendency to get spots (had them pretty bad from the age of 9 onwards and even now at 20 on the pill I still get a few) and following these rules definitely help.
And one thing my Mother pointed out to me is that looking younger for your age as a middle aged woman as advantages in the work place. Older women often have it tough, particularly when job hunting and are often dismissed and ignored, usually by younger men, so looking less obviously “old” does help a bit.
It’s obviously a bull crap thing that this is the case though, and I don’t like the way that age and experienced is not respected in the West, particularly in women.
That makes sense. And there’s nothing wrong with acting ladylike, it was just her assumption that it was the default, or something that I should aspire to do when I have never really before acted like I wanted to*
*I was asking her to teach me about make up, because my mom doesn’t know anything about it, but I view makeup/skirts as different than “actions’ in terms of ladylikeness, plus that whole thing where some guys may act in a way that is “ladylike (according to cissexist views)” or want to wear make up, so there’s really no clear line anyway.
Um, anyway, that was a kind of long way to say I think you’re right and I understand you’re wanting to act ladylike. Heck, even if fifth grade I remember internalizing femininity being bad, and it took me so long for me to try to do girly cloths that I thought looked good on me because I thought I’d get made fun of by my dad*, and I’m cis. So I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.
*he’s normally cool, but does not quite yet understand what’s appropriate to joke about.
Anyone want to read some MRA scifi, about resistance to the femen empire?
http://www.backlash.com/content/arj/augment_2047_0414.html
Heh, no need to say sorry. I wasn’t offended by anyone in this thread. And I’d be just as annoyed by unsolicited advice despite what I said earlier about acting ladylike.
SomedaysI want to burn down the patriarchy with a can of kerosene and a flame thrower…@Fade, hugs if you want them. I’m an olive toned pale (ie. basically I’m pale yellow-ish :P) so we might match!
@Marie, troll toes unite! 😛 my hair is dark but it’s very fine and silky so luckily it doesn’t really show up.
@Historophilia
I’m not really sad right now, but I am always up for jedi hugs
@Fade again, yeah it’s a load of rubbish. My mother has passed on loads of good tips about being a woman in the workplace to me, one thing she says is to watch out for shorter men as a taller woman. Apparently they can sometimes see you as more of a threat, particularly if you’re more senior than them.
I hate how Patriarchy poisons every little thing.
@historophilia
My toe hair is dark and noticable, but for some reason it never bugged me, even when I was younger and had more hate on my body. It was just my face hair.
I was ostracized in school for wearing short skirts a lot, so I have strong opinions about that. If I had done it to please others, I would have stopped it altogether. But I also never quite got why the opinions of those people seemed so wrong to me. I thought I shouldn’t bother other people with the way I look, so they got me to wear and do a a lot of things I hated and didn’t see the point to. One time a friend got sent to the principal for sitting in a ‘salacious(?) manner’, which was basically sitting like the boys did (in jeans, not a skirt even). I’m not at all surprised that you couldn’t find one gay person there. So weird and out of place, given that the area I lived in isn’t exactly very conservative and mostly very open to all kinds of people.
Why am I so rambly today? I sure must think I’m a fascinating person.
^
Re: sitting
something that’s always bugged me. In Karate, they have the men and women sit in seiza’s, formal sitting positions, which is basicallylike this for women and this for men.
The difference once I realized the woman’s legs being closed was probably for “modesty” made me a little sad.
@Marie, I was really self concious about my moustache for a while when I was in my early teens after a boy announced loudly that I had one.
But these days I care a lot less about it, I still remove it, but I’m lazy about it.
Agenti: Lol read the whole thread once in a while? You got credit!
Hunh… teach me to be checking a new post just before heading off to bed.
(hangs head in shame)
Toiletries are a thing here, but are similar to my “ie on the bathroom sink” question. They’re things used in the bathroom, and thus near the toilet. Only house I’ve ever been in that had room for even a real bathroom counter was my ex-fiance’s parents’ — 4 bed 2.5 bath and holy shit fancy.
The “toilet” is in the “bathroom”, because one’s toilet was the act of putting oneself together, and using the commode/chamber pot was one of those things one wished to do before donning garments of fairly encumbering nature.
The object became the room, and performing one’s toilet remained in the bedroom. Some aspects of the past (e.g. eau de toilette) have lingered.
re podcasts Squeecast is very good (confession, two of the members are friends of mine).
They won a Hugo last year, and are up for another this year.
@Fade, I do Kendo which is another Japanese martial art and men and women sit in seiza the same, with the knees about a fist and a half apart.
We also do sonkyo before we commence fencing, which looks like this: http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee11/Kobudokan/sonkyo.jpg
Apparently traditionally women sonkyo with one knee on the floor, but it’s so rarely done now that I couldn’t even find a google image of it. But the original idea was that it was more modest.
It’s a bullshit idea as men and women wear the same outfit, both in Kendo and Karate.
re “29”. I think the age was chosen because of the long standing idea that no woman wants to admit to being 30.