'Snog Marry Avoid?', and how patriarchy informs our beauty standards.

If there is one show on TV which highlights the underlying beauty standards, judgements in our culture and the underlying patriarchy behind it, it’s Snog Marry Avoid?. For those unfamiliar with this programme, this BBC Three (A TV channel aimed at impressionable young people) show finds young adults, aged roughly between 16-25 and tells them exactly how awful they look. It is not just women on this show who are subjected to this, it is men too. Basically, it is people who do not conform to the ‘norm’ or the gender roles ascribed to them.

A few years ago I went on holiday to Cornwall with my family and best friend. I was going through a phase where I enjoyed wearing my hair in a big top bun. I felt it looked clean, sleek, edgy, and I felt comfortable wearing it that way. My mum, however, wasn’t sure. She didn't think it looked ‘pretty’, and in her not-so-persuasive argument to wear my hair down instead asked, ‘don’t you want men to find you attractive?’. I was taken aback, unable to answer as my head swam with reasons why this was, for me, a ludicrous question. For a start, I do not care what men think of me, I style myself based on how it makes me feel. Secondly, if a man was so shallow as to base his attraction to me on my hair rather than who I am as a person, then I am not interested. Thirdly, amazingly, I still manage to find plenty of people who find me attractive regardless of how I style my hair. I think it is important to add that my mum is a wonderful supportive women, who in general does not hold sexist or backwards attitudes. I was brought up reading The Independent for god sake. I think of this day on a regular basis, not so much for any kind of resentment towards my mother, but as a stark and personal reminder about the pervasiveness of the attitudes of the society in which we live in.  There is no sexism worse than the sexism which seeps out, casually, unnoticed, from the mouths of the people we love.

It was with this in mind, the idea that women should dress for men’s desire, that I watched a recent episode of Snog Marry Avoid?.  The participants on the show, and this episode focused on a couple of young women, are asked to enter ‘Pod’, a white room where a robotic women’s voice echoes like some omniscient authority, asking questions like ‘why are you wearing so much fake tan?”, “do you think those eyelashes look good?”, and “why are you wearing a iceskating suit?”. When they try to pipe up and defend their choices, men are brought out to shoot them down again. The shows producers, presumably, show a selection of random men on the street a picture of the girls. They then vote on whether they would ‘snog’, ‘marry’, or ‘avoid’ the girl in question, and provide helpful comments like, ‘she wears too much make up’, or ‘I’d defiantly avoid her in a club because she looks plastic’. She is then presented with the exact percentage of men who would avoid her, as some kind of confirmation of the terrible mistake she is making.

At times the show forgets itself and realises that maybe it needs to bring down the misogynistic tone. It does this by pretending the show is about empowerment and making the girls feel better about themselves, by freeing them from the constraints of the idea that they need to wear lots of make up or not much clothing in order to feel good about themselves. It is this deceit which possibly incites me the most, because it is patriarchal bullshit trying to disguise itself as liberation. They are not liberating these young people from anything, they are just transferring them from one type of subordination to another. Or worse, as many of the participants on the show may identify with a certain subculture such as cyber goth, hippy, alternative/metal, or drag and gender queer. The show runs on the assumption that to belong to one of these subtypes is inheritantly bad, and tries to prove this by asking (male) strangers what they think.

In the particular episode I watched they showed one girl - who happily and unashamedly described her style as taking influence from drag style and glam rock androgyny – and tried to normalise her based on our cultural beauty standards. She, however, had other ideas. After the ‘make-down’ (where they re-do the participant’s hair, make-up, clothes, to make them look unrecognisably boring), she stated that she felt the hair and outfit was vile. When a new selection of public men approved of her new ‘cute’ look, she scoffed. Good. She should not let strangers tell her how to feel about herself. She soon reverted back to her old look, and in case the premise of the show wasn’t obvious enough, the presenter brushed over the fact that she did not feel comfortable with her new and natural look, and instead asked, earnestly and persistantly, ‘but what did your boyfriend and dad think?’.

I’m not against making people feel good about themselves. But this is not what this show is about. Snog Marry Avoid? is about taking people who deviate from the norm in various forms, making them look more ‘normal’, and telling them that now people will find them more attractive. The show is an obvious manifestation of this widespread attitude. It is a theme constantly reflected in our culture and media through advertising, magazines, and fashion. Sometimes it jumps from the abstraction of the media and into our lives, and it is why we are asked by people close to us, ‘don’t you want men to find you attractive?’.

Rape Myths: What are they, and why should they be challenged?

Recently, there have been a series of rapes in my city which have received some news coverage. One incident where an 18 year old girl was walking back from a night out and was raped by a couple of strangers, and a couple of cases where men have entered a women’s toilet in a pub, and raped a women. These are what I am going to call ‘classic rapes’. By this I mean, the kinds of scenarios people, the general public, society, think of when they hear the word ‘rape’. They are, in fact, a relatively small proportion, as most rapes are committed by an assailant known to the victim. (Personally I do not like taking about rapes as ‘different types’ as this can lead to thinking of abuse as being hierarchal, and therefore having the effect of downgrading some survivor’s experiences)

Browsing the online comments under the reports, I started to see a theme. Some people were wondering what on earth an 18 year old girl was doing walking alone at night, surely this was an invite for trouble. Not only a woman mistakenly thinking that she could safely walk in a public space at night, but a teenage one at that! Foolish girl. Under the comments for the public toilet rapes, people were questioning how could we silly women have let a man walk in? Foolish women. We should know, shouldn’t we, that men have an overpowering and insatiable sexual appetite?!

A few days later I spoke/ranted my concerns with these attitudes at a male friend. He agreed that these comments were vile and ignorant, and he tried to soothe my anger with the assurance that it doesn’t matter because these people are Daily Mail right wing ‘morons’ and it’s not like I have friends who hold these attitudes. He was right, of course. These people are obviously morons, not the sort of people I spend time with. I am luckily enough to be friends with wonderful, intelligent people, male and female, who all hold positive feminist attitudes, and living in the comfort of that soft cushioning bubble is great, it really is. But to leave it there, and to think that these attitudes will not and may not ever affect me and other women is unwise. Foolish, even.

Before I explain why, I am going to give a few examples of rape myths to highlight what they are, the kinds of comments which perpetuate these myths, and explain why they are bullshit. (There are many problematic attitudes that people hold regarding rape, I’m sure you will encounter them but I will not bore you with them all, as this is not an exhaustive list).

Firstly, there appears to be this widespread belief that women and children lie about their abuse. Now, this one is quick to nip in the bud. There is no evidence to support this claim: only around 9% of UK rape allegations are found to be false, which is no higher than any other form of crime. Often, and particularly in the case of children, the false accusation may cover up other, separate, abusive issues. Because after all who would want the negative stigma, the disbelief, the victim blaming, associated with being raped?

Victim blaming is another common rape myth, one which was highlighted in my initial example of online reading. This includes things such as blaming the victim for what they were wearing, what they were drinking, how they were acting, how they were in the ‘wrong’ place. It is anything, basically, which can put the blame on to the victim and somehow justify or excuse the perpetrator’s action. These things do not matter. I think it should be obvious, but victim blaming can often be quite subtle. For example there were recent NHS posters warning young women not to drink too much because it leaves them open to sexual assault. Being vulnerable is not an invitation. A man is in control of his actions, he is not a thoughtless senseless sex crazed animal, and to be honest it is degrading towards men to consider them as such. Victim blaming can also be quite obvious. For example in a case against a footballer who was accused of rape, the defendant’s dress worn on the night in question was used as evidence in favour of the accused footballer. The accused was acquitted.

Talking about drinking too much brings us nicely to the issue of consent. Most people like to think of the narrative of rape as a stranger attacking a tearful girl who runs off into the night. But what about if the victim knew the attacker? What if they agreed to go on a date with them? Agreed to go back to their house? Maybe they were consensually kissing? What about when things go too far and she asks him to stop? Some may struggle with the concept that consent can be given but also taken away.

Some people seem to think that there might be a script to go along with rape, and that there is a specific and ‘right’ way to act during and following, and that by not following this script, it somehow means that it wasn’t rape. So, for example people who perpetuate this myth might say, ‘well, why did they not fight back?”, or “if it was rape, then why did they stay the night?”. There are many reasons why women might not fight back, they may feel the threat of more physical violence from resisting, their bodies may have frozen from trauma and gone into a state of shock, they may have felt coerced into having sex and therefore not resisted, this may particularly be the case if the rapist was their partner or someone they knew. To look at the second question, the above explanations can also be applied, but also, so what? Why should their response take away from the trauma of the situation? This view does not account for the overwhelming variety of human responses, which are often not rational anyway. The idea that there is a normal and proper way to respond to an abnormal situation needs to be dropped.

I hope this has made it clear, (for those who weren't sure) that sex and rape are entirely different. Sex is a consensual act and rape is about power and control. Secondly, that there is no 'right' kind of rape, one which makes perfect sense in our narrative of how we view rape and indeed rapists, nor is there a 'normal' way to respond during or after.

So back to my original question, which is why does it matter if people hold these views? When I use the term ‘widespread’, I mean it. The people spewing ignorance on local newspaper comment sections are not invisible people, never to be a part of society or have the chance to act on these views. They could be friends or family members or colleagues. Or they could be involved in a job meant to help. Some policemen, worryingly, hold very strong rape myths when dealing with rape victims. Consider that they may be members of the jury, ready to hear and decide on a rape case, (few are successful by the way, but I won't depress you with those statistics). And then what about all the other people not brave enough to voice their views but willing to absorb other’s? It may easy to brush off as silly ignorance but the problem is deep, and it seeps into the cracks and into not only the minds of policemen, social workers and juries, but the minds of the abused, who end up self-loathing, self blaming, confused and unsure of what to do. And what happens if you, your friend, lover, daughter, mother are sexually abused? Maybe they would be lucky enough to have friends and family who are understanding and believe them, but you can not choose your police officer, or your jury.

Rape myths perpetuate, excuse, and justify violence, and until they are challenged and torn down, nothing is going to change. 

A response to Beyonce, her VMA performance, and her critics.

Last year Beyonce rather reluctantly described herself as a feminist in an interview with US Vogue, stating ‘The word can be very extreme… but I guess I am a modern-day feminist’. In mainstream pop culture - a world where lady Gaga has said things like “I'm not a feminist - I, I hail men, I love men. I celebrate American male culture, and beer, and bars and muscle cars....”, where Bjork has mused that identifying as a feminist is to complain and isolate yourself, and where Taylor Swift has stated that feminism is about ‘girls vs boys’ - Beyonce’s luke-warm comment seemed like the pinnacle of self-awareness regarding that misrepresented little word. One of the greatest enemies to feminism is the word itself; it has been seen as a dirty word, created by angry woman who want to, like, take over the world because men are stoopid, or something. It makes people instantly defensive, because who wants to be associated with such radicalism.

Anyway, I guess Beyonce realised that there is nothing extreme about the strife for equality. During her VMA performance, watched by over 12 million Americans, she stood, so proud, so strong, and just so undeniably Beyonce-esque, in front of the blazing word ‘feminism’. Beyonce, in one fell swoop, took the controversial word and gave it a sexy new makeover, making it accessible to billions around the world, making it cool and okay. Beyonce’s performance screamed: you can like men and be sexy and have a family and wear a bra and shave your legs and STILL call yourself a feminist OMG.

Now, Beyonce is not the perfect feminist (if such a thing exists). She’s been caught plenty of times writhing around on the floor dressed oh so provocatively in a variety of leotards, she’s happily used the word ‘bitches’, and once casually mimed along to her husband rapping about domestic violence (and the lyrics were not about where to find your local abuse shelter). It’s for these and probably more reasons that she has been criticised, accused of not being a real feminist, of being detrimental to its cause. It’s not that I don’t believe these reasons are valid - I personally do not think there is ever an excuse to glamorise or make light of domestic abuse - however I disagree with the backlash against Beyonce for calling herself a feminist, and the concept of ‘bad feminism’.

Feminism is inclusive. It is progressive. A discussion. It should not be judgemental. We all arrive to our beliefs through different paths, and Beyonce may have spent her youth performing and using her body to make money, rather than huddling over a worn copy of The Female Eunuch and volunteering with abused woman, but that’s okay. People’s personal feminism will differ according to their life experiences, ethnicity, sexuality, social-economic background, and gender. We need to be accepting of these differences, and understanding that feminist choices can be based on factors that not everybody shares. People who describe themselves as feminists may not always behave as the perfect epitome of one, because that is a difficult thing to do in a society which holds such subtle and engrained sexism. As a feminist, it irks me when people think they get to decide who does and who doesn’t get to call themselves a feminist. I imagine them all, sat on their high horse, and judging people against their checklists. Feminism is not a rule book, and this is not progressive.

Beyonce’s beliefs may have come about through greater understanding, through having a daughter, and a genuine concern about gender and inequality, or conversely it could just be based on clever PR; the beliefs may be empty, and maybe she doesn’t give a shit about equality but rather the amount of publicity she gains, but unless she actually says this, ultimately, it does not matter. She has achieved what activists have taken years to achieve. She may not be the best feminist role model we could wish for, but she has torn down the walls which has made feminism inaccessible and unattractive to the masses, and opened up a conversation about what it means to be a feminist in 2014, to people who may not have considered it before, and this is progress.