Don’t be fooled I: the adventures of Mr Charmless

I know I said I’d be back in the New Year, but I’ve had a post brewing for a while which refuses to stand and wait any longer- and I don’t want it to go cold. Anyway, it’s only seven hours away from 2008 where I am…

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts about the common ‘arguments’ and insults used to challenge and deride feminists. I am hoping to concentrate particularly on arguments coming from anti-feminist men, as they are prevalent, and are hard to stand against because they appeal to commonly held beliefs and attitudes about women, feminists and the way in which the world works.

I. The ‘feminists are conspiracy theorists’ line

Sometime ago, somewhere on the web, I read a rant by a random anti-feminist male (who will be hereon known as ‘Mr Charmless’)against the feminist critique of high-heeled shoes. It was a simple sentence, something along the lines of ‘yeah, the radfems say that men make women wear high-heels so that they won’t be able to run away when the men try and rape them’. This was said in order to invite laughter and ridicule against those feminists who critique harmful beauty practices, insinuating that such feminists think that every man is in control of every woman, and every shoe, and that every man is therefore part of a big planned and plotted conspiracy to harm women and keep them helpless. The point of this disingenuous statement is to force women reading to seperate themselves from radical feminist theory of beauty in order that they are not seen as paranoid, or ‘crazy’. Only a crazy person, insinuates our gallant gentleman, could believe that there is anything wrong with high-heeled shoes, because any person who suggests that believes that men are in a constant conscious conspiracy against women, and do nothing except look for opportunities to rape them. Stay away from the radfems; they’re weird!

Now let’s have a look at the actual feminist arguments concerning high-heeled shoes. The feminist critique points out that human beings are not designed to walk around permanently on tip-toe, that such shoes as force one’s feet to do so put immense pressure on the toes, cause blisters, bleeding, and have been linked to various medical complaints by doctors. Feminists further note that the walk of women in high-heels is wobbly and insecure, giving an air of helplessness, and most certainly therefore the shoes do impede movement, thus restricting the woman’s overall physical freedom and lowering her chances of being able to run without breaking or twisting her ankle. Obviously, there are different types of heels, and different heights, with different degrees of danger and immoblisation.

In women’s magazines, women are encouraged to wear these shoes because they go with various outfits which are worn on particular occasions (can you imagine wearing a ballgown with flats?). If you are to attend a particular event which requires you to wear a posh dress, you will find yourself having to wear heels. No, you won’t be arrested if you don’t wear the dress and heels, but you may be laughed at if you don’t, considered scruffy, inappropriately dressed, sent away, seen as awkward or (the horrors!) even unfeminine. Magazines also tell women they should wear high-heeled shoes because they make legs look thinner and because they give them a ’sexy’ walk. Why should one’s legs have to appear thinner than they are? Because modern beauty standards dictate a slim female body as sexy in the Western world. Why should one have to have a ’sexy’ walk? Why does one want to if it means pain and potential injury? Who is it that stares at women’s legs, and judges them to be sexy or otherwise? You know the answer.*

So the feminist argument summed up: High-heeled shoes cause health problems, restrict physical freedom, and do those things in the name of ’sexiness’ or ‘femininity’. They primarily benefit men, who are the main judges of women’s physical ’sexiness’.

Nothing in this critique says ‘each man is deliberately and consciously forcing women into high-heels against their will in order that women are vulnerable to rape’. This critique notes, rather, that these potentially damaging items of footwear are considered sexy because they make women more physically restricted and vulnerable. It notes that men are the primary beneficiaries of women’s ’sexiness’. This critique looks into the reasons why high-heeled shoes are considered necessary and suitable wear despite their danger, and concludes with some discomforting notes on what ’sexiness’ means in patriarchy.

These are the questions that are asked, and must always be asked, by feminists:
- who does X (in this case, high-heeled shoes) primarily benefit?
- what does X do in the world, or rather, what are its functions and consequences?
- why does a critique of X, supposedly a minor issue which should be beneath the notice of political commentators, induce such hysteria in Mr Charmless? What is at stake for him?
- what does Mr Charmless’ argument suggest about himself, and about the view he wants others to have of feminists?

In this case, Mr Charmless uses ridicule to supposedly denounce an argument that makes him uncomfortable: ‘the feminists think that all men are having meetings to work out how to rape you, that’s how insane they are’. If you don’t laugh at his dubious accusation, you will end up lumped in with the insane feminists who supposedly think this. The accusation of believing in a ‘conspiracy theory’ is a tried and tested method of shutting one’s opponents up; here it is used to divide women against each other and discourage critique of the patriarchally accepted. To put it crudely: Mr Charmless enjoys the sight of women in high-heels, and thinks he is owed this. Just as any critique of pornography will cause him to clutch his precious magazines to his chest and wail ‘censorship! Help me Larry!’, so any suggestion that what gets him off is not harmless or his right to possess will lead him to ridicule you. It is the only weapon he has left once you have swept the rug from underneath his feet.

One could debate, of course, whether Mr Charmless’ reaction is indeed a genuinely held belief: perhaps he does truly believe that feminists believe in a conscious conspiracy with meetings and a plan of action. I suppose it’s possible, but that would make him at best an incredibly poor reader, and at worst, just plain stupid. Most of these ilk are not stupid, and I would say that they are just frightened and disingenuous. At any rate, if such a critique gets such a reaction, you do not need to shrink away. Refuse to accept his image of you. I would also see the image of feminists imagining men deliberately and consciously planning each and every misogynistic act as what Mary Daly** would refer to as a ‘patriarchal reversal’: in order to contain his fear of women reacting against him, Mr Charmless projects the paranoia of ‘conspiracy theory’ onto feminists. After all, if it can be made to be their belief, and not his, it can be safely laughed at and dismissed

* If you’re interested in this, I strongly advise you to read Sheila Jeffreys’ amazing book Beauty and Misogyny. There is a fantastic section on high-heels and their fetishisations and it is a real eye-opener. Plus she is just an incredible writer and visionary.

** In Gyn/ Ecology