|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 2:19 pm
I try to talk to my feminist friends about this, but since their not into Japanese culture and haven't heard of Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL), all I get is the head tilt.
I'm a bit of a Jrocker and a big fan of Mana and all of his work. I also really like EGL and have a few outfits of my own. For those of you who may not know, EGL is like Victorian children's clothing, think Alice in Wonderland. It can most definitely be argued that EGL sexualizes childhood. It's very much a fetish thing too. What do you all think?
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 3:40 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:45 am
I would disagree, nothing is that simple. The point of feminism is to look at everything critically.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:49 pm
savy squirrel I try to talk to my feminist friends about this, but since their not into Japanese culture and haven't heard of Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL), all I get is the head tilt. I'm a bit of a Jrocker and a big fan of Mana and all of his work. I also really like EGL and have a few outfits of my own. For those of you who may not know, EGL is like Victorian children's clothing, think Alice in Wonderland. It can most definitely be argued that EGL sexualizes childhood. It's very much a fetish thing too. What do you all think? Are you kidding? How could someone possibly call themselves a feminist and not support a woman's right to wear what she chooses? But, please tell me you've read the book Lolita? I hate it when people wear stuff like that and support Lolita fashion without having the slightest idea who Lolita even is. Even if you say it'd just a culture thing, it still, as a fan of the book, bugs me. I know it has very little to do with the book, but if you steal the name you should at least know what you're naming it after.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:38 pm
Actually, I'm having the same moral dilemma. I love lolita clothing, but it does sexual children, and also the women wearing the clothing are meant to be dolls and ornaments, which isn't exactly a positive image for women. I'm struggling with it, because I want to try and further my feminism, and using my body as a canvass to sexualize children, and make women appear as ornaments is hardly doing that. The best I can do at the moment is tell myself I'm not perfect, and that perhaps I don't need to be perfect. I can do some things that aren't really that feminist, but I have to admit to myself that they're not, and know what I'm doing. If I'm going to do something which degrades women (which I feel unfortunately this does.) I'm at the very least not going to call it feminism. And as for that: How can someone call themselves a feminist and not support a womans right to wear whatever she likes thing, I'm not trying to restrict people from wearing certain clothing, but I cannot honestly say that any choice a woman makes about these sorts of things (hair, makeup, clothes etc.) is a 'feminist' choice. You know, you can wear them and I won't try to stop you, but don't go calling your clothing choices feminism, or justifying it with feminism, if really, you're just wearing things you like. Not every choice (even if the choice is made freely) can be called a feminist one. There are women who think that it is a womans place to stay at home, raise the children, and serve their husbands. They make this choice freely, but can you really call it feminism? For a bit more information on how I feel about this topic, here is Rebecca Whisnant's speech regarding 2nd wave, and 3rd wave feminism, especially the part where she talks about adaptive preferences relating to womens choices: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6840142731224140595Basically what she's saying is that if there are two things to choose from (In this case, making yourself appear child like, sexualizing childhood, making yourself appear demure etc. or making yourself appear to be a strong confident adult woman.) there will always be people who choose either side. The choice could be anything, it could be the choice for one woman to hold another woman at knifepoint and rape her, or not to act out violence against women. The woman who did the first choice, clearly wasn't making a 'feminist' choice, in the case of violence against women. Given that women can, and do make choices which cannot be defined as something that furthers feminism, and they can make choices which downright impede and hinder feminism, you can't say that any choice a woman makes is a feminist choice if she makes it freely. So, at which point do we decide 'any choice made about X topic is a feminist one?' how is clothing exempt from criticism? You can say clothing isn't as serious as violence against women, and perhaps it isn't, but 'not being as serious' is not the same 'it's completely fine.' There's choice, and there's choice. There are good ones, and bad ones. Also: I didn't steal the name of anything. The word was taken after the book and appropriated to mean young girl in a sexual context. I didn't do this. I stole nothing. I've not read the book, nor do I need to, nor should I in order to like a fashion style.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 5:00 pm
Celria Actually, I'm having the same moral dilemma. I love lolita clothing, but it does sexual children, and also the women wearing the clothing are meant to be dolls and ornaments, which isn't exactly a positive image for women. I'm struggling with it, because I want to try and further my feminism, and using my body as a canvass to sexualize children, and make women appear as ornaments is hardly doing that. The best I can do at the moment is tell myself I'm not perfect, and that perhaps I don't need to be perfect. I can do some things that aren't really that feminist, but I have to admit to myself that they're not, and know what I'm doing. If I'm going to do something which degrades women (which I feel unfortunately this does.) I'm at the very least not going to call it feminism. And as for that: How can someone call themselves a feminist and not support a womans right to wear whatever she likes thing, I'm not trying to restrict people from wearing certain clothing, but I cannot honestly say that any choice a woman makes about these sorts of things (hair, makeup, clothes etc.) is a 'feminist' choice. You know, you can wear them and I won't try to stop you, but don't go calling your clothing choices feminism, or justifying it with feminism, if really, you're just wearing things you like. Not every choice (even if the choice is made freely) can be called a feminist one. There are women who think that it is a womans place to stay at home, raise the children, and serve their husbands. They make this choice freely, but can you really call it feminism? For a bit more information on how I feel about this topic, here is Rebecca Whisnant's speech regarding 2nd wave, and 3rd wave feminism, especially the part where she talks about adaptive preferences relating to womens choices: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6840142731224140595Basically what she's saying is that if there are two things to choose from (In this case, making yourself appear child like, sexualizing childhood, making yourself appear demure etc. or making yourself appear to be a strong confident adult woman.) there will always be people who choose either side. The choice could be anything, it could be the choice for one woman to hold another woman at knifepoint and rape her, or not to act out violence against women. The woman who did the first choice, clearly wasn't making a 'feminist' choice, in the case of violence against women. Given that women can, and do make choices which cannot be defined as something that furthers feminism, and they can make choices which downright impede and hinder feminism, you can't say that any choice a woman makes is a feminist choice if she makes it freely. So, at which point do we decide 'any choice made about X topic is a feminist one?' how is clothing exempt from criticism? You can say clothing isn't as serious as violence against women, and perhaps it isn't, but 'not being as serious' is not the same 'it's completely fine.' There's choice, and there's choice. There are good ones, and bad ones. Also: I didn't steal the name of anything. The word was taken after the book and appropriated to mean young girl in a sexual context. I didn't do this. I stole nothing. I've not read the book, nor do I need to, nor should I in order to like a fashion style. I agree that not all clothing choices are 'feminist' choices. But I feel that you can be a feminist and wear whatever you want as long as you don't pressure others to wear the same thing. I don't wear pants. I wear skirts and blouses and pearls. I dress like women would in the '50s. It's my style and I stick to it. But most of my friends dress like boys, and that doesn't bother me. The only way you're style would be anti-feminist is if you expected other to do it too. It's the same way for beliefs. I want to be a housewife someday and have lots of kids. But I understand that that's not for everyone and that a woman should be able to choose what she does in life. That's feminism. And, yes it is annoying to a fan of Lolita to see people trying to copy the book without having read it. It's like this: Say I've never read Harry Potter. I haven't even seen the movies. All I know is that it's a book that has something to do with a boy wizard. Would it be okay for me to put on a pointy hat (which Harry Potter doesn't even wear!) calling it Harry Potter style and then going on about how much I love Harry Potter. That would bother real Harry Potter fans, wouldn't it?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 12:39 am
I am not pressuring anyone else to dress in any particular way, I'm examining my mode of dress, and cinsidering if it's acceptable in my own viewpoint.
As for the Harry Potter thing: When the word "Harry Potter" becomes used for a number of different things such as a complete style of dress (not just a hat) a little girl, a genre of pornography etc. then perhaps fans have a calim to be annoyed.
But one person wearing something and calling it something else, is different from a wide group of people interested in any other accepted use of the widely used phrase
Be annoyed as much as you like though. :/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 11:11 pm
savy squirrel I would disagree, nothing is that simple. The point of feminism is to look at everything critically. The point of feminism is freedom.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 9:35 pm
I guess we have to ask ourselves what freedom is, then. Sometimes we think we're making a choice out of our own free will without realizing that the patriarchy (and yeah, I'm about to get all second-wave) has influenced our minds to such an extend that even our own 'free will' must be questioned. For me, feminism has meant re-evaluating everything that I think, especially those things that I took for granted (gender, for example). Now, I don't want to tell anybody that they shouldn't want to dress in traditionally feminine clothes, and I don't want to say that EGL is a horrible, demeaning thing for women---because I don't think it would be helpful or progressive for me to decide how other people should feel about the complex relationship between fashion and gender. I don't even have anything against traditionally feminine clothes or EGL, for that matter--look, my avvie's wearing a skirt! But I do want to caution women to critically analyze everything. Fashion is never 'just' fashion.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 8:42 am
Sexualizing childhood? Well a lot of things do that, so I wouldn't worry too much.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 5:32 pm
Well, you could say that you are subverting the image by looking like it but having the opposite ideals? Feminists tend to do that quite a bit.
I don't think it matters so much how you dress. I think what matters is WHY you dress, what your attitude is.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:46 am
This is also a very interesting topic, I was looking at lolita clothing, and it looks fun to wear, I must admit. But as said before, dressing elegant lolita is about looking pretty, doll like, and cute.
However, even if we are feminist, we still are women, and we do enjoy looking pretty. So I would have to say, nothing is wrong with it.
(I am going to look a little more into it though. wink )
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 12:45 pm
I'm an Ani nut, so here's what I was reminded of recently: "People talk about my image like I come in two dimensions like lipstick is a sign of my declining mind like what I happen to be wearing the day that someone takes a picture is my new " statement" for all of womankind and I wish they could see us now in leather bras and rubber shorts like some ridiculous team uniform for some ridiculous new sport quick, someone call the girl police! and-and file a report!" - Little Plastic Castle by Ani DiFranco
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:28 pm
dykemuffin I guess we have to ask ourselves what freedom is, then. Sometimes we think we're making a choice out of our own free will without realizing that the patriarchy (and yeah, I'm about to get all second-wave) has influenced our minds to such an extend that even our own 'free will' must be questioned. For me, feminism has meant re-evaluating everything that I think, especially those things that I took for granted (gender, for example). Now, I don't want to tell anybody that they shouldn't want to dress in traditionally feminine clothes, and I don't want to say that EGL is a horrible, demeaning thing for women---because I don't think it would be helpful or progressive for me to decide how other people should feel about the complex relationship between fashion and gender. I don't even have anything against traditionally feminine clothes or EGL, for that matter--look, my avvie's wearing a skirt! But I do want to caution women to critically analyze everything. Fashion is never 'just' fashion.
I agree. I know the style and have had very limited information about the culture (however possibly fallacious) but I agree that certainly there are choices which can oppose feminism.
Now, I'm certainly not opposed to women being "sexy", etc, or dressing as such, however, for one, there's a time and a place. But it's difficult to look at the past and reason and inherant truths of certain styles and support them. Modern women feel that certain things are only there to be sexy, but there's a reason that such an idea that that in particular is sexy exists in the first place. Like high heels... women now think "oh, I'm short, so I wear heels to make myself look taller" or "they're sexy" but in old cultures, the ancestors of modern high heels were created to restrict the walking of women, to within, say, a certain distance of a house so that they couldn't move independently. And I think unless you venture to educate women who see you in passing about that, every time you wear whatever it is, it's somewhat counter productive, since no one can tell what your intention is and may be lead to thinking things that you're completely against.
----------
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:23 am
I've heard that the Lolita, as a book and Lolita as a style have nothing to do with each other. I mean someone just came up with the word and didn't remember about the book. I'm not saying that Lolita(style) wouldn't sexualize childhood.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
