Herstory: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

FEMINISM

biphobia & misogyny

This past year, I’ve learned a few things about myself and my queerness. One, that I had a lot of internalised biphobia to unpack and unlearn. Second, that experience and attitude was intimately attached with my womanhood. I realised the presentation of my sexuality was fundamentally down to appearing palatable to others. I would play on appearing gayer to my friends in the community, and I would let men sexualise my bisexuality. Hell, even calling myself queer feels more comfortable than calling myself bisexual. It sort of feels like bisexual has too many syllables and my throat closes up when I say it. The misogyny associated around women and bisexuality/ queerness made me pit myself against other women for an imaginary competition of who can appear the most wanted for men. This structure created a competition where my female experience and my pursuit of feminism was at odds with my own sexuality.

As an activist within the LGBTQI plus community, I have definitely seen a bigger social and legal focus on gay and bisexual men (just look at any popular movie during PRIDE month). Trans women are considered the most vulnerable group in the community, and much of that is down to the misogynistic attitude that fundamentally criminalises and vilifies the feminine. We see the attack on gay and bisexual men as an attack on the feminine (see: Effeminophobia), and we see attacks on lesbian and bisexual women as an attack on the lack of the feminine, (when feminine is seen as something that men can profit or capitalise on). We see trans women being attacked by patriarchal structures against their femininity and we see TERFS attack trans women for their perceived lack of legitimate femininity. The LGBTQI plus community has rarely made me feel queer enough to fit in. My experience of being a bisexual woman meant that I was fighting this internal battle, navigating how to be butch enough to be taken seriously in the bisexual and lesbian sphere; navigating the feeling I wasn’t gay enough to have genuine romantic relationships and connections with women.

I was floating around all these stereotypical and inherently phobic attitudes that was rooted in my experience as a woman. The fear of exploring polyamory in case I’d be adding to my own communities stereotype of ‘greedy’ and ‘can’t choose’ left me feeling guilty; then when I did explore polyamory, I felt guilty that i’d decided it actually wasn’t for me and I was letting down so many queer women who’d advocated for it as the progressive way forward. What if i’m now upholding misogynistic and patriarchal power structures? Does that now make me a bad feminist or woman?

So much of my queer experience has revolved around sex and relationships. The hypersexualisation of being a woman, and then being a queer woman (as well as being a fat woman, a woman in a senior position, a sex positive woman) has meant nearly every element of my identity has been fetisished to some degree. And this is my experience as a white, cis woman too. It gets a whole lot shittier when you factor in the fetishisiation of women of colour, the hypersexualisation of trans women and how sex workers who identify as women are treated.

WORDS BY LAURA BARR

FEMINISM I’m Having A Cosmetic Procedure…

...and I can feel my feminism fading away

I have watched women around me for my whole life get some Botox here, or a nip and tuck there. I think it’s very easy as a feminist to look down on cosmetic surgery as if it sits as the direct antithesis of self love and body positivity. But if feminism is about choice, is it not about the choice of the woman who wants that surgery, or filler, or injection?

But herein lies the problem. We as a society see women who are aged, fat, scarred, insecure or ‘ugly’ as less than, less worthy, less deserving of well, everything. And to be honest, that’s how I feel when I look in the mirror and see my scarring; it is a reminder of things I don’t want to remember sometimes. My scarring serves as a symbol for something psychologically traumatic and so I want to make that go away.

However, I’ve been round in circles in my head, leave it, be proud of what you’ve survived, be a strong woman who doesn’t value her appearance above anything else. And then, I just want it gone. I want to run my fingers over flat skin, leave the house without makeup covering from my jaw to my eyebrows, and post photos of my bare face on social media without having to attach some cliche quote about body positivity and self love. Walking into the clinic where I am having my ‘work’ done if you will, is a very surreal experience. The work consists of steroid injections, LED treatment and dermal layering, for the record. Across the walls are posters detailing other treatment options, a menu of weight loss programmes, chemical peels and labial reductions: as if photos of the models in magazines were broken up into a Mr Potato-Head style selection process.

It really is a fascinating experience going to that clinic and I look around at the other people there: both men and women, and I wonder what it is they’re having fixed and what they think I’m doing. Have they noticed my scars and caught on? Or are they assuming I must be trimming my hips, my waist, filling my lips or forehead? I walked towards the car after my first treatment, and I turned to my girlfriend and asked her whether she was judging me for doing all of this. She said, no, of course not, because she understands. I judge myself heavily for what I am doing, but I also know that if I don’t do this now, my scarring will, with age and sun exposure, look worse and worse, and continue to be a reason for my insecurity and discomfort.

But I shouldn’t feel the need to have to explain that. Somehow we have created a society that is an amalgamation of anti-plastic surgery “feminism” and an over accepting commercialisation of the body, where we can chop and change ourselves into someone new. But my reasons for getting cosmetic surgery is no more honourable than that of a woman wanting to change her breasts or get Botox. I think as long as we are honest and open about cosmetic procedures it still has a place in feminism.

WORDS BY IMOGEN BRIGHTY-POTTS