Trying to figure this womanhood thing out
Buzzfeed had an inspiring conversation with Caitlyn Jenner last night.
Last night, Glamour magazine held its 25th annual Glamour Women of the Year Awards, celebrating powerful honorees like Caitlyn Jenner, Reese Witherspoon, Misty Copeland, Victoria Beckham, and more.
Yeah, so powerful.
We sat down with Caitlyn Jenner backstage at Carnegie Hall to hear her brilliant words of wisdom, and, unsurprisingly, it was incredibly inspiring. Here’s what we learned.
Yay, brilliant words of wisdom! I can’t wait!
Over the last six months it’s really been a progression. I have found that women have so much unleashed power that they don’t really utilize because they don’t have confidence in themselves about who they are, and what they can do. I have always actually been with and attracted to very strong women, and I think I’ve learned a lot from them. The power of the woman has just not even been unleashed around the world.
Well thank god we finally have Caitlyn Jenner to tell us how to do it right.
I think that’s to come, but I think that’s gonna come from confidence as these women grow up and get in better positions of authority — I think that will come. So, I am SO glad to be on this team and help it along!
Thanks so much for the help, Caitlyn!
Buzzfeed asked:
What’s the hardest part for you about being a woman?
Being dismissed? Being interrupted? Being patronized? Being underpaid?
The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear. It’s always that way; I never thought it would come to this. I had really no sense of style. Everyone around me in my family had the sense of style — I learned as much as I possibly could.
The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear.
The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear.
The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear.
But it’s more than that. I’m kind of at this point in my life where I’m trying to figure this womanhood thing out. It is more than hair, makeup, clothes, all that kind of stuff. There’s an element here that I’m still kind of searching for. And I think that’ll take a while. Because I think as far as gender, we’re all on a journey. We’re all learning and growing about ourselves. And I feel the same way.
It is more than hair, makeup, clothes! Who knew?! I literally had no idea of that. How lucky we all are that Caitlyn Jenner is going to figure this being a woman thing out for us.
hmmmm. The word ‘performative’ drifted through my mind. Then back again.
Reading into what she says, but isn’t it just possible the Caitlyn has this confidence, that in other women is unleashed, because for much of her life she was Bruce, the very high performing and respected male. The high performing and respected male who innately received the privileged attended to almost all males where your opinion is listened to and generally accepted, especially so when you are a high performing male.
I mean, I wish her all the best in her life but, really…
Why yes, yes it is possible.
Rob – I have a term for that: residual privilege. It’s exactly the kind of thing implied by intersectionalism.
Also, “the hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear.” I literally slapped my forehead when I read that. I couldn’t stomach reading it three times in a row, so I made my eyes skip over that bit.
How dare you, Ophelia! How dare you question all the hardships that this woman has had to live through these long, er, months to actually become a woman! How dare you mock and ridicule her because she so effortlessly trivializes, on a massive platform, what it actually means to be a woman?
/snark
Christ, I hate this narrative. “Look, my life has been paved with streets made of gold for decades. I have literally everything I need to be and do what I want. I could pay to go into space. I could have people pay me to shake their hands. I have decided to become a woman. And look at me, I’m a woman. Now, what the fuck is wrong with you fucking women? How come you’re too weak to recognize your strength?”
Meanwhile, you can just go ahead and start the countdown clock to the first person that equates your mocking her for mocking what it is to be a woman with a demand for trans folks to be sent to gas chambers.
In 3, 2 …
“I think that’s to come, but I think that’s gonna come from confidence as these women grow up and get in better positions of authority — I think that will come. So, I am SO glad to be on this team and help it along!” [Emphasis mine]
….
Wut.
Shame on them for missing out on some gold-plated advice from a Kardashian or maybe one of their poodles. “I’ve found that other dogs don’t have the inner confidence to be carried by a wealthy women to society functions. But I know that these poodles will soon get into position with fancier cars and I can help speak to them having achieved it myself. I’m soooo glad to be in head dog position on team poodle!”
Oenotrian – yeah, I caught that too. We were told to grow up. All us little Barbie dolls, needing someone like Caitlyn Jenner to tell us how to be women.
Figuring out what to wear? Boy, does that sound like privilege, or what? In my entire life, there is not one day, not one minute, where I had the luxury to say the hardest thing for me was figuring out what to wear. I wish.
Iknklast, Oenotrian – I interpreted that as meaning that the women with potential were young. In other words it’s way to late for all you old failures who’ve contributed nothing, achieved nothing, worth nothing.
/s
To be fair, the question was (emphasis added) “What’s the hardest part for you about being a woman?” And maybe for her it really is figuring out what to wear, which certainly sounds a bit shallow to me, but what would I know, never having been or considered becoming a woman.
Rob – exactly what makes you so sure I’m not young? What gave me away? ;-)
Yes, I have looked back over my life and realized that, as a not young woman, I have not achieved that one thing that is the pinnacle of all womanhood – to be young and beautiful. (Actually, I did achieve that once, but was careless and misplaced my youth and beauty somewhere. I clearly didn’t deserve it)
iknklast @11
[Gulp] I’m pretty sure you admitted it or alluded to it somewhere/sometime. Look over there!
[scuttles away like an alarmed Dr Zoidberg]
The InterNet tells me that learning what is appropriate clothing for different activities/events is very difficult for trans women in the early stages of transition. I believe they experience the same difficulties teenage girls/young women experience. They have received the message that Women should be Sexy and display their bodies in order to gain approval and social safety. But then they realise or learn that being Sexy and displaying your body means you are a slut, and you lose said approval and are greatly vilified.
Gender. It’s really tough if you are a woman. The backlash for not adhering to feminininine gender stereotypes is extremely strong. But fancy, the backlash for complying with feminininine gender stereotypes is the same!
I’m glad that Caitlyn Jenner’s biggest challenge is working out what to wear. I’m glad she is not experiencing any higher level of shit.
I guess the criteria for “Woman of the Year” was “did you look good in a Vogue photo shoot”?
Colour me unimpressed.
So, basically the empty blather typically peddled on Oprah and other air-headed media platforms. Or, exactly what we would expect from an entitled celebrity millionaire, insulated by money and fame to recieve only the cushiest treatment. Heaven forbid they give even half this attention to an actual trans advocate, someone that actually has something resembling real world experience. Hopefully not one of the ‘there is no distinction between women and trans women in any sense’ ones, but virtually anything is better than Caitlyn “Wimmin = pretty clothing, you go girl!” Jenner.
Oh and Buzzfeed, hah. Quick lesson on intersectionality: they are the intersection of progressive politics + vapidity + listicles.
That’s why, though I’ve never really thought of myself as a “man,” and am somewhat taken aback when I hear myself referred to that way, I’m really glad I’m not a woman.
I only own jeans and t-shirts… and most of the time I’m sitting at home in sweats.
I have no idea how I’d manage to lounge around the house and then occasionally go to the grocery store as a woman.
I think your confirmation bias is affecting your reading comprehension. Reading those snippets, I think it’s ridiculous to infer that she think the hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear for every woman, as opposed to her personal experience.
I keep trying to figure out what you really think and what you’re actually pissed off about, but I give up. Whatever your actual opinions are, they’re buried in too many layers of sarcasm to be worth figuring out.
Caitlyn is so, so wrong.
The hardest thing about being a women is baking a decent cherry pie and acquiring the much sought after status of ‘Legally Blond’
Cuz…like…math and science are hard says Barbie.
Caitlyn with her off-the-shoulder full length gown, clutch handbag, impeccable manicure and long tresses personified that classic look of Forties glamour.
But what would Hedy Lamar and Paulette Goddard have thought?
For once the comments on a BuzzFeed article are actually not vomit inducing. Glimmer of hope there…
You would probably just do like I do. Lounge around the house, then get up and go to the store without worrying about it. If I can’t go to the store in my t-shirts and jeans, or my sweatshirt and pants, then I will fight and struggle against the prevailing opinion until I have that freedom. (I don’t have to do that; I go to the store in t-shirt and jeans all the time).
Yeah, not sure about this ‘struggle’, nor the claimed backlash for not adhering to stereotypes – for cis women. When I was a teenager, I wore a uniform to school, comfortable clothes after school and whatever my mother determined to be ‘nice’ for events determined to be special enough to require that. Then I grew up, so no more uniforms and no more mom being around, and I wear comfortable clothes all the time, with a couple of ‘nice’ outfits for the 2-3 events a year that might require them.
I can see that it is harder for a trans woman, especially early on, because they fear they might not pass. That kind of situation is where I have my cis privilege. (And a long-time trans woman might have passing privilege.)
Funnily enough, that exactly describes me. At desk in sweatpants as we speak. There is indeed an issue about going out, and here’s how I manage it: I change into jeans. Sweatpants won’t do – no pockets, too soft and squishy, elastic waist, plus just that bit too slovenly for outside the house.
I change back and forth several times a day, especially when I’m taking care of Cooper. It’s just how life is.
I did wonder if it’s unfair for us to snark at Jenner for her air-headed wannabe-fashionista quotes which she’s given for publication in an air-headed wannabe-fashionista click-bait medium like Buzzfeed. But it was her choice, I suppose.
She would have inspired me more if she had chosen to give Buzzfeed something actually supportive of trans people. Ho hum.
Oh, I think it’s fair, all things considered – her membership in an all-male golf club, her reality tv shows, the staggering callousness and self-centeredness she’s demonstrated on those reality tv shows, her wealth and fame, her happy embrace of her role as spokestrans, etc etc etc. This says nothing about trans people – it’s specific to her. I think it’s terrible for trans people that there’s so much focus on her. She may well be the least interesting trans person on earth.
I don’t think the point is that we’ll be shot on sight if we go out the door in jeans, or something. (I’ve just moved from the anti-fashion capital of the world to a much more upscale town, and initially I was a bit to intimidated to appear in public in a t-shirt and fleece trousers, but I’m getting over it.) I think it’s more to the point that what we wear influences how we’re treated. Sure, we can hang out in jeans or whatever, but (I’m thinking particularly at work, but in other formal and professional settings as well as just on the street and in public) we’re criticised, passed over for work or promotions, or even fired based on whether we wear not enough or too much makeup, whether our clothes are too tight or not tight enough, whether our shoe heels are too high or too low, whether we show too much or not enough skin. I was recently rejected for a job, and the only reason someone asking on my behalf could get from the rejector was ‘she was dressed inappropriately’. And honestly that could mean anything.
Good point. I sometimes remember to say that my experience stands for nothing because none of my jobs require “appropriate” clothes but this time I forgot to.
guest, I suppose it depends on which field and setting one works in. Doing science in a non-profit has high tolerance for an assortment of personal styles. Would have been a lot worse if I had become a sales rep of some tech company.
Her comment, which you tripled, made me cringe as well. However, I think you need to keep the general American audience in mind who may still have an irrational fear and prejudice towards trans people. Having her in the spotlight, and learning about an individual will reduce such prejudices (we know that this is generally the case from robust research). This is incidentially my reason why I’m highly opposed to identity politics.
You can rightly criticize that she is reinforcing stereotypes, but at the same time, that’s where most people are. They aren’t usually very intellectual about gender and sex (often times don’t even know that gender exists). I recognize that your priorities are elsewhere, in reducing gender roles and expectations and Caithlin Jenner works against that in some sense, and it’s okay to be critical about it. However, I would call it progress when you, and other people, began to understand where other people are coming from – even when you vehemently disagreee in that one matter (I took it that you don’t disagree to reducing harmful prejudice). To see where others are coming from seems to be a lost value, which also has a lot to do with your other concern (cf pure thought).
To be fair, isn’t Jenner saying exactly what she (in the role of a woman) is supposed to say? Hasn’t she learnt the script to perfection?
Perhaps one day she’ll find that the role of decorative empty-head isn’t all that … mmm … fulfilling? Some women never do, they’re the “women against feminism” who Jenner may well join. But if she does want more someday, she may also figure out that that’s actually all society allows her to be because that’s her role as a woman…
Delft – No, I don’t think so. That script is hardly universal or unquestioned.
But maybe she actually lives in the world portrayed by “reality” shows on Bravo and E! so maybe she really does think that’s the script. Too much Kardashian and not enough real world.
Either way, she’s not shy about milking it, so I think criticism is fair.
My job (engineering) doesn’t have a particularly strict dress code either (I’m not in one of those job roles where pantyhose/makeup/heels is an actual work requirement)…but as I mentioned I know for a fact I’ve lost at least one opportunity due to somehow not measuring up to what one man had in his head what it was ‘appropriate’ for me to look like. And I know I’m in the typical lose-lose position we always find ourselves in–dress sensibly and comfortably (low/no heels, no makeup) and you don’t look ‘professional’ (and that matters if you want clients, promotions, visible positions, even in my field); dress femininely/fashionably and you don’t look competent.
And I was just mentioning a specific recent experience–what we wear (i.e. are we ‘too sexy’ or ‘not attractive enough’) affects every interaction we participate in, from the lowest stakes to the highest. I know I don’t need to look up links to Hilary’s pantsuits or Angela’s haircut.
I’m not sure what one would expect of her. After all, there’s an entire reality show history that demonstrated she never was a deep thinker. Merely changing into a dress doesn’t automatically make one more intellectual. With or without estrogen supplements.
That said, given the media obsession with her and her de facto ascension to the position of spokestrans, you would think she’d at least have given a teensy bit of thought to that kind of question. It’s going to come up a lot.
But she doesn’t have to worry about pay equality. She’s wealthy and getting moreso. She doesn’t have to worry about discrimination of any sort — as a woman, as a transwoman, as anything at all. She doesn’t have to worry about harassment of any sort.
In terms of privilege, she’s still carrying every bit of what she earned by virtue of her birth as a white male and added to by virtue of being an athlete and a celebrity. There’s not one problem she shares with either the trans community or with any other woman (cis, trans, or otherwise). Other than what to wear to the Shop-Rite.
Hahaha that’s silly, she doesn’t go to the Shop-Rite. She has servants to do that.
I understand that the question was personal and Caitlin’s answer about figuring out what to wear was personal to herself, yet that doesn’t change a thing in my opinion. Her answers only lead me to wonder – what the actual hell does she think it means to “be” a woman? What the hell is she playing at?
While I think it’s interesting to talk about how real discrimination based on clothing choices is a real problem for women, I don’t for one second believe that’s what Caitlin was talking about. She was talking about not yet having a sense of personal fashion, while displaying utter ignorance and indifference to the significance of women’s fashion as a tool of patriarchal control.
Jennifer Chavez, I totally agree with what you’ve written, and am as disturbed by Jenner’s comments as Ophelia is. I was just responding to the people writing ‘well it’s no big deal to me, I’m female and just wear jeans all the time and no one cares.’
Someone recently made a comment on one of Ophelia’s posts on this subject that really opened my eyes. One of the things that person pointed out is that men in general just have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. I’ve written here before that even after 50 years of living as a woman not a week goes by that I don’t come to understand another way in which my life chances were and are constrained by being perceived as female, or that I don’t experience some kind of demeaning, criticism or belittling because I’m a woman. After all this time I’m STILL learning just how pervasive and damaging sexism and misogyny are, and I’ve been on the receiving end all my life–I can’t imagine anyone who’s spent most of their life being perceived as male could really appreciate it.
Someone commented somewhere recently: “I sometimes wonder if that entire family [the Kardasshian/Jenner clan] exists to insult women.”
“Someone commented somewhere recently: “I sometimes wonder if that entire family [the Kardasshian/Jenner clan] exists to insult women.”
Maybe it’s just “reality” TV in general that exists to do that.
Anat @ 20: you are making me very jealous.
I work in a female dominated profession, inter-acting with people all day. I can tell you, that ‘struggle’ you put in quotation marks is very real and I know lots of women who received backlash for not adhering to stereotypes. There’s a ton of judgements people will let you know about, every day. Can anyone see cleavage? A bra strap? Skirt too short? That haircut make you look like a rad fem lesbian! Clothes not tailored? Too dull? Too bright? Not professional? Dowdy?
Blokes walk in, a pair of pants and a shirt – A-OK.
I know three sisters, children of a woman who was very very invested in their looks. All three of them had disordered eating well into adulthood.
When you are a girl, they put you in a cage marked ‘Girl’. You can break out of the cage or get comfortable.
Caitlyn Jenner wants to go in that cage and get comfortable.
Josh Spokes @36,
I too have wondered if the whole Kardashian family is really some kind of false flag operation designed to discredit women everywhere. If not by design, then by accident.
Anat @20 second what learie said. You’re generalizing your experience, which may not be the experience of all, or even most, women. I too am fortunate to have finally landed in a job where I have a somewhat more lenient dress code, but am still expected to dress professionally.
But…it hasn’t always been that way for me, and it really isn’t that great now. Go without a bra because you had shoulder surgery and can’t put a strap on your shoulder until it heals? Hell, no. Being braless at any time outside the bathtub, you run the risk of being termed a “slut” or some other term that is equally sexist and designed to make you someone that isn’t worthy of taking seriously. No matter how much we don’t care about our clothes, it’s a good bet someone else out there does. And that someone may have some control over our life in a way we may not even realize until the anvil drops.
Actually, I think I know the least interesting trans person on Earth, and they aren’t Caitlyn. But Caitlyn’s probably the least interesting *famous* trans person.
I’m hoping for Bernie Sanders to get the Democratic nomination, but I think Hillary would be my choice for woman of the year.
Man wearing casual clothes in appropriate professional setting=comfortably competent, self-confident, has more important things on his mind than what he wears, is good enough at his job that he doesn’t have to impress anyone with his appearance. Woman wearing casual clothes in appropriate professional setting=lazy, slovenly, no self-respect, out of touch, self-centred, probably hates men.
@guest
What you just describe was one of the most enlightening “I have privilege”-moments I had. At a conference in Spain I (male, white, end-40s) decided not to wear a tie and dress a bit casually because it was hot and I felt more comfortable without. And then I realised that people from india and africa were all dressed absolutely spotless with suit and tie and everything and I saw a woman change into more comfortable shoes after the final talk of the evening (so she had to carry those shoes around all day). And then I realised that me deciding on going easy wrt clothing was not just me being cool or relaxed or “don’t-care”, but was a form of privilege along several axes.
Re “Woman of the Year”: what gets missed in much news commentary about this award is that there are 25 winners, not just one (I don’t know if that is always the case, but there are 25 this year). Also honored this year were Misty Copeland, Cecile Richards, and the US Women’s National Team (soccer is apparently the sport that does not need to be stated). I wish more were being made of these other winners. Also, I note that the criteria seem to be ” newsmakers”, not necessarily accomplishment, although many did accomplish great things.