Am I the only one who can see the simmering misogyny in the bearded lady montages that are doing the rounds right now?
Photographs of well-known women are doing the rounds of social media and the press in Malta and Britain (and probably many other places but I haven’t looked) right now, doctored to give them a beard like Tom Neuwirth’s.
This is pure misogyny: let’s laugh at the women, mock them, make jokes at their expense and make them look stupid (but of course, God help you if you do the same to a gay man).
Not only is it misogynistic, but it’s also downright stupid because the comparison is essentially all wrong. Tom Neuwirth is a man, not a woman. He has a beard precisely because he is a man.
So the equivalent comparison would not be to put beards on well-known women so that other people can laugh at them, but to PUT LONG-HAIRED WIGS, BEARDS (IF THEY DON’T HAVE THEM ALREADY) AND EYE MAKE-UP ON WELL-KNOWN MEN AND LAUGH AT THEM.
You see, that’s what I mean by embedded misogyny. Even though Tom Neuwirth is a man, and they know he is a man and that this is the reason he has a beard, they don’t pick other men and mock up their faces with wigs and make-up like him.
No, they pick women – when Neuwirth is not a woman.
Unbelievable.
So, can we please see some photomontages of well-known personages who, like Tom Neuwirth, are men, dressed like him in his pretend role as Conchita?
That would be the accurate comparison. But we don’t laugh at men, do we. No, we laugh at women – even if we have to move the goal-posts and make wrong comparisons to do so. Women are not drag queens. We’re women already. Men are drag queens, so mock the men.
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It’s the ‘bully’ mentality – picking on someone who is ‘different’.
There was one doing the rounds of Facebook with Chuck Norris’s face instead of Tom Neuwirth’s.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05/12/conchita-wurst-eurovision-2014-winners-beard-takes-the-internet-by-storm-pictures_n_5308198.html
As a man myself, I definitely feel that the whole thing was out of place and inappropriate.
Maybe it was acceptable when done by the Austrian Eurovision representative (Eurovision is one big circus after all), but that still didn’t sit right with me.
What I can’t seem to understand is why one friend of mine saw the whole thing as a show of support for Neuwirth. It’s mockery, plain and simple, and wrongly-directed mockery at that.
So much for Neuwirth’s dedication to peace and freedom.
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/smirk.jpg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2627184/Mother-shave-face-twice-day-compared-bearded-Eurovision-winner-Conchita-Wurst-internet-troll.html
Thank you, Daphne. My thoughts exactly.
The newspaper you write in took the honours.
“This cyber harassment is so much more than a few pictures being made public. This is an insidious practice that victimizes women, tarnishes the professional and personal reputations of individuals, and destroys lives.
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/legislature/legislature-approves-revenge-porn-bill/article_ec15d3d6-58a1-5b83-99fb-6a7e50472e7c.html
And his beard isn’t even real. On old photos his face is as smooth as a baby’s buttock. According to Bild it consists of “real hair but is cleverly enhanced with eye shadow.”
http://www.bild.de/unterhaltung/musik/eurovision-song-contest/11-fragen-zum-esc-35921974.bild.html
Oh, you mean like Joseph’s crown. Not a regal one lest he gets more delusions of grandeur.
ABSOLUTELY!
YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, DAPHNE!
Hmm.. I was a bit confused with the women dressed in beards. I couldn’t understand why gay men weren’t placed in beards and long hair.
I suppose you could look at it that way, but if what you’re saying is true, then the problem isn’t limited to backward Malta but to the whole western world.
Having said that, women in films, adverts etc are often used as sex symbols and their use in plots are fairly insignificant.
I wonder why we still have women fighting for their right to be considered equal to their male counterparts in a civilized and educated world.
I think that women themselves are partly to blame, where you have some women who still expect men to come to their rescue and tell them what to do.
Other women take the equality issue too far and expect they can do everything that men can (eg work in construction, although go ahead if you’re up to it physically; or pee standing up using an ‘attachment’: ridiculous and disgusting). These women often hate men and try to put them down at every opportunity, making everyone around them fed up of hearing about equality between the sexes etc.
In turn, it’s a shame to see well-versed, smart and confident women being labelled as ‘smart-mouthed’, to avoid using the b word; although I am the proud receiver of the b word by a sad misogynist who felt threatened by me.
True, and telling. I’ve a hunch that Tom Neuwirth’s success had little to do with progressive values and such.
Rather, it was simply a matter of the ‘bearded woman’ novelty. Nothing new or progressive there.
Portraits of hairy women were a staple of cabinets of curiosity centuries ago, and there have been many cases of bearded women who made a living (sadly, but there you go) as freak show acts.
[Daphne – That’s exactly what I said at the outset. We’ve come a long way to end up exactly where we started: making a public spectacle out of bearded ladies in a fun-fair. Something 100% primitive is being dressed up as liberal.]
It’s a repetition of what happened when Lordi won. The song wasn’t anything special, but the spectacle was something new. It’s telling that something similar never really reached the Eurovision since then; the novelty wore off fast.
Not only bearded ladies but tattooed ladies. You used to pay to see a tattooed lady – now they’re everywhere.
If the gay lobby is content with being portrayed as freaks, then it’s up to them. I would have been insulted at being ‘symbolised’ by somebody like Tom Neuwirth.
I would be too.
Neuwirth is doing more harm than good. He is ridiculing women and reinforcing the male homosexual stereotype. In reality, women are talented, intelligent and capable and most gays are normal, classy and discreet. Neuwirth brought out our sad tendency to mock that which we find abnormal.
Can’t agree more.
This is getting ridiculous now. I think I even saw one of yourself.
Veru hawn min m’ghandux x’jaghmel!
I am getting sick of this around-the-clock gay agenda.
Enough already!
We get it.
Stop beating us on the head day and night with your sexuality, over and over.
Personally I can’t get enough of the gay agenda. So much more fun than the straight agenda, which is, what? Televised snooker?
Why keep preaching to the choir?
Take the gay agenda were it is needed, Saudi Arabia perhaps?
Iran for sure, and Pakistan and Jamaica and a whole slew of sub-saharan nations that need it more than EU or North American nations do.
Anything that is over-done and repeated till everyone gets nauseous is torture for torture’s sake with no redeeming points for anyone.
Min jaf Saviour Balzan kemm jigi sexy.
We’re not even supposed to comment about Alfred Sant’s wig because it’s ‘not nice’ but it’s OK to ridicule women in this way. Our government is more concerned with homophobia than it is with misogyny.
Sorry, but I do not share the same opinion on this matter. It is true that some mysogynist men will find this an excellent excuse to poke fun at women, just like some transphobic men will find this an excellent excuse to poke fun at the ‘jaqq nisa-rgiel pufti’.
However, there are many others doing this to show their sympathy and support with Newirth, or better, his alter-ego of Conchita Wurst, especially in light of all the hate from Russia and beyond. Nigella Lawson, for example, posted a picture of her ‘bearded’ self.
I doubt she was poking fun at women. So there’s different perspectives to this trend. Focusing on just one will not do anybody any favours.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2014/may/12/eurovision-2014-russell-brand-nigella-lawson-beard
[Daphne – Nigella Lawson has built a career on parodying women (does that sound like a contradiction?). Her most famous cook-book title is ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess.’ Also, she is not exactly in a good place right now. So she is not the best example of a woman determined to keep her dignity.]