Brilliant! Thank you! Another misogynist aspect of drag is that women aren't allowed to exaggerate and flaunt *our own* sexual power that way without social rejection (slut shaming) and the threat of rape. Women don't get to tell men what to do or overtly seduce them. Drag ridicules women to subvert our power.
not in the public library they don't. They get paid and their presesence advrtised and reported in local newspapers. Far from assault they get reccogniton and paayment.
Thevery fact they are bing paid from the public purse gives them legitamacy. And of course they are absolved in the local newspapaer of any hint of sexulaising children or ridiculing women. I went to see the local show BEFORE taking my grandchild. The nassisitic boastful hypersexualised parody of women represented eerything I did n't want for her. It mocked all the effort women had put into liberating and freeing girls from limiting friviouls images of themselves as sex queens.
I don’t understand why he still wants a “gay story hour”. Why have any story hour for children framed by the adult reader’s sexual lifestyle at all - straight, gay or anything else. Why not have a *children’s story hour* where it doesn’t matter who reads so long as they aren’t bringing their sex life into it at all. Children don’t need all this adult projection of sex and children don’t exist to validate and be an audience to adult sexual desire.
I so much agree. Surely the whole point of reading aloud to children in the setting of a library is to immerse them in the magic of stories and the power of the spoken word. What matters above everything else is the quality of the story and the ability of the reader-out-loud to put it across with liveliness, sensitivity and emotional force. The reader-out-loud does not require to be a specific 'identity or cultural icon/marker. what counts is their ability to enchant their young listeners.
Perhaps children understand rather more than you give them credit. Children are naturally interested in the kinds of people who are authority figures, artists, teachers et al. If someone is unconventional, children know it and most children want to understand it. I doubt any library would present a Gay Story Hour but would happily and rightly employ LGBT+ people as readers to children. Some of these readers would appear a little different than others, such as transgender people, and that would be entirely appropriate.
Thank you so much for this prompt rebuttal to the New York Times editorial. I want to underscore this, in particular: “If people supporting the practice really care only about de-pathologizing same-sex relationships and challenging gender norms, then let’s create Lesbian Story Hour and Gay Story Hour. Let lesbians and gay men read to children without costumes that caricature women. That has the potential to be truly transformative.” And I say amen.
I forget who made this point -- maybe it was Lisa -- but it’s worth looking at drag story hour or other drag performance for an audience of minors and asking, if a woman were dressed in the same way, wearing the same makeup, performing and speaking the exact same -- would this feel ok, be ok? In many cases, no.
For most people, when they think of Drag, they think of (gay) men playing Cher or Charo or Barbra or Marilyn, or other iconic woman, & having the mannerisms and the way of singing & the look.
OG Drag is not porny or semi nude. Drag is not trans ID males with fake boobs and g strings. The 'old school' version of a drag show would not be a problem. Most people hear "drag" and do not understand how sleazy these shows are.
Even old school less sleazy drag shows are still mocking women, though. They are doing an exaggerated mocking performance of stereotypes about women for laughs. As the article points out, that wouldn’t be acceptable if it were done for any other group. Why is it ok for men to make fun of women in this way?
"Drag story hour" is an attempt to normalize a deviant sexual culture. I don't like drag, but adults should not be restricted, as long as they are consenting, even if the shows are perverted.
Children should not be allowed in drag shows.
And drag performers should not be reading to children. This normalizes the perverts. Many drag performers are on the sex-offender list, and should have no contact with children.
I have loved Robert Jensen's always trenchant analyses since the late 90s, and I'm delighted to find his words here. It's an excellent essay, however he missed one pertinent facet of the issue: why do drag queens want to perform to children? It's not *just* the womanface aspect - it's the sexualizing of children aspect that bothers me even more.
This is what has me most perplexed, which is the why are they doing it? What is the value? In our world, that is permeated by pornography, how could any parent think that adding sexuality into their children's lives, have any benefit? It is so obviously threatening to our kids well being.
I found myself agreeing with everything you said about drag. Really annoying how the entire history of drag has now been subverted by the Wokes so that it now represents some kind of generic gender diversity message that people can teach their children rather than a form of adult entertainment that parodies women. Or even that drag is some kind of gender identity! Though what isn't a gender identity these days?
Oddly enough, I no longer parse the word 'freshman' as containing 'man.' It reads as a neutral term to me. I was once a freshman, though I am female. I don't like replacing an easy and traditional word with a cumbersome phrase 'first year student.' I'd rather change the meaning to incorporate women.
It does come from "man" though. Like mankind. Which is no accident. Personally i feel we have bigger fish to fry than to insist on changing the odd word, but i do understand attempts to do so.
Thank you Robert Jensen for your clarity. I went to Drag Story Hour at my local library to check it out before deciding if I would take my grandchild. This event was widely promoted in the local press, and by the local Council and paid for by the cash-strapped public library.
Up to 40 pre-schoolers attended the early afternoon show with their mum's and carers. Two policemen circulated inside and out to keep the lone person offering a critical leaflet off the premisses and indivisible beyond the car park.
I went to the school aged afternoon session which was attended by a much smaller audience of largely adoring trans youth. The contrast between these young people and the image portrayed by the 'queen' was striking. Yet in the 'discussion' it seemed he represented everything they aspired to be. The 'queen' boasted about the enormous cost of his dresses and the sieze of room in his house devoted to them. He detailed the extraordinary cost of his make up and the three hours taken to apply it. This elicited gasps of awe and excitement from the teens present.
The librians present clapped approval at this display of look-at-me narsissism. And apparantly had no qualms about this being presented at the hcore of womenhood.
If iI had dreamed up a complete reversal of everything feminists had , for three generations, tried to change in order to free girls, this hype-sexualised wriggling would be it. The idea that this displaying constricting, time-consuming, expensive presentation of an exaggerated ' body' is what it means to BE a women is everything I had spent my life encouraging girls and women to free themselves from.
This public endorsement of hyper sexualised images of women has been very effective in endorsing women as sex objects first and foremost. Presenting this as 'diversity' is simply NU-Speak, it is utterly conformist.
When I tried to open discussion among the mothers and grands at the school gate I got a chilling response.It was almost as if i was going to step out of line contaminate their children. I noticed how frilly the dresses worn to school had become and how long the girls hair now is and how embellished, how ears are pierced and nails manicured, and how silly the girls shoes are, and how unchanged is the presentation of the boys.
I finally understood just how far back we are being dragged as women.
Brilliant! Thank you! Another misogynist aspect of drag is that women aren't allowed to exaggerate and flaunt *our own* sexual power that way without social rejection (slut shaming) and the threat of rape. Women don't get to tell men what to do or overtly seduce them. Drag ridicules women to subvert our power.
I've literally never thought of this. I'm a 32 year old woman, and this comment just blew my mind. I'm crying. Thank you.
Drag queens also face rejection and assault.
not in the public library they don't. They get paid and their presesence advrtised and reported in local newspapers. Far from assault they get reccogniton and paayment.
Thevery fact they are bing paid from the public purse gives them legitamacy. And of course they are absolved in the local newspapaer of any hint of sexulaising children or ridiculing women. I went to see the local show BEFORE taking my grandchild. The nassisitic boastful hypersexualised parody of women represented eerything I did n't want for her. It mocked all the effort women had put into liberating and freeing girls from limiting friviouls images of themselves as sex queens.
It's a show. Performance art. Make believe. Women also do drag. Nobody interprets drag as representing women.
I don’t understand why he still wants a “gay story hour”. Why have any story hour for children framed by the adult reader’s sexual lifestyle at all - straight, gay or anything else. Why not have a *children’s story hour* where it doesn’t matter who reads so long as they aren’t bringing their sex life into it at all. Children don’t need all this adult projection of sex and children don’t exist to validate and be an audience to adult sexual desire.
I so much agree. Surely the whole point of reading aloud to children in the setting of a library is to immerse them in the magic of stories and the power of the spoken word. What matters above everything else is the quality of the story and the ability of the reader-out-loud to put it across with liveliness, sensitivity and emotional force. The reader-out-loud does not require to be a specific 'identity or cultural icon/marker. what counts is their ability to enchant their young listeners.
Thats a Great point. Just a story hour, which sometimes might include a same sex couple in the story, because that is part of every day life.
Totally agree.
Perhaps children understand rather more than you give them credit. Children are naturally interested in the kinds of people who are authority figures, artists, teachers et al. If someone is unconventional, children know it and most children want to understand it. I doubt any library would present a Gay Story Hour but would happily and rightly employ LGBT+ people as readers to children. Some of these readers would appear a little different than others, such as transgender people, and that would be entirely appropriate.
Thank you so much for this prompt rebuttal to the New York Times editorial. I want to underscore this, in particular: “If people supporting the practice really care only about de-pathologizing same-sex relationships and challenging gender norms, then let’s create Lesbian Story Hour and Gay Story Hour. Let lesbians and gay men read to children without costumes that caricature women. That has the potential to be truly transformative.” And I say amen.
I forget who made this point -- maybe it was Lisa -- but it’s worth looking at drag story hour or other drag performance for an audience of minors and asking, if a woman were dressed in the same way, wearing the same makeup, performing and speaking the exact same -- would this feel ok, be ok? In many cases, no.
For most people, when they think of Drag, they think of (gay) men playing Cher or Charo or Barbra or Marilyn, or other iconic woman, & having the mannerisms and the way of singing & the look.
OG Drag is not porny or semi nude. Drag is not trans ID males with fake boobs and g strings. The 'old school' version of a drag show would not be a problem. Most people hear "drag" and do not understand how sleazy these shows are.
Even old school less sleazy drag shows are still mocking women, though. They are doing an exaggerated mocking performance of stereotypes about women for laughs. As the article points out, that wouldn’t be acceptable if it were done for any other group. Why is it ok for men to make fun of women in this way?
Excellent piece!
Another fantastic piece.
Linda Hatch, Phd, CSAT
"Drag story hour" is an attempt to normalize a deviant sexual culture. I don't like drag, but adults should not be restricted, as long as they are consenting, even if the shows are perverted.
Children should not be allowed in drag shows.
And drag performers should not be reading to children. This normalizes the perverts. Many drag performers are on the sex-offender list, and should have no contact with children.
I have loved Robert Jensen's always trenchant analyses since the late 90s, and I'm delighted to find his words here. It's an excellent essay, however he missed one pertinent facet of the issue: why do drag queens want to perform to children? It's not *just* the womanface aspect - it's the sexualizing of children aspect that bothers me even more.
This is what has me most perplexed, which is the why are they doing it? What is the value? In our world, that is permeated by pornography, how could any parent think that adding sexuality into their children's lives, have any benefit? It is so obviously threatening to our kids well being.
100%
Excellent! Thoughtful and well-articulated.
Excellent! Thoughtful and well-articulated. I'll be referring people to this when the topic of womanface comes up.
Learnt a lot. Make a lot if sense
I found myself agreeing with everything you said about drag. Really annoying how the entire history of drag has now been subverted by the Wokes so that it now represents some kind of generic gender diversity message that people can teach their children rather than a form of adult entertainment that parodies women. Or even that drag is some kind of gender identity! Though what isn't a gender identity these days?
Oddly enough, I no longer parse the word 'freshman' as containing 'man.' It reads as a neutral term to me. I was once a freshman, though I am female. I don't like replacing an easy and traditional word with a cumbersome phrase 'first year student.' I'd rather change the meaning to incorporate women.
It does come from "man" though. Like mankind. Which is no accident. Personally i feel we have bigger fish to fry than to insist on changing the odd word, but i do understand attempts to do so.
Terrific piece.
Thank you Robert Jensen for your clarity. I went to Drag Story Hour at my local library to check it out before deciding if I would take my grandchild. This event was widely promoted in the local press, and by the local Council and paid for by the cash-strapped public library.
Up to 40 pre-schoolers attended the early afternoon show with their mum's and carers. Two policemen circulated inside and out to keep the lone person offering a critical leaflet off the premisses and indivisible beyond the car park.
I went to the school aged afternoon session which was attended by a much smaller audience of largely adoring trans youth. The contrast between these young people and the image portrayed by the 'queen' was striking. Yet in the 'discussion' it seemed he represented everything they aspired to be. The 'queen' boasted about the enormous cost of his dresses and the sieze of room in his house devoted to them. He detailed the extraordinary cost of his make up and the three hours taken to apply it. This elicited gasps of awe and excitement from the teens present.
The librians present clapped approval at this display of look-at-me narsissism. And apparantly had no qualms about this being presented at the hcore of womenhood.
If iI had dreamed up a complete reversal of everything feminists had , for three generations, tried to change in order to free girls, this hype-sexualised wriggling would be it. The idea that this displaying constricting, time-consuming, expensive presentation of an exaggerated ' body' is what it means to BE a women is everything I had spent my life encouraging girls and women to free themselves from.
This public endorsement of hyper sexualised images of women has been very effective in endorsing women as sex objects first and foremost. Presenting this as 'diversity' is simply NU-Speak, it is utterly conformist.
When I tried to open discussion among the mothers and grands at the school gate I got a chilling response.It was almost as if i was going to step out of line contaminate their children. I noticed how frilly the dresses worn to school had become and how long the girls hair now is and how embellished, how ears are pierced and nails manicured, and how silly the girls shoes are, and how unchanged is the presentation of the boys.
I finally understood just how far back we are being dragged as women.