Srry for the strange visual blackout from 24:45-25:17 the file got corrupted halfway through :-> also thanks to Milanote for sponsoring this video! Sign up for free and start your next creative project: milanote.com/shanspeare
Oh, I thought it was a purposeful creative choice to highlight the inner thoughts of the elegance coach by separating her from her outside appearance, as she began to question the intention of elegance coaching. Btw, I think you're awesome.
I swear Shanespeare could sell me my own leg with these ad reads 😅😅😅 seriously though I genuinely appreciate they are consistently so mindful to accept/choose sponsors that are worth looking into ❤
weren’t we all just laughing at conservatively abby and girl defined for doing shit like this not too long ago? but when it’s done *aesthetically* it’s okay to some people?? or so long as it isn’t directly tied to religion?
And well to go further it's simply because there's a facade that because it's not coming from an obvious oppressor and/or someone with in the audiences community they're more likely to accept it than from someone else
when you justify it by saying it doesn't belong to a certain adjective and a certain "aesthetic" people think it's just the requirements for that niche or whatever, if you straight said that without linking it with a certain niche you would be caught more easily but when you link it to smth else it's like a mask for it, idk if I'm explaining myself
@@sodadepayasito Exactly, this. Because this shit isn't being marketed under an oppressive construction (ei. Patriarchal religion.) And as part of an aesthetic of class, and elegance and is being marketed by women both white and poc, the audience is more willing to accept it as a cool trend rather than the sexist and racist marketing it is.
@@GraveyardMaidenit’s sad how ppl try to emulate and adopt the behaviors and beliefs of rich ppl like…. even if you’re well off compared to most ppl you aren’t even CLOSE to being in the 1% let alone 10% lmao like ppl will start beating down on others so quick whether it’s wealth or another status symbol
thats the lie women from these communities were always feminine but for western cultures to justify their mental and physical subjugation monetize from thee inferiority complex they teach them, they have to push the narrative that they are not femenine. if you travel outside of the west you'll see that poc women are the most femenine imo
The argument that feminity is not for black women is he most stupid argument. black women and indigenous women are feminine by nature of being female, and it looks different across different.
Also not for certain nationalities apparently, because god forbid you happen to be white, but from a contry mostly made of villages, "You are just a man in a skirt!" Is what they will tell you, when like, you are literally going to die if you "don't do a MANS job" EVEN IF YOU HAVE A MAN. ONE MAN IS NOT ENOUGH USUALLY. Not even going to mention that the taking care of kids is still your job, even when you already do the "mans part", but the privileged people still see it as a you problem somehow
@@queenmarshmallow8013 To combine your and OP’s sentiments Femininity: being confident in your own skin as a woman/ femme without bringing other people down Masculinity: being confident as a man/masc without bringing other people down
@alyssapinon9670 oh wow its almost like being an ideal human involves being confident in yourself and not having to bring others down to do so! How interesting
I think it's hilarious that these tiktokers are forgetting the most important rule of old Americana femininity... don't speak unless spoken to... Women were expected to be quiet not share their opinions with anyone who listened on an app for gaining attention.
@@no_ononono3074except women were allowed to shame other women and since it’s presumed that’s who the content is for, it’s allowed to fly under those restrictions.
@@no_ononono3074 this is reminding me that the most etiquette thing to do is to not look down on others but that can often just be blatantly ignored because people want to look down on someone else.
Ever since I learnt that their definition of feminity is basically the ability to attract a “high value”man, I lost so much interest in these coaches Edit: like the way they praise Sophia Riche these days just because she married a billionaire as if she didn’t exist before her marriage 😭
Do these women really think that "high value" men are just hanging around looking for the average woman? These men marry the women that already grew up in their circles, that have massive generational wealth all on their own. This is completely pointless for normal people.
Check out Karine Alourde! the people who say that the art of femininity is to get a “high value” man is not doing femininity. For me, i find the genuine people are empowering feminine people to be powerful in your place. Like where your feet are right now, you have power. Masculinity is “if you move your feet and go there you have power”
@@Booby_toesdays I'm sorry but that sounds like just a different way of saying men should be allowed to explore freely and achieve their dreams and overcome barriers, while women should learn to 'know their place' and accept and endure limitations and discomfort. The narrative of "a woman's empowerment is about finding power 'within her role' and not wishing for a man's life" is identical to mainstream conservative Christian teachings...
I think it makes sense. We're in a pretty bad economic situation in the US. It's a survival technique. I think it's fruitless, though. Besides, in my experience, wealthy men treat women worse, like they're disposable. It's like they don't have the capacity to love. Again, my opinion and experience. They've lacked empathy and been stingy with money because if you want to buy something they wouldn't buy, it's "frivolous" or "foolish." To me, not worth it
As gen z, I like having confidence that our generation (with our ability to see past bullshit and desire for "authenticity") would do better than previous ones...but everyday I learn of a new trend that is actually harmful. Using "girl dinner", which was meant to be harmless and just show how one girl ate when she didn't have the time to make a full meal, to promote eating disorders; this lame femininity coaching thing with an expected dose of classism and eugenics; cottagecore glamorizing colonialism and whatnot...it makes me worried that the social activism of our generation is just another trend for most people, like the hippies of the 70s. Maybe I'm being too harsh on us, we're still rather young, but I really don't want our gen to grow up into bigoted, miserable old folk who'd want the younger generations to suffer just as hard or worse than they did. Maybe I'm foolish for expecting all of us to easily notice what was bigoted in nature, and rally against it.
@@Vesperad0 (sorry for the long comment, this one got away from me lol) I'm a millennial and went through a very similar thought process when I was younger. Being a little older now, I can say my generation is definitely more progressive on average than previous generations and we did get some things right. Hopefully gen z will be more progressive still. But ultimately any generation is just a diverse group of people with all kinds of personalities, politics and experiences. It's easy to focus on the most extreme depressing examples of bigotry and be overwhelmed by it, but it's also important to keep a sense of scale about it. It's definitely good to be aware and engage with problems, but it's also good to remember that the loudest, most obnoxious voices get overrepresented precisely because they're so loud and obnoxious, and people end up boosting engagement with morbid curiosity and outrage. I think one of the most powerful things you can do as an individual is just model the behaviour you want to see in the world, and don't give into peer pressure. You'd be surprised what an impact it can have on people just seeing someone in their peer group voice a nuanced opinion, or politely decline to go along with a joke, or be pro-actively kind and accepting to marginalised people. You don't need to be scolding people and arguing all the time, but you can find a balanced way to stick to your principles while still being friendly and accepting that most people don't mean any harm. Be willing to say "I disagree, let's talk about it" and "personally I don't judge people like that," and "actually I don't find that funny." That last one in particular... one thing I saw with my generation was the popularity of joking and memeing about serious topics in a way that was destructive and desensitizing. It was common to say things you 'didn't really mean' as a 'joke', and many people really were being sarcastic, but over time some of those messages sink in at a subconscious level, and younger kids grow up in a culture full of 'ironic' prejudiced or stereotyped humour without really understanding the context. I see that still happening with gen z (it's just a universal human thing) but I hope they can take a lesson from their older siblings and try to move away from constant irony and hyperbole, and try to question what message they're really spreading with jokes and memes. Like the example you mentioned with 'girl dinner', some people started ironically gendering random things as a comment on arbitrary gender norms, saying 'girl this' and 'boy that' about ridiculous things to show how ridiculous it is... but then younger or less informed people picked up on it as non-ironic trend, where they were actually unironically gendering their daily activities, and then those trends devolved into the same old harmful stereotypes - e.g. 'girl dinner' is eating hardly anything because girls are supposed to be thin, frail, demure creatures who don't have any needs and never take up too much space... then other people started posting things like 'man dinner' with steak and whiskey etc. and linking to their manosphere podcasts. The whole thing circled round to unironic so fast. I'm not saying don't have a sense of humour. Humour is so important for getting through life and making everything bearable, but my generation made a big mistake with turning every real issue into 'ironic' humour, distancing themselves from painful realities, and creating confusion and misinformation. I really hope gen z doesn't repeat our mistakes!
@@Vesperad0girl, sad to say this is the same old story. As a millennial we were supposed to change the world, that’s what they told us we "new millennia kids" would do. I guess we did, by making the next generations feel lost cause we broke all traditional rules. They exist for a reason, most people don’t want to wake up everyday and decide on absolutely everything. Some people are comfortable following a guide, I would even say most people. I’ve done a good amount of research on this topic for years, to finally conclude older societies had things figured out and CHOSE to stay silent or do nothing in certain areas cause it’s for the benefit of the majority. And sadly it works, that’s the bittersweet truth.
Respectability politics is so goddamn exhausting like, we have actual important shit going on I genuinely couldn't care less about what we look or sound like while we do it. Look at the senate throwing a temper tantrum over fettermans manner of dress and the loosening of the dress code. People on BOTH sides (though let's be real here, mostly conservatives) are up in arms about the importance of decorum (effing lol) while there are massive issues just stalled out having nothing done with them.
It gave me permission to enjoy feminine things, but some videos are very serious about how things I like (baggy pants, cursing, silly tee shirts) aren't feminine. Which is a problem because feminity, like blackness, isn't a monolith. It sucks to feel excluded from elegance because black feminity is its own thing, and I never fit into the box labelled "elegance" because I'm black
Trans woman here -- this kind of stuff also makes it hard for me to be perceived as a woman at all. I don't pitch my voice through my nose much and I talk loudly, and I'm very vocal on top of that. So since I haven't had vocal surgery, a lot of the time when I'm just talking with friends and being loud or passionate, there's that "oh you sound like a cis man" in my head (and people who only hear my voice often think I'm a guy). Same thing with appearance/dress -- atm, while I haven't had any laser hair removal or surgeries, there's a relatively narrow list of things I can wear and still pass. And even when I do, my odds of being "sir"d in public are like 20% instead of 2%. This isn't by any means the same stuff that Black women deal with being excluded by "elegance" but I couldn't help and notice some of the same parallels of how non-"""conventional""" women have to act to be perceived as feminine. It's a performance required of us, regardless of our authenticity to ourselves.
As a trans woman who enjoys their androgyny, all of this resonates And what makes it worse is when we leave our boxes, our circles where we can be black and feminine or trans and feminine or androgynous and a woman, and suddenly feel... Persecuted (? May not be the right word) for not being "feminine" or not being feminine "in the right way" or even "not a woman/person of value" Edit - Dismissed might be a better word than Persecuted
The thing is even when we're only looking at someone's appearance, one item (baggy trousers, T-shirts, baggy tops, etc.) gives different impressions on each individual. For example, I actually look more "feminine" when I have pixie hair when short hair is basically deemed as a no-no when it comes to "looking feminine". Keep in mind that this is only based on appearance. This means that there's no monolith in being feminine, even when we're only looking at it at the most superficial level. I think these coaches are just creating and following aesthetics, which I think is also why it's easily capitalized because they can just say that "you need this thing and that thing to be feminine" or whatever just to sell their products.
@@alia_babowhat i don't get is WHY I should be feminine. Like, how does trying to be a certain way add to my life? same goes for masculinity. if I wear a dress and makeup, it's because i like how I look in it and feel comfortable in it, not because i want to be feminine.
@@user-ny1wo1vp9r I wonder that, too. Not everyone wants to be seen as feminine and if we're going off of what these people deem as "feminine", there are many people who can be considered as feminine (by their standards) when they don't want to be seen as feminine at all.
the kicker of it all is that even if you "succeed" at meeting the dominant culture's expectation for "respectability," the dominant culture will just change what they consider "respectable" for you. you can't win, because the point was never for you to become "respectable." the point was to create a society where you need never be shown respect.
pretty much. i've seen a ton of caucasian women make themselves look paler to be less likely to be discriminated against by white people only for the latter to raise the bar even higher
The way I used to eat this up but then realized I was much happier being “ghetto” and “ratchet”, made the most authentic and meaningful relationships, and had less worries… I switched back and I’m thriving. Although I do code switch like every other black person, I’m still gonna be me and not someone else entirely. What turned me off was realizing all these “coaches” were doing this for men. It was always centered around men and I’m celibate so idgaf about doing anything to attract a man or marry. Realizing I was never meant to be “elegant” and “feminine” was freeing. I’ve always been a girly girl, but those videos made me hate dressing up at some point. I felt like I HAD to, and it wasn’t enjoyable anymore. Plus, I see a lot of the girls turning into conservatives or right-winged… I don’t want that lol
Respectability politics ruined my childhood. Especially when I just wanted to wear my Afro as a child. It made me so happy, but then I’d go to my grandma’s house and have every woman in my family put me and my mom down about it (even though my mom wouldn’t let me out with my Afro, I had to let it out after I got to school). “You’re mom let you out the house like that?” “Did your mom not do your hair today?” “😒” “😬” “😧” yea. and that was my family. Of black women
Gross, even if a part of the reason they reacted like that is because of the time they grew up in. At some point they'd have to realize that what makes you black isn't a sin, but that'll take time and patience, and evidently not a lot of older black folxs care to process racism. If they can't do it for queerphobia, ableism, xenophobia, and so on, I doubt they'll care to deal with internalized racism. I really hope you feel comfortable wearing your hair however you want, as well as knowing your hair isn't inherently a political statement; may you decide if you switch between flat ironed and Afro puffs, and only you decide. Short, long, protected, natural, under a bonnet or with a durag...do what you want with your hair.
🤦🏾♂️Damn Betsy. It's difficult for me to hear that. It must have had such a painful impact on you, as a child, to hear your trusted, adult, loved ones talk like that. Really sorry you had to go through it. Know that they were pushed into that type of thinking by the hate they surely recieved. Nothing that you did. Mind you, I was glad to hear that, even as a child, you had an indomitable spirt and rebelled by secretly letting your hair out. 😎 That's badass sister.👍🏾 😊
I've heard more racism from black and Mexican people about black people than I have from white people. (In my personal life.) It's so sad that they think repeating the racist ideas of the white man from the past or today's racists might bring them closer to being accepted by white society. I don't see why people can't just live and be themselves without constantly worrying about what the white people might think of them. So sad.
I was so pissed when I found out relaxers were straightening my hair and my mom was hiding a part of myself from me that I never knew existed and I had to learn to groom it all over because I missed out on growing up with it. I went through so many periods of sadness and frustration with my hair before I finally found out what works for it and accepted that no tutorial will get me 3c hair and that there were styles my hair could do that I personally found beautiful. (I think my straightened hair gave her a sense of pride when people would come on it's length and thickness.)
Whew as a Black girl who grew up in a predominantly white, German-Catholic, conservative neighborhood and being one of literally less than 10 people of color this triggered like everything I ever heard growing up. My dad was always insistent that I had to be the smartest person in the room bc people would instantly expect me to be lesser bc I was a Black girl. It wasn’t even until college that I made other Black friends and it was so relieving to not have to perform but also nerve wracking to navigate my own identities as they were squashed as a kid. I’m so glad I didn’t have TikToks like this when I was growing up bc seeing it spelled out like that 😵💫
Yeah, as a Canadian of Indian decent, living in a very white Conservative place, I'm ridiculously empathetic towards this comment. Thank you kindly for posting your experience. 👍🏾🧠💯🎯👏🏾
I really hate the way these femininity tiktoks are used as ammunition towards Black Women. We’re already seen as “masculine, aggressive, non submissive” blah blah blah 🙄 it’s so frustrating. I refuse to let anyone dictate what is or isn’t feminine in my life. I’m a woman. I don’t need to “perform” femininity or do anything to be more feminine. Womanhood to me is whatever the hell I say it is 😂 Thanks for such an amazing video as always Shanespeare. 💕
“I refuse to let anyone dictate what is or isn’t feminine in my life. I’m a woman. I don’t need to “perform” femininity or do anything to be more feminine. Womanhood to me is whatever the hell I say it is.” THIS. This needs to be written on a plaque somewhere bc girl you said it! And I like how you said “perform” bc it’s so true how these videos are designed to pressure women into feeling like they are not enough and have to “perform” femininity. And we really DON’T, we are fine as we are and WOMAN ENOUGH. I swear society tells women that they are not “woman enough” in so many ways and this comment really nailed it! And the whole pressuring women to be submissive thing while shaming other women who are outspoken is just so icky
It really sucks because being submissive, quiet, small, unassuming is just asking to be abused. It's not something to aspire to. I know, because I'm naturally like that and I've been a target for bullying and abuse since I was a kid. I had to find my loudness and bitchiness, and find a way to take up space to feel comfortable and more secure in the world. Feminine clothing: heels, dresses, etc, just make you slower and uncomfortable. Wear what you like. Why need to be feminine? We're already women. That's enough.
As a white woman, I hate how "feminity" channels glorify trauma and tell women to be passive, submissive and helpless. I've experienced learned helplessness and social anxiety as trauma response. I've commited to heal and be the most confident, healthy, unchained version of myself. I don't appreciate sexist bs. I've watched many black women who inspired me and I loved their confident, authentic energy. There's nothing they should change to fit someone's little box. "Feminity channels" tell us to remove the most vibrant, eccentric, unique parts of us and become sad shells without voice and personality.
I knew this is gonna happen since that quiet luxury aesthetic became a trend on Tiktok (social media). There would be more "elegant/feminine" content, which in turn would start promoting racisms with the guise of "aesthetic".
ever notice how most of this starts getting popular when there is a global crisis of new levels of economic exploitation/hardship, the world being on the verge of WW3, the west going unchecked in wars/coups/sanctions the past 30 years while creating a refugee crisis...which in turn they need to blame minorities with no power, rather than the actual capitalist class that is causing it? notice how most of the media is owned by a few elite billionaires, who have all this power to influence people's views so easily if they haven't learned to think critically? even with tiktok, people don't know that it only went out the news because they were forced to *have* to allow ex-CIA agents as senior roles/board members to control content? of course this would all be reactionary topics that have been recycled for the past 150 years with a twist, whenever there is a economic crisis for the working classes. women should believe they're going to land one of the tiny minority of men on the planet who are wealthy, while we are over 50% of the population? that our dream should be to be the servant of some mini-jeffrey epstein wannabe? because that's how most billionaires act, and of course the richest in the world are mostly men. it's just new american dream nonsense for women! i really hope people learn a bit more about how capitalism works by promoting propaganda on all media platforms. you can't have free news when a few billionaires are allowed to own the majority of media on the planet! if you look at the top influencers who post stuff like this, same with the manosphere section, so many are funded by a select few billionaires. really, i encourage everyone to learn how to easily search who funds big influencers, because the vast majority are earning money through these methods. anything that divides the working class and stops critical thinking, as that may actually mean they try to work to change this corrupt system /s
hate from the first sight. it' giving not being able to bend your elbows cos your hands will go numb cos your size-approlpriate jacket is TOO FRIKIN TIGHT
As a white woman the "feminine energy" movement always seemed sick to me. It's a desperate attempt to try to bring back traditional roles using pseudoscience, gross generalizations and simplifications, and trying to grant depth to blatant superficiality.
@@miriamhavard7621Sometimes I see so called feminists describe femininity as divine and it’s like..no. Divinity doesn’t exist. There is nothing supernatural or magical about human behaviors. It’s instincts mixed with socialization mixed with cultural constraints. Women aren’t special, men aren’t special.
Once had a dude complained i wasnt being "classy" if i ever showed any ounce of my own type of sexual expression for him. He made me feel completley unconfident then had the audacity to complain that i wasnt confident. Wish i broke up with him sooner.
Those type of guys are dangerous cause they get off having power over women and abusing them. If you display any signs of self-identity and express needs it's a turn off to them. It was most likely a narcissist or worse.
Think of it this way. It may have lasted longer than you wanted and/or was healthy... but at least you know never to go down that gaslight, rabbit hole ever again. 😊
I can't stop noticing that most of these 'elegant coaches' seems to come from Eastern Europe. I'm Ukrainian and every time I visit Ukraine or Russia, I am reminded of how I'm not behaving ladylike. Sexism and gender expectations are way more rigid in Eastern Europe. I have been commented on my short hairstyle, non feminine fashion etc when visiting Russia
I’ve met a woman from there that is hella superstitious and very controlling to her American husband who used to be friends with my husband. Yeah I’m glad I no longer subscribe to that type of femininity anymore as a masc presenting non-binary person
That's a great point! I am an American (though with Eastern European heritage) and have visited Russia twice. I noticed I stood out a lot in my T-shirts and jeans because I noticed the Russian ladies dressed up basically all the time and wearing heels even when you had an apartment like my one host mother's that had no elevator and lots of stairs. I remember going, "How do they do it in heels all the time?"
That hair thing is serious here. I have thin (also oily) hair so I used to wear it short and I noticed it is considered less feminine by the society. 😣 Meanwhile I find men with long hair attractive. 😜
@@chrissy1237 yes, the irony in that all is they are obsessed with the feminine look, however they didn't consider attractive the bigger hips/butt/tights which are feminine traits too, even more than the long hair.
@@ZivanovaableThe fact that they were able to flip thin, narrow bodies into an inherently feminine trait and curvy bodies which are biologically more feminine (women have more fat placement in their hips to aid childbirthing) as less ideal is just a show of how prominent white supremacy is.
The bonnet thing makes me so mad, bonnets protect your hair. So yes I spent all this money on my hair so…I’d like to protect it. Me wearing my bonnet to the gas station or to Walmart doesn’t mean I’m jobless, stupid, a bad person, etc. it’s just a bonnet!!! Why do we care so much about a piece of FABRIC on someone else’s head?? If you don’t want to wear your bonnet in public that’s fine! You do you!! And allow me to be me!!
Am I allowed to cringe at you if I do. It is hella annoying to see anyone white or black wearing a bonnet. It is tacky. You wearing a bonnet does not mean you are jobless or a bad person. But it does mean you are really annoying.
Bonnets is sleepwear. It's not a good look in public. You can buy a beautiful Headwrap and cover your hair to protect it, but a bonnet does not look good in public. Fighting to hold on to something that should be let go is something that us black women need to learn for the betterment of ourself.
Exactly… White women constantly go out ball caps and wear those ridiculous big brown hats. And I’ve never seen anyone condemn white women for that. So it shouldn’t be any different for a woman of color to wake at a bonnet!
Bonnets are designed sleepwear. If I saw someone out and about in slippers they could argue, it's to protect their feet, but slippers are for in-house, wear sandals for outside. We do have all types of headwraps that prorect black women hair and make you look beautiful and presentable outside. Bonnets do make you look lazy, just like wearing slippers outside.
I always thought the shift in current beauty standards have made "certain women" upset because them in their basic form is no longer the standard of beauty and this is their attempt at squashing the current aesthetic that has some element of black feature/aesthetics. There is no way all of these women are this triggered by simple things like big lips,lip liner, curvy body shapes, larger hum, and expressive fashion. This is their attempt at returning the standard back to white and basic. The black femininity coaches do the same thing with trying to label an aesthetic as "ghett0" and a less dramatic appearance as "classy" I see girls with baby hairs pull "high value men". I know they hate to see that what is attractive varies to people.
I would also add that beyond black femininity coaches, some Black TH-cam and TikTok MUA and beauty guru influencers participate in respectability politics all the time. You can tell they aspire to these problematic "elegant" standards based on the makeup trends and lifestyle and beauty products they're promoting such as outfits, skincare, fragrances, interior decorations, vacation aesthetics and locations etc. All in all, it's lacking character and personality. Conformity is a drug.
@@haingo9079 they want us to be respectable to the ultra rich men who may bless you with a few pennies, yet the ultra-rich/"educated" (statistically the ultra rich have lower IQs than middle income working class) are disrespecting the vast majority of the world by treating it like a playground & running about like mini-epsteins. where was the respect when they insist on hoarding most of their generational stolen wealth? where is the respect when millions are dying from wars caused by them? where is the respect for democracy when it's proven it's completely useless in the west under capitalism by a princeton study, because they use their stolen wealth to lobby politicians to do what's in their best interest? why do people care about being seen as "respectable", when really it's just being classist and a class betrayer if you're not in the elite capitalist class? don't be respectable to these people, actually grow a backbone and get better at thinking critically. read lenin or something, trying to make ourselves less intelligent/pick-me to these guys is pathetic, it is complete betrayal and believing a complete grift. these people are grifters! there's a lot of money in making propaganda for the ultra rich! i fear the day this could become popular in scotland, because at least still here being seen as something not working class is a massive embarassment. that is why the elite capitalist class don't mingle very much with the rest of the population. being working class/poor is seen at least as being not a exploitative tory. it's actually seen as a sense of pride and perseverance amongst anyone not a rich tory. people are more likely to larp as being poorer than they actually are for a better social standing, not the other way around lol. if you start acting like how these classist women act, you'll be bullied for it and rightly so. however, i know that social media is powerful, so i worry for the next generation.
I think you’re onto something. I think some of these women are threatened by a beauty aesthetic that is not accessible to them. Like the “elegance coach” who mocked black women’s use of dark lipliner and nude lipstick, and mocked the use of contouring to make one’s lips appear fuller. She herself has very thin lips, and although there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, her lips are not a noteworthy feature. It’s sour grapes disguised as beauty advice and “good taste”, imo.
My problem with the femininity community is when they called natural black hair styles “ not elegant “ and “ not feminine enough “. Natural black hair styles are elegant. We really need to get rid of this mindset that only straight hair can be “ elegant and feminine “. Also I feel like a lot of women even black women get their femininity from what white people deem femininity in other words white women’s femininity. I feel Karine Alourde is the only creator I came across that actually gives great advice to women on how to improve ourselves both mentally and physically and she doesn’t just focus on attracting “ a high value man “.
I always find it funny, that straight hair wasn't even the white dominant preferred style until like 40 years ago (80 ish if you want to count the Louise Brooks bob). I watched Morgan's video recently of 500 years of hair styles. And they all wanted curls. 4C in many variations for years. It's literally hilarious.
I genuinely think it must be so exhausting thinking about these things all the time. Like who really gives a shit if someone wears a bonnet??? Don’t y’all have better things to do?
I remember cringing internally at a black girl I saw at a supermarket wearing a bonnet, but it didn't take be very long to think _why_ I felt embarrassed for her. Most people know what the hell a bonnet is used for, and there's a whole ass meme about white girls and messy buns, how is a bonnet any different? They most certainly are under the pressure of being seen as a monolith, and so they begin to resent any other black person who doesn't present themselves the way they'd want. They feel as if other black people existing as they are threatens their validity as a woman, or a person to begin with, but instead of taking it out on the man behind the axe they blame the wood for not being strong enough...even if the man took years to chop the tree down.
@@Vesperad0I am not embarrassed by her. I am embarrassed for her. You do not need to wear a bonnet at a supermarket. You have every right to wear that bonnet and I have every right to not like it and think it is stupid. Because it is.😊😊😊
@@lisah8438you don't know what that person's life is. Maybe she's fighting depression or anxiety so strong it took all her energy just to get to the store. Judging isn't elegant.
funny how i got verbally attacked in real life by a “femininity coach” “womens empowerment” tiktoker who got a little too drunk at a function and didn’t like my outfit 💀🤪🤮 not very ‘feminine' of her to slut shame me in front of 250 people. im jus lucky i had so many witnesses (i wont drop her name here but jus be careful making people ur idols alright ✌)
If it ever happens again, make sure to tell her that she is unfeminine for "speaking without being spoken to on a topic that is not suitable for a woman to discuss in public". They leave out the biggest social expectation of expressing femininity according to European/old Americana standards.. BEING QUIET AND MEEK/SHY! As a southern woman, this idea is still passed along in some white generationally wealthy families. If a young woman tries to talk politics/culture/or really anything viewed as unconventional, especially about what men want, an older man in the family will likely throw some shade at her and tell her to shut up in a passive aggressive way.
"The streets gathered her like a ponytail." Girl, I guffawed! Yes, not everything is for one but to be so easily brainwashed ashore by the ever rocking hatewaves of new era colonizers...is wild. Thank you for all you do and all the best!
@@Crawlingdreams418so they are under-read cowards to go along with it. Shouldn't that have more poignancy. Acting up the behaviours that were part of the dominant cultures that hurt their ancestors is a pathetic look.
I feel like a lot of queer people participate in respectability politics. I've seen people like Blaire White make a whole career off of it. I myself have denied queer history or sided with homophobic rhetoric to meet a "quota of heteronormativity" to avoid being ostracized. But if I have to deny what I know to be accurate to gain favor it's not really worth it. TL;DR : respectability politics has roots in many oppressed minorities and marginalized people.
completely agree. it’s like the idea of “i’m (insert oppressed minority and/or marginalized group) but i’m one of the “good ones” since i meet x, y, or z”
I vibe with that, as a queer neurodivergent person, my masking sometimes falls into that category becuase I want to be "safe". However once I learned how to unmask, I've gotten SO MUCH WORSE at masking that its to the point that I just don't mask anymore (unless like job interviews vibes) because I "look like a weirdo" either way, which is weirdly freeing? "Fuck it they're not going to treat me like "one of the good ones" so why should I even bother!" is the best feeling when you have it
What exactly does respectability politics mean? I mean if you’re not going to behave in a respectable way (ie a way that denotes respect for others) then you can’t complain when people don’t have respect for what you are trying to accomplish. Is that not simple math?
@@evaphillips2102 respectability politics doesn't mean being a decent person is bad. It means that the most hateful to your community decides what possibly you can be to be accepted then you go around doing it, denouncing others for not doing it, and lamenting to those that hate you that it's not you but those others in your community that are ruining it for you. Think Muslims listening to what Islamophobes say they should act like to be accepted then not only acting like it but harassing and scapegoating those that refuse to act like this "model Muslims" and throwing them under the bus. In today's example it's those Muslims that swear up and down that Muslims are violent and distance themselves from other Muslims; but reality shows more violence has been enacted on Muslims than Muslims on non-Muslims. The responsibility politics works against the marginalised community the way Candace Owens insults black people and is anti-feminist yet has championed a companion using feminist pushed legislation in pursuing a divorce against a man abusing her and she herself used the NAACP to help her fight racist discrimination (and have you seen all the racist sexist abuse she faces from the people she's trying to earn their respect?) That's it, it's pretty simple actually. In general human lingo they're people like the pick me girlies that annoy women and loose the respect of the men they're trying to earn their respect.
As someone who loves all things 'feminine', I often find myself feeling ashamed for not fitting certain standards because of my race, features, body, hair, ... That's when I have to remind myself that this kind of feminity is a construct born from white, racist ideals. There are so many interesting ideas on what it means to be feminine all across the globe that I'm more comfortable with. I don't want to put my energy into chasing this kind of ideal anymore, when someone like me was never meant to attain it anyway.
ive found that looking up to /finding people through things like pinterest who have my facial features i dislike or body features i dislike has seriously helped me with image
Do what you like. Wear what you like. Fuck everyone else. You don't need the acceptance of others to wear what you think is pretty. You've got this. Do you mind sharing other cultural ideals of femininity that you've come across?
I wrote long comment but youtube removes it...🙄 Essentially I said you should be enjoying yourself bc most WW want the things W of color have. Don't you know that WW want to have darker skin, thicker hair, dark eyelashes?? Some won't admit they want what you have so they will act mean. I am WW and I appreciate women of color beauty a lot. I do like my genetics but often wish I had thicker darker eyelashes. But the point is we should be enjoying ourselves uniqueness without "beauty standards" bs. All women have insecurities which is also stimulated by marketing to push plastic surgeries, make up etc.
I've also noticed this attitude in trans tiktok. So many videos about how to be a proper "woman" (aka, a cis white woman). So many content creators telling you that you need to be respectable, that in order to be a woman, you need to repress anything trans about you. If you take it seriously it's going to f**k with your self-image. And even though I don't take it seriously, i still find it impacting how I see myself, how I dress and appear. How respectable I look to others.
Not to mention those "trans finders" or whatever the hell they go by on social media, deeming nearly every brown woman alive as masculine and therefore trans. A wonderful trio of misogyny, racism, and transphobia. Transmisogynoir, if you will. I really don't think those creators realize just how harmful they're being, because all they're focused on is trans women, without realizing that ""masculine traits"" aren't consistently and undeniably "male" in humans. As far as I'm aware, according to gender stereotypes and associations, no human can possibly be 100% female or 100% male. From chromosomes to genitalia presentation to gender identity to bodily structure and so on. There was literally a cis woman locked inside a bathroom stall because another cis woman was convinced she was a "man" (trans woman)... because her hair was short. I'm not sure if she also had a flat chest and/or androgynous voice, I forget, but regardless she was harassed until police were called. Even if they don't care about the damage they cause to trans people in general, they fail to realize they'll hurt cis women in the process, all for useless bigotry.
That seems to intertwine with the whole “anti-transtrenders” thing that people like Kalvin Garrah and Blaire White seem to push. You must conform to gender standards and actually pass off as your preferred gender to “truly be trans”. If you don’t pass off, you’re “fake trans.”
As a white person, Im really grateful for Insight like this. I sometimes see content that feels weirdly rascist, but I will not really be able to put my finger on as to exactly to the point why. I have recognized a lot of things that rascist structures do in my everyday life. A big thanks to this is you, Shanspeare, and many other black creators. I wasnt fully aware of how just how much rascism either seeped into things I usually dont pay much thought to, Or how much the rascism itself is excused, or how it works and how its executed. Im really thankful to have people who explain this so well, do so much research, and put blood sweat and tears into it. I cannot thank you enough. Watching your videos has literally bettered my life and the way I interact with people, Its been huge. I hope you one day get the flowers you truly deserve as such an amazing content creator. The insight on a topic like this is especially important to me, Because I enjoy a lot of aesthetics that often center whiteness and or thinness. The fact that I HAVE to look for creators who are of colour, Or not stick thin / slim with curves is sad. But I am very happy to find platforms theyre on. This doesnt mean the aesthetics dont carry the centering of whiteness/Thinness, But I am glad to be able to find creators who dont follow that mindset, because I know what red flags to recognise.
Black women, all eyes on us. Its' about control. They see us, our beauty, confidence and aesthetic. We're no longer fighting to fit in. We are far from the western standards and they don't like it.
Big facts...I like my funky clothes, talking with my earthy tone, wearing my hair in Nubian styles and when I say they be like👀👁️. Like how dare you try to be black and love it too🤣🤣🤣
If you think THIS is insane, wait until you hear about lesbians who want femme/butch dynamics, ONLY in the context of 50s aesthetics, knowing damn well how black lesbians were faced at that time, even admitting to liking that part the most....
Radfems who idolize traditional white lesbian femininity always give "2 steps away from ecofascist" vibes. I call it the radfem tradwife horseshoe theory
I wish dark skin would stop being masculinized. It affects the men yes but also affects the women. Viola Davis spoke of an interview how she could never get a movie for her to star as a woman falling in love in Italy but she could instantly get a slave movie or a movie of her struggling/suffering.
Genuine question: wdym "relationship dynamics in the context of 50s aesthetics"? How can a relationship dynamic be determined by historical clothing? Also, is it really harmful to like historical aesthetics, when it's pretty clearly supposed to be an escapist fantasy? Like, I'm pretty sure white queer people wouldn't want to live in the 50s either, i know i wouldn't (this isn't me trying to make your life harder, i swear, I'm just trying to understand)
@@tamarbeker1701 so I think I'll explain it better. Many butches take inspiration from 50s male style. Like, 70% of them all look like Elvis reincarnated. So, there's a few lesbian bars who adapt a 50s aesthetic to them, to further get into that feeling. And I've heard MANY white lesbians across social media say that they wish these bars would not allow black lesbians in it to make it feel more "authentic". As if a LESBIAN BAR in the 50s is authentic.
Thank you for speaking up about this. Femininity has always been exclusively to white women only and never black and brown women and it’s time to change that shit
“Always” you must have never heard of Pearl Bailey, Henrietta Lacks or Dorothy Dandrige. Brown women especially have their own take on femininity (Rita Moreno, Aishwarya Rai) white women have simply been the most visible women throughout history.
@@evaphillips2102 I have heard of them and that is not to negate that they were iconic for their femininity but in terms of a whole, I have always seen white women completely become the standard of what it is to become feminine. What I feel most is that when it comes to us, as black and brown women we are not feminine but rather sexualized. Sexualized to a point in where it strips us of our humanity.
The racism that so deep-rooted into these “elegance 101” videos truly make me sick. Almost every video I saw about “elegant” hairstyles featured black girl/women hair styles as “inelegant” and when the creators were called out on it they pushed out a half ass apology talking about “im sorry im not trying to be racist, just informative.” The audacity.
Can there be a follow up video exploring why a ton load of those ‘beauty coaches’ have Eastern European accents? It’s even funnier when they try to do the ‘being a lady’ and ‘upper class’ thing pretending to be aristocracy when their ancestors were surfs who literally took down the monarchy.
i’ve seen a few feminist tiktokers talk about the connection of incels/neo-nazis and eastern european women. incels have seemed to moved on from scandinavian women being considered the highest class of women and instead turned to eastern european women because of modern feminism. i’ve seen a lot of incels praising eastern european women because feminism is not as mainstream in their communities as it is in scandinavia. i think a lot of these beauty coaches have noticed the praise they get online by these men and try and capitalize off it. which is really awful not only for them upholding white supremacy and gender roles for attention, but innocent slavic women are constantly treated as a fetish :(
Thank You for sharing this, I was not aware of the trend. I keep forgetting American incels don’t travel and ignore history. Completely agree it’s a very fictionalised and fetishised view by people who never actually been to, met or dated someone from any of the countries grouped as Eastern Europe. But also unsurprising that some leaned into this stuff.
because hatred is engraved in ru**ian culture. they are the first ones to cry about bigotry that happens in the US or in the west in general, while having dozens of derogatory terms for anyone who isn't 100% white and russian (not to mention the hate crimes they don't fucking want to address). my father is half caucasian (though he's white, not brown like most caucasians) and he got death stares from ru**ians. imagine what would have happened if his caucasianness was more obvious...
@jjudova1 I'm screaming at your line about these beauty coaches being the descendants of serfs who took down the monarchy 🤣 The irony of them attempting to emulate the same people their ancestors despised ... fucking hilarious! Thank you again for sharing that 👏🏿
I think the bonnet issue has some cross over with how wearing Pjamas, hair rollers, face mud, showing body hair, going truly make up free outside is seen as unclassy. People dont want to be reminded that women have to take extra steps to be well groomed. People dont like to be reminded that women are pressured to shave, wax, put product in their hair, have a skin care routine and to cover up any natural 'imperfections'.
Dear Shanspeare, I'm an almost 50 year old white cis man and really enjoy your videos. Luckily for me, I born and raised in the Bay Area. I came to a realization about 6 years ago and it was something along these lines: everything I think about another person, be it someone I only glance at once, or someone I know well, those thought have absolutely nothing to do with them per sa, but are in truth, a complete projection of who I am. Thanks for brightening my day and simulating my mind.
Man this really hits home! 20 years ago dating a guy who just loved the christian/southern/purity ideal of feminity.... Left very little room for anything else.... Anytime, and I mean ANYTIME I spoke like above a whisper..... I was being "loud and ghetto"..... And when we'd be out with friends, the girls in the group were "allowed" to do, say and act however they wanted, he'd smile, laugh and joke around with them...... Then when I pointed out how much he seemed to not just tolerate but also enjoy their "unladylike" language, behavior, and mannerisms..... He'd have some dumb reason why it's ok for them....but for me. Because I'm his girl.... I'm supposed to be above them .... I wasn't treated like I was above anyone by him.... I was treated like I was never good enough because I wasn't perfect. Bit other girls got to be themselves around him and NOT be degraded for being who they are.
I'm asian canadian and I fell down this rabbit hole very briefly, but it felt too much like when I would try to act white to fit in with all my white friends. and I wonder if it's part of the immigrant experience (I mean, my great grandparents were immigrants so I'm pretty candianized at this point, but there's still the diaspora experience) of figuring out how to fit into the culture that's here, and I heard somewhere that why a lot of asian people feel more comfortable in black culture (sometimes too comfortable because appropriation) is because they don't feel comfortable in the predominant white culture, so they gravitate towards the other people of colour. but then, you're one of those "ghetto asians" as opposed to the model minority asians who have assimilated into the white suburban areas.
The term “model minority” was created by yt people used to hurt the black community by claiming that Asians are the “model minority” and then you have your Asians who will go along with that mentality- it’s honestly extremely gross.
I feel like it depends on the type of asian. East asians in my experience tend to be more high income and assimilate better w white people. SEA asians who are lower income tend to assimilate better w other racial groups.
@@nortmellypill i dont know, i think it has a lot more to do with income groups than race. Most south asians immigrants i have met were high income and lived in large country club neighborhoods and etc. But my experience might be anecdotal.
Im a black southerner and i did not expect that difference when i moved west. Ive definitely connected deeper with SEA everywhere than my chinese and korean classmates. I was super confused but this entire region is different to me, the 'rules' are different over here.
These “elegance tips” also suck for neurodivergent folks. I can’t sit still or sit “properly.” I struggle with eye contact and controlling the volume of my voice. When I get really excited, I get loud and animated. “Elegant” clothes can be tricky for me because of my sensory issues. That’s part of why I have always avoided “femininity training” content like the plague. I know this is not the same as the struggles of black women, but it is another reason why this content gives me the creeps.
oh i agree whole heartedly: as a level 1 aspie lady I always struggled with tone of voice, making the right facial expression and voice volume. i always thought I was the problem whenever my mother said I wasn't being ladylike enough
One of my favorite pieces of advice I’ve ever received was from an acting workshop in high school; if the worst thing that’s could happen is that they’ll laugh at you maybe it’s time to reevaluate who you’re trying to impress
@@peakdelvalle197 I took it the opposite way. If the worst thing is that you’ll be embarrassed than maybe you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. If you truly love something you won’t be ashamed to be silly gross and foolish
Being a woman is feminine enough. Whatever a woman does is feminine from wearing baggy clothes and sneakers, to wearing high heels and pretty dresses. They are just different expressions of femininity ♥️ Edit: From my understanding of femininity, it is anything related to womanhood not to be confused with patriarchal femininity. My message was a response to women who watch content geared towards teaching them how to be stereotypically feminine, and my suggesting that they don’t have conform to patriarchal gender roles as there is no right or wrong way to express womanhood. The message is to simply embrace being oneself.
I used to have a male boss who would half-jokingly say that some of my behaviors were unladylike, such as burping. I would always retort "I'm a lady, therefore it is ladylike" and that would always shut him up! 😄
naw, i'm not feminine and there's nothing wrong with that. femininity or lack thereof does not define you or your worth. now THIS is a better approach to the matter, imo. I do agree that different cultures have different versions of it, though.
you are confusing gender identity with gender expression. feminine is not synonymous with womanly. woman doesn’t equal femme, and it’s not the case the other way around either.
@@earthangel55 I’m not confused about those terms, we just have different viewpoints. My comment is geared towards women who *want* to express femininity, and suggesting that how they choose to express it is a personal choice. There is no single "right" way to be feminine.
I feel like ‘fragile masculinity’ is a common enough concept now but imo it’s the ideal/norm of femininity which has fragility actually encoded into it - ‘true’ femininity/womanhood/girlhood must always be sought after, incessantly worked for and painstakingly maintained on an almost microscopic level, it is designed to be lost and clearly designed to exclude. It often seems to purposefully define itself in opposition (and not just against the opposite gender). It’s an inherently insecure category and one which arguably prizes it’s own fragility in this sense. If your gender identity can be felt to be conditional on a hair growing in the wrong place, an enlarged pore, millimetres of your face or inches on your body, never mind the incessant policing of clothes and the value judgements attached to the most tiny mannerisms (how you eat something is a good example), there’s something strange going on. edit: Thinking about it I guess the fragility thing is mainly just due to femininity being tied up with beauty in a way that masculinity arguably isn't? i.e. there is a strong sense in which we feel (even subconsciously) that to be a 'real' woman you need to be beautiful (namely in line with what a society deems beautiful), whereas a man can be a 'real' man without handsomeness playing any part. I think media depictions really cement this too (when was the last time you saw a main female character who looks actually average or not 'conventionally attractive'?) - I've heard girls/women saying things like that they need to be pretty in order to feel like the 'main character' in their own lives, which is very sad. Perhaps something like 'strength' would be an equivalent kind of bar that men feel they need to meet, but the consequence of women having beauty or 'delicacy' etc so tangled up in their gender identity is surely that beauty is a much more fiddly and exacting kind of lens to live under, and one which can really start to distort your thinking. Sorry for the long comment!
This is SO TRUE. I noticed a lot of these “femininity” videos have subtle tones of excluding “other women” as if femininity is a club reserved for those who are willing to maintain, upkeep and basically attain “perfection” pertaining to looks and “how to best appeal to a man.” These videos basically teach young girls how to look down on other women who aren’t deemed as “high value enough” or just “enough” by whatever standards they place that are rooted in misogyny. Of course not every video surrounding this topic is outdated and backwards like that, but certainly lots from what I’ve seen. Oh and the PRESSURE. The pressure to be as “feminine” as possible in the hopes of being seen as a “baddie” or “high value” or whatever- it’s all just ugh and attempts to “other” other kinds of women who don’t act “accordingly”
Something I found interesting: In French, the word "gentil" means a good, nice person. With the huge influence of France at the time English borrowed that word and others which created the word genteel and, by association, ungenteel, or not "gentil", not "good", evil. Great video as always
It’s kinda scary that you don’t have to live in a bubble physically anymore, a few vids or posts and the algorithm will trap people in an echo chamber virtually. I grew up in a small conservative town in FL and respectability politics were a big deal there. It was interesting to see how so many of my classmates minds changed once they left and went to college in more liberal cities. Especially among the people of color (I’m half Honduran myself) we all learned about micro aggressions and the “jokes” weren’t ok and that there were levels of self loathing everyone developed from living in a bubble.
I wear bonnets out in public and big ass hoop earrings proudly with my tiny Afro’d head held high. I might start wearing brown lipliner and gloss just to piss off colonialism even more!
YOU GO SIS!!! We as Black girls need to decolonize our mind. And serving adherence to the White Patriarchal Order. We need need to learn to just accept ourselves for who we are and not change ourselves to fit with what society deems “desirable” in innate belief to being a object “of desire” to the White Gaze instead of a Human being with emotions, thoughts, feelings, and personality traits. :)))
You are brilliant. End of story. What is a truly feminine aesthetic? Whatever makes you feel confident and feminine. God. What the actual living f**k? This reminds me of the Kardashian menace and her Fulani braids, which she was praised for after wearing them on the red carpet - in the words of Latto, "When they do it, it's cool; when we do it, it's ratchet." Can we kick these avatars of racism off the internet, please?
@@lordtette God. Damn. That is brutal - thank you for telling me about that. I should have done the homework before quoting her, and I really appreciate the reminder to do so (I'm neuroatypical, so I can easily slip into taking people at face value). The quote I cited comes from the Netflix documentary "Ladies First: the Story of Women in Hip-Hop". There were other artists and icons talking about culture vultures, and I wish I'd quoted one of them, instead.
This was such an important message for so many areas of my life and relationships to other people. I’ll be asking myself “what are they trying to sell me?” more often instead of instantly buying in to the marketable feminine ideals.
The quote about marginalised people distancing themselves from elements of their identities to curry favour with the dominant culture resonated with me as a queer woman too. Seems counterintuitive, but I've felt more pressure to be traditionally feminine/"elegant" during periods of my life when I've dated women/nonbinary people than when I've dated men. I grew up with WLW being portrayed as ugly/mannish, and while being visibly queer I've felt like I had to distance myself as far as possible from that stereotype.
I feel this as well, I feel like when I'm ultra-femme I'm proving something. I'm trying to pick apart why I feel the need to do that, why I should even care about stereotypes and what random people think of me. And I love masc women, but there's a part of me that sees me being femme as being "one of the good ones" and I hate it.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Wlw dating gives me so much anxiety bc I feel like I have to decide on whether I want to be more masc or more femme in a relationship and I'm neither really (looks wise and charcter wise). It's much easier to be myself with a man because everything's layed out to some degree even though I'm not the submissive gentle type at all. But I'll always be "the woman" in the relationship, that can't be taken away from me. It sounds awful but it's just how I feel and I hate that it's stopping me from being with a woman.
So essentially they don't care if people are black just don't be unapologetically black. Reminds me of a lot of people I know. It's like there's a criteria people make for when to accept black and brown people and when not to.
I was watching one of those femininity coaches and suddenly she kept saying that people only respect slim woman and that being slim should be every woman’s goal. I immediately unsubscribed because I really don’t believe that personally I was underweight for 10 years and felt awful and now that I gained weight , I feel healthy and happy as well as full of energy. I really think these coaches will say crazy things subliminally till u start to believe them. Be aware and stay safe.
I definitely agree with you when you said to watch these videos if they make you happy, but be careful. There is one particular youtuber who makes how-to-be-feminine videos. She straight up said in an interview that she uses femininity themed videos to sneak in/spread her more extreme far right wing views to her audience.
That’s how they get you. I mean, they are literally peddling advice to uphold the status quo. I just don’t buy any of it; they are selling something insidious
"Why would you wear a bonnet on public?" BECAUSE MY HAIR IS SENSITIVE TO HUMIDITY/TWMPERATURE ITLL FRIZZ UP LIKE GODDAMN. IT KEEPS ITS NOT POOFING UP CUZ ITS CURLY.
The concept of the Arrogant Eye was so eye-opening (no pun intended) and I'm definitely gonna be looking (ok, this one was intended) more into it! Incredible video as always!
I'm a white-passing half-Asian woman who did ballroom dance competitively for many many years, and one of my coaches who was a Russian woman was always on my case about not being elegant and fashionable enough, but her counterpart who I was actually doing competitions with didn't really care. Thinking through it now, it was because there was some kind of correlation with winning and perceptions of elegance (in this case it was mostly classist, as well as racist), and if the man (or the coach) perceived that the couple unfairly lost, they would blame it on the woman not upholding some fabled ideal of elegance for BOTH MEMBERS OF THE COUPLE, which would give everyone involved license to be really emotionally and verbally abusive to her. This lead to her policing me as a way to try to protect me from the same abuse. So glad I'm done with that.
@@peachesandpoets Yet another Tuesday tho eh? :( White folx like me will steal everything from y'all, boil all the spice and colour out of it, claim we made it, all the while shitting on you and everything about you all... Like, "you're not beautiful cause your lips aren't in the same overall proportion as mine"?? Really? Phrenology called and wants it's calipers back...
@@Scriven42 you are an individual. you didn't do anything. you're free to call other people out, but don't take credit for their actions. you didn't do it, nor do you condone it. so please, don't put yourself in the same category as these bigots
@@Crawlingdreams418But I am, in the ways that I mentioned, in the same categories as these bigots. And it's important to state that. Besides, I'm also not perfect. I speak stolen Black language, as does every who grew up in So-called North America, or anyone who uses "Internet Slang". To name only one of my imperfections in this way, for brevity's sake. The problems persist longer when we don't admit who does them and how we're associated with them as individuals.
@@Scriven42 bigotry is a conscious decision, not something you're born with, like, say, being prone to addiction or having an ill temper. you may have instances where you can say something questionable and you have every right to call yourself out on it. but putting yourself in the same category as the assholes who think black women cannot be feminine because of their features is counterproductive. unless you actively defend them or you instructed them to say this crap, you are not responsible for what they do. bottom line is, when you do something wrong, it is clear that you both acknowledge it and want to do better. they know that they're doing messed up things, they don't care. it's wonderful that you want to call bigots out, but please, don't do it at the expense of your self-esteem.
Never heard the phrase "arrogant perceiver" before but it's an excellent term for something that really needed a term lol. Sooooo much stupid crap in society comes down to that exact mental defect some people have where they decide their personal preferences and biases are what's best for society. Great phrase for a niche (but profoundly impactful) problem in society.
In my experience as a fat woman of color, my femininity has always been misunderstood and misrepresented. I've always been masculinized, and seen as a creep if I ever shared who I had a crush on. Anyways, the production of your videos for the past like 6-8 mo ths have been my favorite.
Congrats for the care on blurring the creator and not sharing their name. Besides avoiding the mobbing, you're also not giving them free advertising. And a general "well done!" I found your channel recently and all I saw has been great!
Great video! I think it's also worth noting that respectability politics don't work. Like, if all black women started wearing one of the so-called "elegant" hairstyles, that hairstyle would no longer be seen as elegant due to its association with black women. Like you said, these markers of ideal femininity are valued because of their association with the dominant group. Individual marginalized people might be able to improve their social standing with that dominant group by adopting those markers, but if enough marginalized people took up a certain style, it would lower the prestige of the style rather than elevating the prestige of the marginalized group.
Definitely a class element here too. As a white poor kid my single mum put a lot of pressure on us to always be ‘well groomed and presented’. She also put herself under this pressure and still does to this day. As did her working class mother. A sense of occasion is one thing, internalised classism for fear of being ‘othered’ is another. As a gen x grunge kid, I’m thankful for that period where we, in the predominantly poorer, largely single parent communities, pushed back and owned our charity shop style. Of course this was co-opted by the corporate fashion elites and ‘heroin chic’ was born. From 70s punk, 80s New Romantic, hip hop, 90s grunge, 00’s street wear and so on, oppressive concepts of femininity have and will continue to be subverted. To the Etiquette peddlers cashing in on intersectional inequality, I say YAWN.
I love your skits and editing. Your videos always have an important message but you're able to make serious and uncomfortable topics digestible and with your own flair. I really like it
I'm a cis pansexual black woman, who drives an 18 wheeler for a living. Sometimes, I wear my bonnet on my head while doing it. These "elegance" and respectability politics peddlers can die mad about it. Love your videos.
My parents, although being left leaning and quite open minded, especially considering they're 70, always pressured my siblings and I to have "elegant" manners. I am white and not a UScitz, and Portugal has a different although not at all less complicated relationship with race. Having this in mind, I just though I would point out the deep relation elegance/"good manners" also have with class, that is, of course, historically intertwined with race. At least analysing the education I received, today as an adult, I perceive this pressure, concious but most of times not really, to have these manneirisms as a class indicator. Accents froms regiouns of the interior or the islands, or even the north, are seen as inferior (I had a friend from Madeira that would even try to loose his accent because he thought it was unsophisticated). Not to be that person that pushes the tired idea that class is the most relevant kind of oppression, subdued to these irrelevant artificial hierarchies. All forms of oppression, I believe, are intertwined and connected, sometimes intersecting, sometimes diverging or collapsing. I just thought it might me a nice addition to see the other ways all this "aesthetic" is built in differentiation of power dynamics of many forms.
These femininity coaches are wild. When I started to embrace my femininity, it was about wearing clothes that fit my form better and wearing lipstick now and then. It was about letting go of shame related to wearing shorter shorts or crop tops. It was about taking care of my skin and hair and not feeling bad about liking girly things. It was actually a lot about separating my idea of femininity from these "elegant" things that I was taught in church as a gender role. We had a dinner that was specifically for learning etiquette once and I was told that when a man picked me up on my date, I had to sit first, then put my legs in. It was ridiculous
I feel like in general, pop culture has been reclaiming girly girls and adjacent types with things like "the girl's girl," the return of Y2K aesthetics, Barbie, cottagecore, etc. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with women embracing "femininity", but the thing is, what is feminine and what's acceptable in the first place is a standard set by the dominant culture. Even feminism, I've noticed, has taken a pivot from talking about pretty privilege and body shaming to talking about how despite their beauty, women still face issues. Granted, this has been a semi-issue happening for years, but with few corners to turn to many spaces risk becoming thinner, and most relevantly to this video, whiter.
Yet they only serve a meaningful purpose as function uplift White Supremacist Beauty Standards. Which does not do Women of Color a favor or any means hood of Justice. It’s just another way to make our lives so difficult and miserable. It is because we are Non-White and Non-European…. …..
Just today I came across a tiktok of a slideshow saying something along the lines of "this is what the media wants women to look like" with pictures of black and brown female celebrities followed by a slide that said "but we know deep down what true beauty is like" and something about "high estrogen women" accompanied by pictures of random child-looking white women
Tbh, as a Black woman, I wouldn’t take beauty/style tips from White women. They have different standards of beauty than me. I look to Black women with natural hair as style icons.
It’s sad that this is how the trauma of the black community manifests. The fact that people think that there are, “classy” and “low class” appearances is a big red flag. Outside of how femininity is used as a cudgel, things that other racial groups do have always been low class. This is while a lot of the things black people spend money on is objectively much more expensive. How is a 300 dollar hair style low class and cheap? Because I think a crusty ass 8 dollar hair accessory is not elegant😂
So many of us have been primed for this sort of coaching from a young age. As young girl in a Nigerian family I remember hearing "How will you get a husband if you get food on your clothes" or " A lady must never sit with her legs open" or "One day you will be wife and need to know how to beautify yourself". Women in my life actually did prepared me for life through their actions, warmth and hard work not through strange "man catching/wife making" rules. I'm not the 'ideal' woman and have no plans to be.
This has pissed me off about these "influencers" since the moment they popped up on my feed! Thank you for making a great and concise video essay about them. I feel like most people just laugh them off, but, what they are doing to other women AND themselves is super gross.
thanks for classing up my taco bell this evening, shanspeare :> jokes aside ur work is always so meticulously and intelligently crafted-i both look forward and up to it
as a latina who has never lived in the States but is heavily interested in the culture, I've always found myself feeling so empty when I saw who were the latina women that were famous. Everyone was like: go girl give us latina representation!! Meanwhile, I kept wondering why I didn't look like them. They were always dainty, skinny, big lips, and small nose. (And only brown/tan skin if they were meant to be sexy) It's hard to comprehend that the roots of colonization are still present pretty much everywhere, even rooted in our independent societies far away from the Europeans. And it hurts.
Early in my transition I had a lot of cis friends who would talk about how gender is a construct but then would get upset with me when I would ask how to present more femininely. like y’all understand if I don’t do the most I’ll get hate crimed right?
I'm ftm and I feel the same way about presenting masculine. I don't always really want to but things are scary right now and the only way to be safe in a red state is to try to go stealth
First time viewer and now subscriber. As a child in the sixties if you went to the grocery store on Saturday there would always be white women with their hair in curlers with some sort of head covering or scarves covering their fresh from the beauty shop hair. The bar keeps being moved, frequently by marketing which back then was definitely dominated by white men. I still remember the commercial for hot curlers the jingle, "Curlers in your hair, shame on you." Shaming head coverings, whatever their purpose, is not ok.
Listen, I know I don’t know you personally, but I am SO proud of you. I subbed after the first video I saw of yours because I was so impressed by your artistic vision, strong talking points, and production skills. It’s giving contrapoints slay with a fraction of the budget, and you’re AMAZING for that
I'm genuinely blown away by how elaborate this video was, and while this topic does get more complicated when discussing the trans experience (speaking as a trans person), I think you did an incredible job talking about this topic and it's appreciated that you included this aspect as well. It clearly shows how much research and thought you out into your work.
I’m so glad you’re putting out this content. You create some of the most politically/historically savvy and insightful content I’ve seen in years. Thank you for insight that white women like myself might miss good chunks of on our own. Thank you so much. I’m sending this to everyone I to underscore my belief that “no war but class war” must be replaced with “no war without class war” to recognize the enmeshment of class oppression with other forms of oppression. Thank you again for all your work. The world needs you.
seeing that one coach's comment of "they excluded us because we refused to act right" is I think one of the most heartbreaking things I've seen. just the self-blaming, beaten-down abuse victim of it all. I genuinely had to pause the video and take a moment right there to get my emotional response out.
I used to think I was rough around the edges, that I lacked a delicate touch. But my womanhood is so ingrained in me that I've come to realize that my ways of being feminine are just that. Feminine. I don't need to be Cinderella to be kind, or a ball gown to be beautiful, named after a flower to be delicate. I am all those things, rough edges and all. Now I teach my daughters the same.
I haven’t watched the video yet, but I’m so glad to see this talked about. I see the same thing with “old money vs new money” on tiktok Like people showing long nails, tracksuits, and just tons of aesthetics, styles and trends pioneered by black people. And then talking about how “tacky” new money is. It’s feels like a new way to call black people “ghetto” And then they show the skinny white “old money” women, and it’s labeled as “much better” and “classier” It’s always had a weird racist classist undertone, but whenever I called it racist, people would just tell me I’m overreacting and “it’s not that deep”
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Srry for the strange visual blackout from 24:45-25:17 the file got corrupted halfway through :-> also thanks to Milanote for sponsoring this video! Sign up for free and start your next creative project: milanote.com/shanspeare
Oh, I thought it was a purposeful creative choice to highlight the inner thoughts of the elegance coach by separating her from her outside appearance, as she began to question the intention of elegance coaching. Btw, I think you're awesome.
I totally expected it to come back on with the coach de-femmed lmao
i thought it was artistic. the black screen really forced you to focus on the harrowing audio
we didn't need the video, the speech itself was so powerful and you had so much passion in your voice. i absolutely agree with everything you said !!
I swear Shanespeare could sell me my own leg with these ad reads 😅😅😅 seriously though I genuinely appreciate they are consistently so mindful to accept/choose sponsors that are worth looking into ❤
Racism never goes away it just adapts
Good way of putting it
oppressive systems will only be dismantled once the main benefactors decided to.
fricking a what a line.
@@ishy6875or until they are made to.
Brutal truth
weren’t we all just laughing at conservatively abby and girl defined for doing shit like this not too long ago? but when it’s done *aesthetically* it’s okay to some people?? or so long as it isn’t directly tied to religion?
Well rich people are doing it so it's cool now
And well to go further it's simply because there's a facade that because it's not coming from an obvious oppressor and/or someone with in the audiences community they're more likely to accept it than from someone else
when you justify it by saying it doesn't belong to a certain adjective and a certain "aesthetic" people think it's just the requirements for that niche or whatever, if you straight said that without linking it with a certain niche you would be caught more easily but when you link it to smth else it's like a mask for it, idk if I'm explaining myself
@@sodadepayasito Exactly, this. Because this shit isn't being marketed under an oppressive construction (ei. Patriarchal religion.) And as part of an aesthetic of class, and elegance and is being marketed by women both white and poc, the audience is more willing to accept it as a cool trend rather than the sexist and racist marketing it is.
@@GraveyardMaidenit’s sad how ppl try to emulate and adopt the behaviors and beliefs of rich ppl like…. even if you’re well off compared to most ppl you aren’t even CLOSE to being in the 1% let alone 10% lmao like ppl will start beating down on others so quick whether it’s wealth or another status symbol
If feminity was never for black women, indigenous women, and women of color in the first place, then what's the point in preaching for it???
thats the lie women from these communities were always feminine but for western cultures to justify their mental and physical subjugation monetize from thee inferiority complex they teach them, they have to push the narrative that they are not femenine. if you travel outside of the west you'll see that poc women are the most femenine imo
The argument that feminity is not for black women is he most stupid argument. black women and indigenous women are feminine by nature of being female, and it looks different across different.
Also not for certain nationalities apparently, because god forbid you happen to be white, but from a contry mostly made of villages, "You are just a man in a skirt!" Is what they will tell you, when like, you are literally going to die if you "don't do a MANS job" EVEN IF YOU HAVE A MAN. ONE MAN IS NOT ENOUGH USUALLY.
Not even going to mention that the taking care of kids is still your job, even when you already do the "mans part", but the privileged people still see it as a you problem somehow
To perpetuate white supremacy!
That's essentially what that does!
Because is a way of colonization, if you erase the identity of minorities, it's easier to oppress them
Femininity should be about being confident in your own skin without needing to bring people down.
I feel like this statement is true for masculinity, too.
@@queenmarshmallow8013
To combine your and OP’s sentiments
Femininity: being confident in your own skin as a woman/ femme without bringing other people down
Masculinity: being confident as a man/masc without bringing other people down
@alyssapinon9670 oh wow its almost like being an ideal human involves being confident in yourself and not having to bring others down to do so! How interesting
You have to bring people down to feel better about yourself if you're insecure. If you have confidence, you don't need or want to bring others down
honestly I find the idea of femininity and masculinity kind of dumb. Just be who you are and find your own path, everyone is different.
if she worries so much about elegance she should know that bringing people down is untasteful
I think it's hilarious that these tiktokers are forgetting the most important rule of old Americana femininity... don't speak unless spoken to... Women were expected to be quiet not share their opinions with anyone who listened on an app for gaining attention.
Yes. "Elegance" is just an excuse to put other women down.
@@no_ononono3074except women were allowed to shame other women and since it’s presumed that’s who the content is for, it’s allowed to fly under those restrictions.
@@no_ononono3074 this is reminding me that the most etiquette thing to do is to not look down on others but that can often just be blatantly ignored because people want to look down on someone else.
Who do you see Shanspeare bringing down here? Yt supremacists?
The sheer amount of racial trauma I have around the word civilized
omfg literally
100%
I'm indigenous, it never ends.
In my case, the idea of being "civilized" is tied to being forced to act neurotypical.
Real : (
Ever since I learnt that their definition of feminity is basically the ability to attract a “high value”man, I lost so much interest in these coaches
Edit: like the way they praise Sophia Riche these days just because she married a billionaire as if she didn’t exist before her marriage 😭
Do these women really think that "high value" men are just hanging around looking for the average woman? These men marry the women that already grew up in their circles, that have massive generational wealth all on their own. This is completely pointless for normal people.
Check out Karine Alourde! the people who say that the art of femininity is to get a “high value” man is not doing femininity. For me, i find the genuine people are empowering feminine people to be powerful in your place. Like where your feet are right now, you have power. Masculinity is “if you move your feet and go there you have power”
theyre like the female equivalent of those sigma/alpha male life coaches
@@Booby_toesdays I'm sorry but that sounds like just a different way of saying men should be allowed to explore freely and achieve their dreams and overcome barriers, while women should learn to 'know their place' and accept and endure limitations and discomfort. The narrative of "a woman's empowerment is about finding power 'within her role' and not wishing for a man's life" is identical to mainstream conservative Christian teachings...
I think it makes sense. We're in a pretty bad economic situation in the US. It's a survival technique. I think it's fruitless, though. Besides, in my experience, wealthy men treat women worse, like they're disposable. It's like they don't have the capacity to love. Again, my opinion and experience. They've lacked empathy and been stingy with money because if you want to buy something they wouldn't buy, it's "frivolous" or "foolish." To me, not worth it
It’s so interesting how respectability politics is remodeled for Gen Z and how social media platforms funnel this content out en masse.
As gen z, I like having confidence that our generation (with our ability to see past bullshit and desire for "authenticity") would do better than previous ones...but everyday I learn of a new trend that is actually harmful.
Using "girl dinner", which was meant to be harmless and just show how one girl ate when she didn't have the time to make a full meal, to promote eating disorders; this lame femininity coaching thing with an expected dose of classism and eugenics; cottagecore glamorizing colonialism and whatnot...it makes me worried that the social activism of our generation is just another trend for most people, like the hippies of the 70s.
Maybe I'm being too harsh on us, we're still rather young, but I really don't want our gen to grow up into bigoted, miserable old folk who'd want the younger generations to suffer just as hard or worse than they did. Maybe I'm foolish for expecting all of us to easily notice what was bigoted in nature, and rally against it.
@@Vesperad0 (sorry for the long comment, this one got away from me lol)
I'm a millennial and went through a very similar thought process when I was younger. Being a little older now, I can say my generation is definitely more progressive on average than previous generations and we did get some things right. Hopefully gen z will be more progressive still. But ultimately any generation is just a diverse group of people with all kinds of personalities, politics and experiences. It's easy to focus on the most extreme depressing examples of bigotry and be overwhelmed by it, but it's also important to keep a sense of scale about it. It's definitely good to be aware and engage with problems, but it's also good to remember that the loudest, most obnoxious voices get overrepresented precisely because they're so loud and obnoxious, and people end up boosting engagement with morbid curiosity and outrage.
I think one of the most powerful things you can do as an individual is just model the behaviour you want to see in the world, and don't give into peer pressure. You'd be surprised what an impact it can have on people just seeing someone in their peer group voice a nuanced opinion, or politely decline to go along with a joke, or be pro-actively kind and accepting to marginalised people. You don't need to be scolding people and arguing all the time, but you can find a balanced way to stick to your principles while still being friendly and accepting that most people don't mean any harm. Be willing to say "I disagree, let's talk about it" and "personally I don't judge people like that," and "actually I don't find that funny."
That last one in particular... one thing I saw with my generation was the popularity of joking and memeing about serious topics in a way that was destructive and desensitizing. It was common to say things you 'didn't really mean' as a 'joke', and many people really were being sarcastic, but over time some of those messages sink in at a subconscious level, and younger kids grow up in a culture full of 'ironic' prejudiced or stereotyped humour without really understanding the context. I see that still happening with gen z (it's just a universal human thing) but I hope they can take a lesson from their older siblings and try to move away from constant irony and hyperbole, and try to question what message they're really spreading with jokes and memes.
Like the example you mentioned with 'girl dinner', some people started ironically gendering random things as a comment on arbitrary gender norms, saying 'girl this' and 'boy that' about ridiculous things to show how ridiculous it is... but then younger or less informed people picked up on it as non-ironic trend, where they were actually unironically gendering their daily activities, and then those trends devolved into the same old harmful stereotypes - e.g. 'girl dinner' is eating hardly anything because girls are supposed to be thin, frail, demure creatures who don't have any needs and never take up too much space... then other people started posting things like 'man dinner' with steak and whiskey etc. and linking to their manosphere podcasts. The whole thing circled round to unironic so fast.
I'm not saying don't have a sense of humour. Humour is so important for getting through life and making everything bearable, but my generation made a big mistake with turning every real issue into 'ironic' humour, distancing themselves from painful realities, and creating confusion and misinformation. I really hope gen z doesn't repeat our mistakes!
@@Vesperad0girl, sad to say this is the same old story. As a millennial we were supposed to change the world, that’s what they told us we "new millennia kids" would do. I guess we did, by making the next generations feel lost cause we broke all traditional rules. They exist for a reason, most people don’t want to wake up everyday and decide on absolutely everything. Some people are comfortable following a guide, I would even say most people. I’ve done a good amount of research on this topic for years, to finally conclude older societies had things figured out and CHOSE to stay silent or do nothing in certain areas cause it’s for the benefit of the majority. And sadly it works, that’s the bittersweet truth.
Respectability politics is so goddamn exhausting like, we have actual important shit going on I genuinely couldn't care less about what we look or sound like while we do it. Look at the senate throwing a temper tantrum over fettermans manner of dress and the loosening of the dress code. People on BOTH sides (though let's be real here, mostly conservatives) are up in arms about the importance of decorum (effing lol) while there are massive issues just stalled out having nothing done with them.
@@PossibleBat"benefit of the majority" sounds familiar ☠️
It gave me permission to enjoy feminine things, but some videos are very serious about how things I like (baggy pants, cursing, silly tee shirts) aren't feminine. Which is a problem because feminity, like blackness, isn't a monolith. It sucks to feel excluded from elegance because black feminity is its own thing, and I never fit into the box labelled "elegance" because I'm black
Trans woman here -- this kind of stuff also makes it hard for me to be perceived as a woman at all. I don't pitch my voice through my nose much and I talk loudly, and I'm very vocal on top of that. So since I haven't had vocal surgery, a lot of the time when I'm just talking with friends and being loud or passionate, there's that "oh you sound like a cis man" in my head (and people who only hear my voice often think I'm a guy). Same thing with appearance/dress -- atm, while I haven't had any laser hair removal or surgeries, there's a relatively narrow list of things I can wear and still pass. And even when I do, my odds of being "sir"d in public are like 20% instead of 2%.
This isn't by any means the same stuff that Black women deal with being excluded by "elegance" but I couldn't help and notice some of the same parallels of how non-"""conventional""" women have to act to be perceived as feminine. It's a performance required of us, regardless of our authenticity to ourselves.
As a trans woman who enjoys their androgyny, all of this resonates
And what makes it worse is when we leave our boxes, our circles where we can be black and feminine or trans and feminine or androgynous and a woman, and suddenly feel...
Persecuted (? May not be the right word) for not being "feminine" or not being feminine "in the right way" or even "not a woman/person of value"
Edit - Dismissed might be a better word than Persecuted
The thing is even when we're only looking at someone's appearance, one item (baggy trousers, T-shirts, baggy tops, etc.) gives different impressions on each individual. For example, I actually look more "feminine" when I have pixie hair when short hair is basically deemed as a no-no when it comes to "looking feminine". Keep in mind that this is only based on appearance. This means that there's no monolith in being feminine, even when we're only looking at it at the most superficial level.
I think these coaches are just creating and following aesthetics, which I think is also why it's easily capitalized because they can just say that "you need this thing and that thing to be feminine" or whatever just to sell their products.
@@alia_babowhat i don't get is WHY I should be feminine. Like, how does trying to be a certain way add to my life? same goes for masculinity.
if I wear a dress and makeup, it's because i like how I look in it and feel comfortable in it, not because i want to be feminine.
@@user-ny1wo1vp9r I wonder that, too. Not everyone wants to be seen as feminine and if we're going off of what these people deem as "feminine", there are many people who can be considered as feminine (by their standards) when they don't want to be seen as feminine at all.
the kicker of it all is that even if you "succeed" at meeting the dominant culture's expectation for "respectability," the dominant culture will just change what they consider "respectable" for you. you can't win, because the point was never for you to become "respectable." the point was to create a society where you need never be shown respect.
This. 100%
pretty much. i've seen a ton of caucasian women make themselves look paler to be less likely to be discriminated against by white people only for the latter to raise the bar even higher
Well said
Black women started wearing weaves to meet white beauty standards, then they made it 'ratchet' to wear weaves 🙄
Wow! Yes!
it's giving "alpha male" but marketed for girls✨👑💖💋💅🏻 lmao
Spot on.
Cause that’s what it is, gaslight gatekeep girlboss 💅🏻✨
Exactly 💯
The way I used to eat this up but then realized I was much happier being “ghetto” and “ratchet”, made the most authentic and meaningful relationships, and had less worries… I switched back and I’m thriving. Although I do code switch like every other black person, I’m still gonna be me and not someone else entirely. What turned me off was realizing all these “coaches” were doing this for men. It was always centered around men and I’m celibate so idgaf about doing anything to attract a man or marry. Realizing I was never meant to be “elegant” and “feminine” was freeing. I’ve always been a girly girl, but those videos made me hate dressing up at some point. I felt like I HAD to, and it wasn’t enjoyable anymore. Plus, I see a lot of the girls turning into conservatives or right-winged… I don’t want that lol
I've always thought the alpha male guys should link up with the sprinkle sprinkle feminity girlies. They both pedal the same trad views
Respectability politics ruined my childhood. Especially when I just wanted to wear my Afro as a child. It made me so happy, but then I’d go to my grandma’s house and have every woman in my family put me and my mom down about it (even though my mom wouldn’t let me out with my Afro, I had to let it out after I got to school).
“You’re mom let you out the house like that?”
“Did your mom not do your hair today?”
“😒”
“😬”
“😧”
yea. and that was my family. Of black women
i'm so sorry you were denied your hair, i hope you can now wear it with pride and joy
Gross, even if a part of the reason they reacted like that is because of the time they grew up in. At some point they'd have to realize that what makes you black isn't a sin, but that'll take time and patience, and evidently not a lot of older black folxs care to process racism.
If they can't do it for queerphobia, ableism, xenophobia, and so on, I doubt they'll care to deal with internalized racism.
I really hope you feel comfortable wearing your hair however you want, as well as knowing your hair isn't inherently a political statement; may you decide if you switch between flat ironed and Afro puffs, and only you decide. Short, long, protected, natural, under a bonnet or with a durag...do what you want with your hair.
🤦🏾♂️Damn Betsy. It's difficult for me to hear that. It must have had such a painful impact on you, as a child, to hear your trusted, adult, loved ones talk like that.
Really sorry you had to go through it. Know that they were pushed into that type of thinking by the hate they surely recieved. Nothing that you did.
Mind you, I was glad to hear that, even as a child, you had an indomitable spirt and rebelled by secretly letting your hair out. 😎
That's badass sister.👍🏾
😊
I've heard more racism from black and Mexican people about black people than I have from white people. (In my personal life.) It's so sad that they think repeating the racist ideas of the white man from the past or today's racists might bring them closer to being accepted by white society. I don't see why people can't just live and be themselves without constantly worrying about what the white people might think of them. So sad.
I was so pissed when I found out relaxers were straightening my hair and my mom was hiding a part of myself from me that I never knew existed and I had to learn to groom it all over because I missed out on growing up with it. I went through so many periods of sadness and frustration with my hair before I finally found out what works for it and accepted that no tutorial will get me 3c hair and that there were styles my hair could do that I personally found beautiful. (I think my straightened hair gave her a sense of pride when people would come on it's length and thickness.)
*I have returned for more nourishment, mother.*
welcome, child.
Whew as a Black girl who grew up in a predominantly white, German-Catholic, conservative neighborhood and being one of literally less than 10 people of color this triggered like everything I ever heard growing up. My dad was always insistent that I had to be the smartest person in the room bc people would instantly expect me to be lesser bc I was a Black girl. It wasn’t even until college that I made other Black friends and it was so relieving to not have to perform but also nerve wracking to navigate my own identities as they were squashed as a kid. I’m so glad I didn’t have TikToks like this when I was growing up bc seeing it spelled out like that 😵💫
Yeah, as a Canadian of Indian decent, living in a very white Conservative place, I'm ridiculously empathetic towards this comment.
Thank you kindly for posting your experience.
👍🏾🧠💯🎯👏🏾
Same! I feel solidarity with you.
This sounds exhausting, I hope you're in a community you like better now.
We dont have to prove anything to ppl that generalize an entire group of ppl they know nothing about and therefore, lack intelligence
ugh thats a terrible environment to grow up in and the long lasting traumaaaaaa---its great u got out of that during uni but damn; i get the pain
always impressed by your production value and scripting. creative genius.
Iconnnn 🙇🏾♂️
have you addressed the autism video yet or are we just gonna forget about it…
@@lilacfields and the body shaming too😬
@@lilacfieldslmao I thought I imagined that happened
@@lilacfieldswait what happened
I really hate the way these femininity tiktoks are used as ammunition towards Black Women. We’re already seen as “masculine, aggressive, non submissive” blah blah blah 🙄 it’s so frustrating. I refuse to let anyone dictate what is or isn’t feminine in my life. I’m a woman. I don’t need to “perform” femininity or do anything to be more feminine. Womanhood to me is whatever the hell I say it is 😂
Thanks for such an amazing video as always Shanespeare. 💕
“I refuse to let anyone dictate what is or isn’t feminine in my life. I’m a woman. I don’t need to “perform” femininity or do anything to be more feminine. Womanhood to me is whatever the hell I say it is.”
THIS. This needs to be written on a plaque somewhere bc girl you said it! And I like how you said “perform” bc it’s so true how these videos are designed to pressure women into feeling like they are not enough and have to “perform” femininity. And we really DON’T, we are fine as we are and WOMAN ENOUGH. I swear society tells women that they are not “woman enough” in so many ways and this comment really nailed it! And the whole pressuring women to be submissive thing while shaming other women who are outspoken is just so icky
It really sucks because being submissive, quiet, small, unassuming is just asking to be abused. It's not something to aspire to. I know, because I'm naturally like that and I've been a target for bullying and abuse since I was a kid. I had to find my loudness and bitchiness, and find a way to take up space to feel comfortable and more secure in the world. Feminine clothing: heels, dresses, etc, just make you slower and uncomfortable. Wear what you like. Why need to be feminine? We're already women. That's enough.
As a white woman, I hate how "feminity" channels glorify trauma and tell women to be passive, submissive and helpless.
I've experienced learned helplessness and social anxiety as trauma response. I've commited to heal and be the most confident, healthy, unchained version of myself. I don't appreciate sexist bs.
I've watched many black women who inspired me and I loved their confident, authentic energy. There's nothing they should change to fit someone's little box.
"Feminity channels" tell us to remove the most vibrant, eccentric, unique parts of us and become sad shells without voice and personality.
@@xletragedyxTotally agree! That's my experience as well. Just wrote similar comment before reading yours.
Damn right‼️😎
Nice to know future generations will stand on your shoulders.
Love this comment.
Thank you kindly.
👏🏾🎯💯🧠👍🏾
I knew this is gonna happen since that quiet luxury aesthetic became a trend on Tiktok (social media). There would be more "elegant/feminine" content, which in turn would start promoting racisms with the guise of "aesthetic".
It’s really obvious every single time. Always the racism! To me, the only solution is rejecting these concepts entirely. It has nothing to do with me!
ever notice how most of this starts getting popular when there is a global crisis of new levels of economic exploitation/hardship, the world being on the verge of WW3, the west going unchecked in wars/coups/sanctions the past 30 years while creating a refugee crisis...which in turn they need to blame minorities with no power, rather than the actual capitalist class that is causing it? notice how most of the media is owned by a few elite billionaires, who have all this power to influence people's views so easily if they haven't learned to think critically? even with tiktok, people don't know that it only went out the news because they were forced to *have* to allow ex-CIA agents as senior roles/board members to control content? of course this would all be reactionary topics that have been recycled for the past 150 years with a twist, whenever there is a economic crisis for the working classes.
women should believe they're going to land one of the tiny minority of men on the planet who are wealthy, while we are over 50% of the population? that our dream should be to be the servant of some mini-jeffrey epstein wannabe? because that's how most billionaires act, and of course the richest in the world are mostly men. it's just new american dream nonsense for women! i really hope people learn a bit more about how capitalism works by promoting propaganda on all media platforms. you can't have free news when a few billionaires are allowed to own the majority of media on the planet! if you look at the top influencers who post stuff like this, same with the manosphere section, so many are funded by a select few billionaires. really, i encourage everyone to learn how to easily search who funds big influencers, because the vast majority are earning money through these methods. anything that divides the working class and stops critical thinking, as that may actually mean they try to work to change this corrupt system /s
hate from the first sight. it' giving not being able to bend your elbows cos your hands will go numb cos your size-approlpriate jacket is TOO FRIKIN TIGHT
As a white woman the "feminine energy" movement always seemed sick to me. It's a desperate attempt to try to bring back traditional roles using pseudoscience, gross generalizations and simplifications, and trying to grant depth to blatant superficiality.
Yes. It was weird. "The Feminine Divine" "Goddess" jazz ....... really culty.
@@miriamhavard7621Sometimes I see so called feminists describe femininity as divine and it’s like..no. Divinity doesn’t exist. There is nothing supernatural or magical about human behaviors. It’s instincts mixed with socialization mixed with cultural constraints. Women aren’t special, men aren’t special.
Period
True :3
@@miriamhavard7621oh that mess irks me
Between this and TikToks glorifying physiognomy, it really feels like a dark repeat of racist history.
I know right? I’m so scared as a poc
Hold up I need to look something up
oh weird, ew
oy vey
@@DoormanSoormanSame...
Once had a dude complained i wasnt being "classy" if i ever showed any ounce of my own type of sexual expression for him. He made me feel completley unconfident then had the audacity to complain that i wasnt confident. Wish i broke up with him sooner.
or jettisoned him off the side of a cliff overlooking a landfill
Defenestrated him, perhaps. Convince him you were Superman since he was an idiot already, and watch him pull a Lois Lane
Those type of guys are dangerous cause they get off having power over women and abusing them. If you display any signs of self-identity and express needs it's a turn off to them. It was most likely a narcissist or worse.
Think of it this way. It may have lasted longer than you wanted and/or was healthy... but at least you know never to go down that gaslight, rabbit hole ever again.
😊
huge red flag
I can't stop noticing that most of these 'elegant coaches' seems to come from Eastern Europe. I'm Ukrainian and every time I visit Ukraine or Russia, I am reminded of how I'm not behaving ladylike. Sexism and gender expectations are way more rigid in Eastern Europe. I have been commented on my short hairstyle, non feminine fashion etc when visiting Russia
I’ve met a woman from there that is hella superstitious and very controlling to her American husband who used to be friends with my husband. Yeah I’m glad I no longer subscribe to that type of femininity anymore as a masc presenting non-binary person
That's a great point! I am an American (though with Eastern European heritage) and have visited Russia twice. I noticed I stood out a lot in my T-shirts and jeans because I noticed the Russian ladies dressed up basically all the time and wearing heels even when you had an apartment like my one host mother's that had no elevator and lots of stairs. I remember going, "How do they do it in heels all the time?"
That hair thing is serious here. I have thin (also oily) hair so I used to wear it short and I noticed it is considered less feminine by the society. 😣 Meanwhile I find men with long hair attractive. 😜
@@chrissy1237 yes, the irony in that all is they are obsessed with the feminine look, however they didn't consider attractive the bigger hips/butt/tights which are feminine traits too, even more than the long hair.
@@ZivanovaableThe fact that they were able to flip thin, narrow bodies into an inherently feminine trait and curvy bodies which are biologically more feminine (women have more fat placement in their hips to aid childbirthing) as less ideal is just a show of how prominent white supremacy is.
The bonnet thing makes me so mad, bonnets protect your hair. So yes I spent all this money on my hair so…I’d like to protect it. Me wearing my bonnet to the gas station or to Walmart doesn’t mean I’m jobless, stupid, a bad person, etc. it’s just a bonnet!!! Why do we care so much about a piece of FABRIC on someone else’s head?? If you don’t want to wear your bonnet in public that’s fine! You do you!! And allow me to be me!!
omg yessss and whenever I go to sleep at a white person's house, or someone who doesn't need to use a bonnet, they judge me for wearing one
Am I allowed to cringe at you if I do. It is hella annoying to see anyone white or black wearing a bonnet. It is tacky. You wearing a bonnet does not mean you are jobless or a bad person. But it does mean you are really annoying.
Bonnets is sleepwear. It's not a good look in public. You can buy a beautiful Headwrap and cover your hair to protect it, but a bonnet does not look good in public. Fighting to hold on to something that should be let go is something that us black women need to learn for the betterment of ourself.
Exactly… White women constantly go out ball caps and wear those ridiculous big brown hats. And I’ve never seen anyone condemn white women for that. So it shouldn’t be any different for a woman of color to wake at a bonnet!
Bonnets are designed sleepwear. If I saw someone out and about in slippers they could argue, it's to protect their feet, but slippers are for in-house, wear sandals for outside. We do have all types of headwraps that prorect black women hair and make you look beautiful and presentable outside. Bonnets do make you look lazy, just like wearing slippers outside.
I always thought the shift in current beauty standards have made "certain women" upset because them in their basic form is no longer the standard of beauty and this is their attempt at squashing the current aesthetic that has some element of black feature/aesthetics. There is no way all of these women are this triggered by simple things like big lips,lip liner, curvy body shapes, larger hum, and expressive fashion. This is their attempt at returning the standard back to white and basic. The black femininity coaches do the same thing with trying to label an aesthetic as "ghett0" and a less dramatic appearance as "classy"
I see girls with baby hairs pull "high value men". I know they hate to see that what is attractive varies to people.
I would also add that beyond black femininity coaches, some Black TH-cam and TikTok MUA and beauty guru influencers participate in respectability politics all the time. You can tell they aspire to these problematic "elegant" standards based on the makeup trends and lifestyle and beauty products they're promoting such as outfits, skincare, fragrances, interior decorations, vacation aesthetics and locations etc. All in all, it's lacking character and personality. Conformity is a drug.
@@haingo9079 they want us to be respectable to the ultra rich men who may bless you with a few pennies, yet the ultra-rich/"educated" (statistically the ultra rich have lower IQs than middle income working class) are disrespecting the vast majority of the world by treating it like a playground & running about like mini-epsteins. where was the respect when they insist on hoarding most of their generational stolen wealth? where is the respect when millions are dying from wars caused by them? where is the respect for democracy when it's proven it's completely useless in the west under capitalism by a princeton study, because they use their stolen wealth to lobby politicians to do what's in their best interest? why do people care about being seen as "respectable", when really it's just being classist and a class betrayer if you're not in the elite capitalist class? don't be respectable to these people, actually grow a backbone and get better at thinking critically. read lenin or something, trying to make ourselves less intelligent/pick-me to these guys is pathetic, it is complete betrayal and believing a complete grift. these people are grifters! there's a lot of money in making propaganda for the ultra rich!
i fear the day this could become popular in scotland, because at least still here being seen as something not working class is a massive embarassment. that is why the elite capitalist class don't mingle very much with the rest of the population. being working class/poor is seen at least as being not a exploitative tory. it's actually seen as a sense of pride and perseverance amongst anyone not a rich tory. people are more likely to larp as being poorer than they actually are for a better social standing, not the other way around lol. if you start acting like how these classist women act, you'll be bullied for it and rightly so. however, i know that social media is powerful, so i worry for the next generation.
🤔🤨 very interesting theory.
Girl, I'm about to hit you up right now and have a whole conversation about this!
I think you’re onto something. I think some of these women are threatened by a beauty aesthetic that is not accessible to them. Like the “elegance coach” who mocked black women’s use of dark lipliner and nude lipstick, and mocked the use of contouring to make one’s lips appear fuller. She herself has very thin lips, and although there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, her lips are not a noteworthy feature.
It’s sour grapes disguised as beauty advice and “good taste”, imo.
My problem with the femininity community is when they called natural black hair styles “ not elegant “ and “ not feminine enough “. Natural black hair styles are elegant. We really need to get rid of this mindset that only straight hair can be “ elegant and feminine “. Also I feel like a lot of women even black women get their femininity from what white people deem femininity in other words white women’s femininity. I feel Karine Alourde is the only creator I came across that actually gives great advice to women on how to improve ourselves both mentally and physically and she doesn’t just focus on attracting “ a high value man “.
I always find it funny, that straight hair wasn't even the white dominant preferred style until like 40 years ago (80 ish if you want to count the Louise Brooks bob).
I watched Morgan's video recently of 500 years of hair styles. And they all wanted curls. 4C in many variations for years. It's literally hilarious.
I know right!! I feel soooo feminine and soft in my Afro!! Love it!!
@@coilyheadedbbybecause you ARE!!!🌺
Yes............
I genuinely think it must be so exhausting thinking about these things all the time. Like who really gives a shit if someone wears a bonnet??? Don’t y’all have better things to do?
I remember cringing internally at a black girl I saw at a supermarket wearing a bonnet, but it didn't take be very long to think _why_ I felt embarrassed for her.
Most people know what the hell a bonnet is used for, and there's a whole ass meme about white girls and messy buns, how is a bonnet any different?
They most certainly are under the pressure of being seen as a monolith, and so they begin to resent any other black person who doesn't present themselves the way they'd want. They feel as if other black people existing as they are threatens their validity as a woman, or a person to begin with, but instead of taking it out on the man behind the axe they blame the wood for not being strong enough...even if the man took years to chop the tree down.
I.cringe when I see people wear bonnets in public. I am not sorry about that. You better get your damn hair done before you leave the door.
@@Vesperad0I am not embarrassed by her. I am embarrassed for her. You do not need to wear a bonnet at a supermarket. You have every right to wear that bonnet and I have every right to not like it and think it is stupid. Because it is.😊😊😊
@@lisah8438 🤷♀️have fun i guess?
@@lisah8438you don't know what that person's life is. Maybe she's fighting depression or anxiety so strong it took all her energy just to get to the store. Judging isn't elegant.
funny how i got verbally attacked in real life by a “femininity coach” “womens empowerment” tiktoker who got a little too drunk at a function and didn’t like my outfit 💀🤪🤮 not very ‘feminine' of her to slut shame me in front of 250 people. im jus lucky i had so many witnesses (i wont drop her name here but jus be careful making people ur idols alright ✌)
If it ever happens again, make sure to tell her that she is unfeminine for "speaking without being spoken to on a topic that is not suitable for a woman to discuss in public". They leave out the biggest social expectation of expressing femininity according to European/old Americana standards.. BEING QUIET AND MEEK/SHY! As a southern woman, this idea is still passed along in some white generationally wealthy families. If a young woman tries to talk politics/culture/or really anything viewed as unconventional, especially about what men want, an older man in the family will likely throw some shade at her and tell her to shut up in a passive aggressive way.
Name drop!! 😂
@@MsElizaRaespill da 🫖☕!
cursed "popular girl" vibes 🤮
I’m adding “got a little too drunk at a function” to my bucket list.
They stay targeting black women even when we aren’t talking abt them 💀
They hate how free and unbothered we are 😂
The only place where the rent is free for black people is in white folk's heads lolbs
"The streets gathered her like a ponytail." Girl, I guffawed!
Yes, not everything is for one but to be so easily brainwashed ashore by the ever rocking hatewaves of new era colonizers...is wild.
Thank you for all you do and all the best!
Even as a white boy, I just know that H*tler would love these tiktoks of these elegant "sophisticated" pretentious women
especially the one made by young teens
Because it's all fascism! You can have your style but not force it on others and shame women who don't want to be part of your group.
not really. this man hated slavic women and most of these tiktokers are, in fact, slavic
@@Crawlingdreams418he planned to let Slavic ppl who fit his ideals of whiteness to homogenise into German culture actually
@@Crawlingdreams418so they are under-read cowards to go along with it. Shouldn't that have more poignancy. Acting up the behaviours that were part of the dominant cultures that hurt their ancestors is a pathetic look.
Their racism is just insecurity.
I believe so too, their control is slipping so they need to reign things back in
Manifests by way of racism, pining to win in a patriarchy. It’s pathetic.
It always, always has been. It's a system of control.
I feel like a lot of queer people participate in respectability politics. I've seen people like Blaire White make a whole career off of it. I myself have denied queer history or sided with homophobic rhetoric to meet a "quota of heteronormativity" to avoid being ostracized. But if I have to deny what I know to be accurate to gain favor it's not really worth it.
TL;DR : respectability politics has roots in many oppressed minorities and marginalized people.
Didn't Blair White diagnose herself as autogynaphilic and sau she was a subset of man and definitely not a woman?
completely agree. it’s like the idea of “i’m (insert oppressed minority and/or marginalized group) but i’m one of the “good ones” since i meet x, y, or z”
I vibe with that, as a queer neurodivergent person, my masking sometimes falls into that category becuase I want to be "safe". However once I learned how to unmask, I've gotten SO MUCH WORSE at masking that its to the point that I just don't mask anymore (unless like job interviews vibes) because I "look like a weirdo" either way, which is weirdly freeing? "Fuck it they're not going to treat me like "one of the good ones" so why should I even bother!" is the best feeling when you have it
What exactly does respectability politics mean? I mean if you’re not going to behave in a respectable way (ie a way that denotes respect for others) then you can’t complain when people don’t have respect for what you are trying to accomplish. Is that not simple math?
@@evaphillips2102 respectability politics doesn't mean being a decent person is bad. It means that the most hateful to your community decides what possibly you can be to be accepted then you go around doing it, denouncing others for not doing it, and lamenting to those that hate you that it's not you but those others in your community that are ruining it for you. Think Muslims listening to what Islamophobes say they should act like to be accepted then not only acting like it but harassing and scapegoating those that refuse to act like this "model Muslims" and throwing them under the bus. In today's example it's those Muslims that swear up and down that Muslims are violent and distance themselves from other Muslims; but reality shows more violence has been enacted on Muslims than Muslims on non-Muslims.
The responsibility politics works against the marginalised community the way Candace Owens insults black people and is anti-feminist yet has championed a companion using feminist pushed legislation in pursuing a divorce against a man abusing her and she herself used the NAACP to help her fight racist discrimination (and have you seen all the racist sexist abuse she faces from the people she's trying to earn their respect?)
That's it, it's pretty simple actually. In general human lingo they're people like the pick me girlies that annoy women and loose the respect of the men they're trying to earn their respect.
As someone who loves all things 'feminine', I often find myself feeling ashamed for not fitting certain standards because of my race, features, body, hair, ... That's when I have to remind myself that this kind of feminity is a construct born from white, racist ideals. There are so many interesting ideas on what it means to be feminine all across the globe that I'm more comfortable with. I don't want to put my energy into chasing this kind of ideal anymore, when someone like me was never meant to attain it anyway.
ive found that looking up to /finding people through things like pinterest who have my facial features i dislike or body features i dislike has seriously helped me with image
hated my stretch marks and scars until i looked up models and photographers that showed off those kinds of bodies etc. i hope this helps
Amen we can define femininity for ourselves !!
Do what you like. Wear what you like. Fuck everyone else. You don't need the acceptance of others to wear what you think is pretty. You've got this. Do you mind sharing other cultural ideals of femininity that you've come across?
I wrote long comment but youtube removes it...🙄
Essentially I said you should be enjoying yourself bc most WW want the things W of color have.
Don't you know that WW want to have darker skin, thicker hair, dark eyelashes?? Some won't admit they want what you have so they will act mean.
I am WW and I appreciate women of color beauty a lot.
I do like my genetics but often wish I had thicker darker eyelashes.
But the point is we should be enjoying ourselves uniqueness without "beauty standards" bs. All women have insecurities which is also stimulated by marketing to push plastic surgeries, make up etc.
liked immediately because shanspeare never disappoints
Exactly
this is the realest shit
fr fr
💯%
I've also noticed this attitude in trans tiktok. So many videos about how to be a proper "woman" (aka, a cis white woman). So many content creators telling you that you need to be respectable, that in order to be a woman, you need to repress anything trans about you. If you take it seriously it's going to f**k with your self-image. And even though I don't take it seriously, i still find it impacting how I see myself, how I dress and appear. How respectable I look to others.
Not to mention those "trans finders" or whatever the hell they go by on social media, deeming nearly every brown woman alive as masculine and therefore trans. A wonderful trio of misogyny, racism, and transphobia. Transmisogynoir, if you will.
I really don't think those creators realize just how harmful they're being, because all they're focused on is trans women, without realizing that ""masculine traits"" aren't consistently and undeniably "male" in humans. As far as I'm aware, according to gender stereotypes and associations, no human can possibly be 100% female or 100% male. From chromosomes to genitalia presentation to gender identity to bodily structure and so on.
There was literally a cis woman locked inside a bathroom stall because another cis woman was convinced she was a "man" (trans woman)... because her hair was short. I'm not sure if she also had a flat chest and/or androgynous voice, I forget, but regardless she was harassed until police were called. Even if they don't care about the damage they cause to trans people in general, they fail to realize they'll hurt cis women in the process, all for useless bigotry.
That seems to intertwine with the whole “anti-transtrenders” thing that people like Kalvin Garrah and Blaire White seem to push. You must conform to gender standards and actually pass off as your preferred gender to “truly be trans”. If you don’t pass off, you’re “fake trans.”
Urgh I remember seeing a master post on tumblr for trans men. How to sit, how to walk, how to dress etc. It was too much
White trans women still have that white male supremacy mindset it’s disgusting!
Dylan is the absolute embodiment of this!
As a white person, Im really grateful for Insight like this. I sometimes see content that feels weirdly rascist, but I will not really be able to put my finger on as to exactly to the point why.
I have recognized a lot of things that rascist structures do in my everyday life. A big thanks to this is you, Shanspeare, and many other black creators. I wasnt fully aware of how just how much rascism either seeped into things I usually dont pay much thought to, Or how much the rascism itself is excused, or how it works and how its executed.
Im really thankful to have people who explain this so well, do so much research, and put blood sweat and tears into it. I cannot thank you enough.
Watching your videos has literally bettered my life and the way I interact with people, Its been huge. I hope you one day get the flowers you truly deserve as such an amazing content creator.
The insight on a topic like this is especially important to me, Because I enjoy a lot of aesthetics that often center whiteness and or thinness. The fact that I HAVE to look for creators who are of colour, Or not stick thin / slim with curves is sad. But I am very happy to find platforms theyre on. This doesnt mean the aesthetics dont carry the centering of whiteness/Thinness, But I am glad to be able to find creators who dont follow that mindset, because I know what red flags to recognise.
Thank you kindly for listening and learning.
Good on ya'‼️😉
👏🏾🎯💯🧠👍🏾
Racism* not rascism.
Black women, all eyes on us. Its' about control. They see us, our beauty, confidence and aesthetic. We're no longer fighting to fit in. We are far from the western standards and they don't like it.
That's a great point ! When you try to fit in, they ignore you, but when you make your own lane, they're 👀
Big facts...I like my funky clothes, talking with my earthy tone, wearing my hair in Nubian styles and when I say they be like👀👁️. Like how dare you try to be black and love it too🤣🤣🤣
Adds up, really.
Love this POV
Fr
If you think THIS is insane, wait until you hear about lesbians who want femme/butch dynamics, ONLY in the context of 50s aesthetics, knowing damn well how black lesbians were faced at that time, even admitting to liking that part the most....
Radfems who idolize traditional white lesbian femininity always give "2 steps away from ecofascist" vibes. I call it the radfem tradwife horseshoe theory
wait what? Is there really a community doing that?
I wish dark skin would stop being masculinized. It affects the men yes but also affects the women. Viola Davis spoke of an interview how she could never get a movie for her to star as a woman falling in love in Italy but she could instantly get a slave movie or a movie of her struggling/suffering.
Genuine question: wdym "relationship dynamics in the context of 50s aesthetics"? How can a relationship dynamic be determined by historical clothing? Also, is it really harmful to like historical aesthetics, when it's pretty clearly supposed to be an escapist fantasy? Like, I'm pretty sure white queer people wouldn't want to live in the 50s either, i know i wouldn't (this isn't me trying to make your life harder, i swear, I'm just trying to understand)
@@tamarbeker1701 so I think I'll explain it better. Many butches take inspiration from 50s male style. Like, 70% of them all look like Elvis reincarnated. So, there's a few lesbian bars who adapt a 50s aesthetic to them, to further get into that feeling. And I've heard MANY white lesbians across social media say that they wish these bars would not allow black lesbians in it to make it feel more "authentic". As if a LESBIAN BAR in the 50s is authentic.
Thank you for speaking up about this. Femininity has always been exclusively to white women only and never black and brown women and it’s time to change that shit
“Always” you must have never heard of Pearl Bailey, Henrietta Lacks or Dorothy Dandrige. Brown women especially have their own take on femininity (Rita Moreno, Aishwarya Rai) white women have simply been the most visible women throughout history.
@@evaphillips2102 I have heard of them and that is not to negate that they were iconic for their femininity but in terms of a whole, I have always seen white women completely become the standard of what it is to become feminine. What I feel most is that when it comes to us, as black and brown women we are not feminine but rather sexualized. Sexualized to a point in where it strips us of our humanity.
@@evaphillips2102yes but white women always have the spotlight, and the attention of the majority.
However the African women looks innately very feminine by my opinion.
@@evaphillips2102Even they mimic 'white beauty standards,' though.
The racism that so deep-rooted into these “elegance 101” videos truly make me sick. Almost every video I saw about “elegant” hairstyles featured black girl/women hair styles as “inelegant” and when the creators were called out on it they pushed out a half ass apology talking about “im sorry im not trying to be racist, just informative.” The audacity.
"I'm merely performing a service FOR you, by letting you know you're racially inferior...." said tearfully, in true DARVO fashion.
@@miriamhavard7621 My thoughts exactly.
Can there be a follow up video exploring why a ton load of those ‘beauty coaches’ have Eastern European accents? It’s even funnier when they try to do the ‘being a lady’ and ‘upper class’ thing pretending to be aristocracy when their ancestors were surfs who literally took down the monarchy.
i’ve seen a few feminist tiktokers talk about the connection of incels/neo-nazis and eastern european women. incels have seemed to moved on from scandinavian women being considered the highest class of women and instead turned to eastern european women because of modern feminism. i’ve seen a lot of incels praising eastern european women because feminism is not as mainstream in their communities as it is in scandinavia. i think a lot of these beauty coaches have noticed the praise they get online by these men and try and capitalize off it. which is really awful not only for them upholding white supremacy and gender roles for attention, but innocent slavic women are constantly treated as a fetish :(
Thank You for sharing this, I was not aware of the trend.
I keep forgetting American incels don’t travel and ignore history. Completely agree it’s a very fictionalised and fetishised view by people who never actually been to, met or dated someone from any of the countries grouped as Eastern Europe. But also unsurprising that some leaned into this stuff.
because hatred is engraved in ru**ian culture. they are the first ones to cry about bigotry that happens in the US or in the west in general, while having dozens of derogatory terms for anyone who isn't 100% white and russian (not to mention the hate crimes they don't fucking want to address). my father is half caucasian (though he's white, not brown like most caucasians) and he got death stares from ru**ians. imagine what would have happened if his caucasianness was more obvious...
😄🍿🥤
@jjudova1 I'm screaming at your line about these beauty coaches being the descendants of serfs who took down the monarchy 🤣
The irony of them attempting to emulate the same people their ancestors despised ... fucking hilarious!
Thank you again for sharing that 👏🏿
the editing and production design!!!! it’s giving ungenteeeeeeel
how does it feel to be the only other name in a Shanspeare credit reel! 🎤
@@Shanspearemy ego is inflating my head is too heavy for my shoulders and now i’m confined to my chaise longue :///
I think the bonnet issue has some cross over with how wearing Pjamas, hair rollers, face mud, showing body hair, going truly make up free outside is seen as unclassy.
People dont want to be reminded that women have to take extra steps to be well groomed. People dont like to be reminded that women are pressured to shave, wax, put product in their hair, have a skin care routine and to cover up any natural 'imperfections'.
Dear Shanspeare,
I'm an almost 50 year old white cis man and really enjoy your videos. Luckily for me, I born and raised in the Bay Area.
I came to a realization about 6 years ago and it was something along these lines: everything I think about another person, be it someone I only glance at once, or someone I know well, those thought have absolutely nothing to do with them per sa, but are in truth, a complete projection of who I am.
Thanks for brightening my day and simulating my mind.
Wow‼️
Really well said. Insightful and enlightened.
Spread the word‼️🤣
Thank you kindly.
😊
i hate "femininity" type of content. thank you Shanespeare for this amazing video
Man this really hits home!
20 years ago dating a guy who just loved the christian/southern/purity ideal of feminity....
Left very little room for anything else....
Anytime, and I mean ANYTIME I spoke like above a whisper..... I was being "loud and ghetto".....
And when we'd be out with friends, the girls in the group were "allowed" to do, say and act however they wanted, he'd smile, laugh and joke around with them......
Then when I pointed out how much he seemed to not just tolerate but also enjoy their "unladylike" language, behavior, and mannerisms.....
He'd have some dumb reason why it's ok for them....but for me.
Because I'm his girl.... I'm supposed to be above them ....
I wasn't treated like I was above anyone by him....
I was treated like I was never good enough because I wasn't perfect.
Bit other girls got to be themselves around him and NOT be degraded for being who they are.
That sounds awful. I'm sorry that happened to you. Hopefully things are very different now.
I'm glad you escaped!
I'm asian canadian and I fell down this rabbit hole very briefly, but it felt too much like when I would try to act white to fit in with all my white friends. and I wonder if it's part of the immigrant experience (I mean, my great grandparents were immigrants so I'm pretty candianized at this point, but there's still the diaspora experience) of figuring out how to fit into the culture that's here, and I heard somewhere that why a lot of asian people feel more comfortable in black culture (sometimes too comfortable because appropriation) is because they don't feel comfortable in the predominant white culture, so they gravitate towards the other people of colour. but then, you're one of those "ghetto asians" as opposed to the model minority asians who have assimilated into the white suburban areas.
The term “model minority” was created by yt people used to hurt the black community by claiming that Asians are the “model minority” and then you have your Asians who will go along with that mentality- it’s honestly extremely gross.
Yeah, me too.
As a Canadian of Indian decent your comment really resonated with me.
Thank you kindly‼️💛
I feel like it depends on the type of asian. East asians in my experience tend to be more high income and assimilate better w white people. SEA asians who are lower income tend to assimilate better w other racial groups.
@@nortmellypill i dont know, i think it has a lot more to do with income groups than race. Most south asians immigrants i have met were high income and lived in large country club neighborhoods and etc. But my experience might be anecdotal.
Im a black southerner and i did not expect that difference when i moved west. Ive definitely connected deeper with SEA everywhere than my chinese and korean classmates. I was super confused but this entire region is different to me, the 'rules' are different over here.
These “elegance tips” also suck for neurodivergent folks. I can’t sit still or sit “properly.” I struggle with eye contact and controlling the volume of my voice. When I get really excited, I get loud and animated. “Elegant” clothes can be tricky for me because of my sensory issues. That’s part of why I have always avoided “femininity training” content like the plague. I know this is not the same as the struggles of black women, but it is another reason why this content gives me the creeps.
Still hits the fact that what theyre saying is: "if you dont look like abc... youre not a human to respect"
oh i agree whole heartedly: as a level 1 aspie lady I always struggled with tone of voice, making the right facial expression and voice volume.
i always thought I was the problem whenever my mother said I wasn't being ladylike enough
Frrr
I physically cannot hold my eating utensils "properly". I'm 28 and I still don't know how to hold them and use them successfully
One of my favorite pieces of advice I’ve ever received was from an acting workshop in high school; if the worst thing that’s could happen is that they’ll laugh at you maybe it’s time to reevaluate who you’re trying to impress
Wouldn't it be lovely if our livelihoods didn't often hinge on impressing twats that think in terms like "elegance"
@@peakdelvalle197 I took it the opposite way. If the worst thing is that you’ll be embarrassed than maybe you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. If you truly love something you won’t be ashamed to be silly gross and foolish
Being a woman is feminine enough. Whatever a woman does is feminine from wearing baggy clothes and sneakers, to wearing high heels and pretty dresses. They are just different expressions of femininity ♥️
Edit: From my understanding of femininity, it is anything related to womanhood not to be confused with patriarchal femininity. My message was a response to women who watch content geared towards teaching them how to be stereotypically feminine, and my suggesting that they don’t have conform to patriarchal gender roles as there is no right or wrong way to express womanhood. The message is to simply embrace being oneself.
I used to have a male boss who would half-jokingly say that some of my behaviors were unladylike, such as burping. I would always retort "I'm a lady, therefore it is ladylike" and that would always shut him up! 😄
naw, i'm not feminine and there's nothing wrong with that. femininity or lack thereof does not define you or your worth. now THIS is a better approach to the matter, imo. I do agree that different cultures have different versions of it, though.
But why do women need to be feminine? What's wrong with not being feminine? This is a bandaid solution that doesn't look at the root of the problem.
you are confusing gender identity with gender expression. feminine is not synonymous with womanly. woman doesn’t equal femme, and it’s not the case the other way around either.
@@earthangel55 I’m not confused about those terms, we just have different viewpoints. My comment is geared towards women who *want* to express femininity, and suggesting that how they choose to express it is a personal choice. There is no single "right" way to be feminine.
i'm an indian woman and i adore your videos! keep up the good work, it's always a joy to see you on my home page
I feel like ‘fragile masculinity’ is a common enough concept now but imo it’s the ideal/norm of femininity which has fragility actually encoded into it - ‘true’ femininity/womanhood/girlhood must always be sought after, incessantly worked for and painstakingly maintained on an almost microscopic level, it is designed to be lost and clearly designed to exclude. It often seems to purposefully define itself in opposition (and not just against the opposite gender).
It’s an inherently insecure category and one which arguably prizes it’s own fragility in this sense. If your gender identity can be felt to be conditional on a hair growing in the wrong place, an enlarged pore, millimetres of your face or inches on your body, never mind the incessant policing of clothes and the value judgements attached to the most tiny mannerisms (how you eat something is a good example), there’s something strange going on.
edit: Thinking about it I guess the fragility thing is mainly just due to femininity being tied up with beauty in a way that masculinity arguably isn't? i.e. there is a strong sense in which we feel (even subconsciously) that to be a 'real' woman you need to be beautiful (namely in line with what a society deems beautiful), whereas a man can be a 'real' man without handsomeness playing any part.
I think media depictions really cement this too (when was the last time you saw a main female character who looks actually average or not 'conventionally attractive'?) - I've heard girls/women saying things like that they need to be pretty in order to feel like the 'main character' in their own lives, which is very sad. Perhaps something like 'strength' would be an equivalent kind of bar that men feel they need to meet, but the consequence of women having beauty or 'delicacy' etc so tangled up in their gender identity is surely that beauty is a much more fiddly and exacting kind of lens to live under, and one which can really start to distort your thinking.
Sorry for the long comment!
Heavy on the “there’s something strange going on”
This is SO TRUE. I noticed a lot of these “femininity” videos have subtle tones of excluding “other women” as if femininity is a club reserved for those who are willing to maintain, upkeep and basically attain “perfection” pertaining to looks and “how to best appeal to a man.” These videos basically teach young girls how to look down on other women who aren’t deemed as “high value enough” or just “enough” by whatever standards they place that are rooted in misogyny. Of course not every video surrounding this topic is outdated and backwards like that, but certainly lots from what I’ve seen. Oh and the PRESSURE. The pressure to be as “feminine” as possible in the hopes of being seen as a “baddie” or “high value” or whatever- it’s all just ugh and attempts to “other” other kinds of women who don’t act “accordingly”
A world where "Ugly Betty" was America freaking Ferrera
Something I found interesting: In French, the word "gentil" means a good, nice person. With the huge influence of France at the time English borrowed that word and others which created the word genteel and, by association, ungenteel, or not "gentil", not "good", evil. Great video as always
It’s kinda scary that you don’t have to live in a bubble physically anymore, a few vids or posts and the algorithm will trap people in an echo chamber virtually. I grew up in a small conservative town in FL and respectability politics were a big deal there. It was interesting to see how so many of my classmates minds changed once they left and went to college in more liberal cities. Especially among the people of color (I’m half Honduran myself) we all learned about micro aggressions and the “jokes” weren’t ok and that there were levels of self loathing everyone developed from living in a bubble.
I wear bonnets out in public and big ass hoop earrings proudly with my tiny Afro’d head held high. I might start wearing brown lipliner and gloss just to piss off colonialism even more!
YOU GO SIS!!! We as Black girls need to decolonize our mind. And serving adherence to the White Patriarchal Order. We need need to learn to just accept ourselves for who we are and not change ourselves to fit with what society deems “desirable” in innate belief to being a object “of desire” to the White Gaze instead of a Human being with emotions, thoughts, feelings, and personality traits. :)))
You are brilliant. End of story.
What is a truly feminine aesthetic?
Whatever makes you feel confident and feminine.
God. What the actual living f**k?
This reminds me of the Kardashian menace and her Fulani braids, which she was praised for after wearing them on the red carpet - in the words of Latto, "When they do it, it's cool; when we do it, it's ratchet."
Can we kick these avatars of racism off the internet, please?
😆😅😂😂
I wish‼️
👏🏾🎯💯🧠👍🏾
Latto said that? The same one who called her assistant a pet orangutan
@@lordtette God. Damn. That is brutal - thank you for telling me about that.
I should have done the homework before quoting her, and I really appreciate the reminder to do so (I'm neuroatypical, so I can easily slip into taking people at face value).
The quote I cited comes from the Netflix documentary "Ladies First: the Story of Women in Hip-Hop". There were other artists and icons talking about culture vultures, and I wish I'd quoted one of them, instead.
This was such an important message for so many areas of my life and relationships to other people. I’ll be asking myself “what are they trying to sell me?” more often instead of instantly buying in to the marketable feminine ideals.
Excellent!
The quote about marginalised people distancing themselves from elements of their identities to curry favour with the dominant culture resonated with me as a queer woman too. Seems counterintuitive, but I've felt more pressure to be traditionally feminine/"elegant" during periods of my life when I've dated women/nonbinary people than when I've dated men. I grew up with WLW being portrayed as ugly/mannish, and while being visibly queer I've felt like I had to distance myself as far as possible from that stereotype.
I feel this as well, I feel like when I'm ultra-femme I'm proving something. I'm trying to pick apart why I feel the need to do that, why I should even care about stereotypes and what random people think of me. And I love masc women, but there's a part of me that sees me being femme as being "one of the good ones" and I hate it.
I commented something really similar just now! Guess we're all out here trying to fit our sharp corners into overly rounded and narrow spaces
Thanks for sharing your experience. Wlw dating gives me so much anxiety bc I feel like I have to decide on whether I want to be more masc or more femme in a relationship and I'm neither really (looks wise and charcter wise). It's much easier to be myself with a man because everything's layed out to some degree even though I'm not the submissive gentle type at all. But I'll always be "the woman" in the relationship, that can't be taken away from me. It sounds awful but it's just how I feel and I hate that it's stopping me from being with a woman.
So essentially they don't care if people are black just don't be unapologetically black. Reminds me of a lot of people I know. It's like there's a criteria people make for when to accept black and brown people and when not to.
I was watching one of those femininity coaches and suddenly she kept saying that people only respect slim woman and that being slim should be every woman’s goal. I immediately unsubscribed because I really don’t believe that personally I was underweight for 10 years and felt awful and now that I gained weight , I feel healthy and happy as well as full of energy. I really think these coaches will say crazy things subliminally till u start to believe them. Be aware and stay safe.
I definitely agree with you when you said to watch these videos if they make you happy, but be careful. There is one particular youtuber who makes how-to-be-feminine videos. She straight up said in an interview that she uses femininity themed videos to sneak in/spread her more extreme far right wing views to her audience.
That’s how they get you. I mean, they are literally peddling advice to uphold the status quo. I just don’t buy any of it; they are selling something insidious
I always knew it lol. It all comes to misogyny/patriarchy. You never know who pays those ppl and they do it for views also.
@@TejubescDMyep.
I needed this video this week. This did for me what ppl keep saying that monologue in Barbie did for them.
"Why would you wear a bonnet on public?" BECAUSE MY HAIR IS SENSITIVE TO HUMIDITY/TWMPERATURE ITLL FRIZZ UP LIKE GODDAMN. IT KEEPS ITS NOT POOFING UP CUZ ITS CURLY.
The concept of the Arrogant Eye was so eye-opening (no pun intended) and I'm definitely gonna be looking (ok, this one was intended) more into it!
Incredible video as always!
I'm a white-passing half-Asian woman who did ballroom dance competitively for many many years, and one of my coaches who was a Russian woman was always on my case about not being elegant and fashionable enough, but her counterpart who I was actually doing competitions with didn't really care. Thinking through it now, it was because there was some kind of correlation with winning and perceptions of elegance (in this case it was mostly classist, as well as racist), and if the man (or the coach) perceived that the couple unfairly lost, they would blame it on the woman not upholding some fabled ideal of elegance for BOTH MEMBERS OF THE COUPLE, which would give everyone involved license to be really emotionally and verbally abusive to her. This lead to her policing me as a way to try to protect me from the same abuse. So glad I'm done with that.
First tiktoker and it starts out at top speed with a "lips too big tho, not in proportion says me".... Colonizers gonna colonize, damn.
I guess we have to reduce our lip size or, idk, expand our faces?? Idk
@@peachesandpoets Yet another Tuesday tho eh? :(
White folx like me will steal everything from y'all, boil all the spice and colour out of it, claim we made it, all the while shitting on you and everything about you all...
Like, "you're not beautiful cause your lips aren't in the same overall proportion as mine"?? Really? Phrenology called and wants it's calipers back...
@@Scriven42 you are an individual. you didn't do anything. you're free to call other people out, but don't take credit for their actions. you didn't do it, nor do you condone it. so please, don't put yourself in the same category as these bigots
@@Crawlingdreams418But I am, in the ways that I mentioned, in the same categories as these bigots.
And it's important to state that.
Besides, I'm also not perfect. I speak stolen Black language, as does every who grew up in So-called North America, or anyone who uses "Internet Slang".
To name only one of my imperfections in this way, for brevity's sake.
The problems persist longer when we don't admit who does them and how we're associated with them as individuals.
@@Scriven42 bigotry is a conscious decision, not something you're born with, like, say, being prone to addiction or having an ill temper. you may have instances where you can say something questionable and you have every right to call yourself out on it. but putting yourself in the same category as the assholes who think black women cannot be feminine because of their features is counterproductive. unless you actively defend them or you instructed them to say this crap, you are not responsible for what they do. bottom line is, when you do something wrong, it is clear that you both acknowledge it and want to do better. they know that they're doing messed up things, they don't care. it's wonderful that you want to call bigots out, but please, don't do it at the expense of your self-esteem.
Never heard the phrase "arrogant perceiver" before but it's an excellent term for something that really needed a term lol. Sooooo much stupid crap in society comes down to that exact mental defect some people have where they decide their personal preferences and biases are what's best for society. Great phrase for a niche (but profoundly impactful) problem in society.
In my experience as a fat woman of color, my femininity has always been misunderstood and misrepresented. I've always been masculinized, and seen as a creep if I ever shared who I had a crush on. Anyways, the production of your videos for the past like 6-8 mo ths have been my favorite.
Congrats for the care on blurring the creator and not sharing their name. Besides avoiding the mobbing, you're also not giving them free advertising.
And a general "well done!" I found your channel recently and all I saw has been great!
Great video! I think it's also worth noting that respectability politics don't work. Like, if all black women started wearing one of the so-called "elegant" hairstyles, that hairstyle would no longer be seen as elegant due to its association with black women. Like you said, these markers of ideal femininity are valued because of their association with the dominant group. Individual marginalized people might be able to improve their social standing with that dominant group by adopting those markers, but if enough marginalized people took up a certain style, it would lower the prestige of the style rather than elevating the prestige of the marginalized group.
I'm super early this time, and god, I LOVE your videos. Especially as a writer with an interest in directing.
🥹🥹
Definitely a class element here too. As a white poor kid my single mum put a lot of pressure on us to always be ‘well groomed and presented’. She also put herself under this pressure and still does to this day. As did her working class mother. A sense of occasion is one thing, internalised classism for fear of being ‘othered’ is another. As a gen x grunge kid, I’m thankful for that period where we, in the predominantly poorer, largely single parent communities, pushed back and owned our charity shop style. Of course this was co-opted by the corporate fashion elites and ‘heroin chic’ was born. From 70s punk, 80s New Romantic, hip hop, 90s grunge, 00’s street wear and so on, oppressive concepts of femininity have and will continue to be subverted. To the Etiquette peddlers cashing in on intersectional inequality, I say YAWN.
I love your skits and editing. Your videos always have an important message but you're able to make serious and uncomfortable topics digestible and with your own flair. I really like it
I'm a cis pansexual black woman, who drives an 18 wheeler for a living. Sometimes, I wear my bonnet on my head while doing it. These "elegance" and respectability politics peddlers can die mad about it. Love your videos.
My parents, although being left leaning and quite open minded, especially considering they're 70, always pressured my siblings and I to have "elegant" manners. I am white and not a UScitz, and Portugal has a different although not at all less complicated relationship with race. Having this in mind, I just though I would point out the deep relation elegance/"good manners" also have with class, that is, of course, historically intertwined with race. At least analysing the education I received, today as an adult, I perceive this pressure, concious but most of times not really, to have these manneirisms as a class indicator. Accents froms regiouns of the interior or the islands, or even the north, are seen as inferior (I had a friend from Madeira that would even try to loose his accent because he thought it was unsophisticated).
Not to be that person that pushes the tired idea that class is the most relevant kind of oppression, subdued to these irrelevant artificial hierarchies. All forms of oppression, I believe, are intertwined and connected, sometimes intersecting, sometimes diverging or collapsing. I just thought it might me a nice addition to see the other ways all this "aesthetic" is built in differentiation of power dynamics of many forms.
All the systems of oppression certainly pull tools from the same toolbox
"you cannot be sophisticated and ignorant" YES. 1000 times yes
Thank you for sharing your soberbly crafted content! It's always exciting to see a new video out!
you're great Shanspeare, you never miss with your points
These femininity coaches are wild. When I started to embrace my femininity, it was about wearing clothes that fit my form better and wearing lipstick now and then. It was about letting go of shame related to wearing shorter shorts or crop tops. It was about taking care of my skin and hair and not feeling bad about liking girly things.
It was actually a lot about separating my idea of femininity from these "elegant" things that I was taught in church as a gender role. We had a dinner that was specifically for learning etiquette once and I was told that when a man picked me up on my date, I had to sit first, then put my legs in. It was ridiculous
I feel like in general, pop culture has been reclaiming girly girls and adjacent types with things like "the girl's girl," the return of Y2K aesthetics, Barbie, cottagecore, etc. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with women embracing "femininity", but the thing is, what is feminine and what's acceptable in the first place is a standard set by the dominant culture. Even feminism, I've noticed, has taken a pivot from talking about pretty privilege and body shaming to talking about how despite their beauty, women still face issues. Granted, this has been a semi-issue happening for years, but with few corners to turn to many spaces risk becoming thinner, and most relevantly to this video, whiter.
Yet they only serve a meaningful purpose as function uplift White Supremacist Beauty Standards. Which does not do Women of Color a favor or any means hood of Justice.
It’s just another way to make our lives so difficult and miserable. It is because we are Non-White and Non-European….
…..
Just today I came across a tiktok of a slideshow saying something along the lines of "this is what the media wants women to look like" with pictures of black and brown female celebrities followed by a slide that said "but we know deep down what true beauty is like" and something about "high estrogen women" accompanied by pictures of random child-looking white women
Tbh, as a Black woman, I wouldn’t take beauty/style tips from White women. They have different standards of beauty than me. I look to Black women with natural hair as style icons.
same
It’s sad that this is how the trauma of the black community manifests. The fact that people think that there are, “classy” and “low class” appearances is a big red flag. Outside of how femininity is used as a cudgel, things that other racial groups do have always been low class. This is while a lot of the things black people spend money on is objectively much more expensive. How is a 300 dollar hair style low class and cheap? Because I think a crusty ass 8 dollar hair accessory is not elegant😂
So many of us have been primed for this sort of coaching from a young age. As young girl in a Nigerian family I remember hearing "How will you get a husband if you get food on your clothes" or " A lady must never sit with her legs open" or "One day you will be wife and need to know how to beautify yourself". Women in my life actually did prepared me for life through their actions, warmth and hard work not through strange "man catching/wife making" rules. I'm not the 'ideal' woman and have no plans to be.
Looking forward to the follow up book "how to eat your food without cutlery since your husband thinks you dont need it cuz youre not human"!
Already love the opening. Them white lenses, honey 😂. Love u Shan!❤
I edited them on! I felt like a person wearing ice blue eye contacts 😂😂
This has pissed me off about these "influencers" since the moment they popped up on my feed! Thank you for making a great and concise video essay about them. I feel like most people just laugh them off, but, what they are doing to other women AND themselves is super gross.
thanks for classing up my taco bell this evening, shanspeare :> jokes aside ur work is always so meticulously and intelligently crafted-i both look forward and up to it
The absolute garbage I wear to run errands after my cleaning job... and no one ever bats an eye. Everyone deserves to be left alone like that.
as a latina who has never lived in the States but is heavily interested in the culture, I've always found myself feeling so empty when I saw who were the latina women that were famous.
Everyone was like: go girl give us latina representation!!
Meanwhile, I kept wondering why I didn't look like them. They were always dainty, skinny, big lips, and small nose. (And only brown/tan skin if they were meant to be sexy)
It's hard to comprehend that the roots of colonization are still present pretty much everywhere, even rooted in our independent societies far away from the Europeans. And it hurts.
Early in my transition I had a lot of cis friends who would talk about how gender is a construct but then would get upset with me when I would ask how to present more femininely. like y’all understand if I don’t do the most I’ll get hate crimed right?
I'm ftm and I feel the same way about presenting masculine. I don't always really want to but things are scary right now and the only way to be safe in a red state is to try to go stealth
First time viewer and now subscriber.
As a child in the sixties if you went to the grocery store on Saturday there would always be white women with their hair in curlers with some sort of head covering or scarves covering their fresh from the beauty shop hair. The bar keeps being moved, frequently by marketing which back then was definitely dominated by white men. I still remember the commercial for hot curlers the jingle, "Curlers in your hair, shame on you." Shaming head coverings, whatever their purpose, is not ok.
THANK YOU shanspeare for literally always being the voice of reason
Listen, I know I don’t know you personally, but I am SO proud of you. I subbed after the first video I saw of yours because I was so impressed by your artistic vision, strong talking points, and production skills. It’s giving contrapoints slay with a fraction of the budget, and you’re AMAZING for that
I'm genuinely blown away by how elaborate this video was, and while this topic does get more complicated when discussing the trans experience (speaking as a trans person), I think you did an incredible job talking about this topic and it's appreciated that you included this aspect as well. It clearly shows how much research and thought you out into your work.
I’m so glad you’re putting out this content. You create some of the most politically/historically savvy and insightful content I’ve seen in years. Thank you for insight that white women like myself might miss good chunks of on our own. Thank you so much. I’m sending this to everyone I to underscore my belief that “no war but class war” must be replaced with “no war without class war” to recognize the enmeshment of class oppression with other forms of oppression. Thank you again for all your work. The world needs you.
seeing that one coach's comment of "they excluded us because we refused to act right" is I think one of the most heartbreaking things I've seen. just the self-blaming, beaten-down abuse victim of it all. I genuinely had to pause the video and take a moment right there to get my emotional response out.
Let’s go new Shanspeare video!!
I used to think I was rough around the edges, that I lacked a delicate touch. But my womanhood is so ingrained in me that I've come to realize that my ways of being feminine are just that. Feminine. I don't need to be Cinderella to be kind, or a ball gown to be beautiful, named after a flower to be delicate. I am all those things, rough edges and all. Now I teach my daughters the same.
I haven’t watched the video yet, but I’m so glad to see this talked about.
I see the same thing with “old money vs new money” on tiktok
Like people showing long nails, tracksuits, and just tons of aesthetics, styles and trends pioneered by black people. And then talking about how “tacky” new money is.
It’s feels like a new way to call black people “ghetto”
And then they show the skinny white “old money” women, and it’s labeled as “much better” and “classier”
It’s always had a weird racist classist undertone, but whenever I called it racist, people would just tell me I’m overreacting and “it’s not that deep”