Why I Don't Support Marriage Equality

If you're looking at my blog, you've probably encountered the recent sea of red marriage equality pictures on Facebook. Maybe you've even joined in yourself, changing your profile picture to some version of this:

Perhaps you've noticed my hostility to these 'marriage equality' campaigns over the years. I figured it's about time that I addressed why I do not support this movement, and why I think you should be critical of it too.

I am not a supporter of marriage, gay or straight. Its basis - women as the property of men - is extremely misogynistic and has never been effectively critiqued and reworked on a societal level. Sure, my father can't exchange me to a man of his choosing for a predetermined number of goats anymore, but that is not really a challenge to the underlying gendered bias of marriage. Although individual couples may be much better able to negotiate the terms of the gendered roles of their relationships than in the past, the cultural 'script' of what it means to be married - that is, the picture we immediately get when we think of a married couple - continues to be one where the man is the head of the household, and the woman takes care of the kids. Until we have a non-gendered cultural/societal understanding of the roles within a marriage, there is nothing 'equal' about it!

Same-sex marriage is not inherently more progressive than heterosexual marriage. Our understanding of 'married couple' is shaped by assumptions that the relationship consists of two people who engage in particular gendered behaviours; whether or not their genitals match up with these roles is pretty much irrelevant. I suspect that same-sex marriage actually promotes a more conservative understanding of same-sex relationships than currently exists. Instead of opening up the possibility to reconsider how gendered roles are negotiated within heterosexual relationships, I suspect same-sex couples will instead be bombarded with more questions of the "So, which one of you is the man?" variety.

Gaining the 'privilege' of entering into a heterosexual institution also means playing by their rules. Hinging civil rights onto marriage further exasperates inequalities. There are many valid reasons not to want to get married, regardless of who you don't want to get married to. I worry that when equal rights are attached to marriage, unmarried same-sex couples who try to fight against discrimination will be left with little other recourse than to marry. For instance, parenting rights. Many heterosexual couples have kids without getting married and the father is still recognised as the legal co-parent. I think that as a society it would be easy for us to just expect that same-sex couples would get married in order to access rights that are granted to heterosexuals simply for being heterosexual. This is because underlying issues of homophobia are not being addressed by the marriage equality movement.

Marriage equality will not end homophobia; after all, interracial marriage did not end racism. Instead, it creates a hierarchy of relationship types whereby being married is privileged over all other relationships and other relationship configurations are dismissed as not possibly being as committed/serious/caring. I'm sure we're all familiar with some of the abominations of heterosexual celebrity marriages, so I probably don't need to spend a lot of time talking about how ridiculous it is to assume that marriage is the best possible type of relationship to be in. Heterosexual couples already have to deal with the pressure of marriage privilege when they choose not to marry. Same-sex marriage will only make the marriage monster a bigger, badder, harder to resist machine of cultural conformity.

Because same-sex attracted people have been excluded from the tradition of marriage, we have had to come up with other ways of being in relationships. This has meant creating new ways of making commitments to one another, and finding new reasons to stay together when things get tough. Marriage presents itself as a 'one size fits all' kind of relationship, but we've got stockades full of evidence that shows it does not. The marriage equality movement is closing the queer community off from having those discussions. Our voices are silenced and we are made to feel guilty for not jumping on the bandwagon.

Same-sex marriage is being heralded as a band-aid that will fix all our gay issues. I keep hearing that once our relationships are recognised as 'legitimate', we will be much better able to fight for issues like queer suicide and homophobic bullying. I hear this from intelligent, critical thinking people who should know better. If we have to get married for our relationships to be seen as legitimate, that is NOT acceptance! That is barely even tolerance. In many ways I think that allowing same-sex marriage will make it harder to fight against homophobia and what it produces. It shifts the attitude to "We gave you marriage, what are you still complaining about?" It makes it harder to point to the systemic discrimination that lead to things like higher rates of depression and suicide amongst the queer community. "Give it time, it takes time for the benefits of marriage equality to trickle down." I don't see how anyone can think that is 'good enough'.

Queer relationships are legitimate, diverse, alternative models to the heteronorm. I refuse to belong to a movement that tells me what I have is not worth valuing and asks me to conform to someone else's values. Marriage equality denies the good things about different types of queer relationships and tells us we'd be so much better off if we aspired to be like heterosexuals.

Remember second wave feminism? Where women were told they should strive to be like men and that would be super awesome? Remember what that produced? It created an even greater devaluation of traditional femininity, making it harder to engage men in feminism because asking them to step into the home was asking them to voluntarily become social outcasts.

I think the marriage equality movement, like second wave feminism, started out with good intentions. But it has been co-opted by conservative values and it's time we let it go and moved on to something new. Something that recognises the value within different types of relationships and doesn't place one type above all others. I don't want to take the marriage model away as a type of relationship that people engage in. What I want is for the marriage model to be recognised as one of many different, legitimate types of relationship models that some people engage in. And I think that's something that we can achieve, if we start to think critically about what marriage equality will actually produce.

Entitlement

About a month ago Trouble and I met up for a rainy afternoon breakfast stack at one of our favourite cafes and had a good, long, intellectual talk about Life Stuff. She was telling me that on her way to meet up with me a car full of men had been yelling and honking to get her attention. When she finally realised they were honking at her, for no other reason than to express their sexual interest in her, she was pretty pissed off and told them to fuck off. As well she should! This is a frighteningly common experience for women. But what is really frightening is how bad women are made to feel about themselves when it happens.

Welcome to slut shaming 201. Today's topic is 'entitlement', or more specifically (since there are more forms of entitlement than I can shake a stick at) sexual entitlement. There is a part of me that wants to qualify that further and say male sexual entitlement, but this is a problem that is more complicated than simply being men's fault. Blaming men for entitlement isn't really any better than blaming women for rape. Patriarchy and misogyny know no gender bounds.

So what is sexual entitlement? It is the belief that a person's sexual desire for another person gives them the right to that person's body/mind/time. At this point I feel that it is important to note that while feelings of sexual entitlement are not exclusively the purview of men, given that men continue to have social dominance over women (broadly, yes I know this is not always the case) it is much more problematic when men feel sexually entitled to women's bodies/minds/time. It is also much more common that this is how sexual entitlement plays out.

The problem, as I see it, is that when it comes to sexuality, women are set up to fail. There is no possible way for women to 'win' if they play along with the patriarchy's rules. No matter what the situation, men's sexual desires trump women's. Three heterosexual examples (since I hate binaries and want to guide you gently through my argument; I will queer it up a bit later in this post) to illustrate my point:

1) A woman who abstains from sex until marriage, then marries a loving, respecting man is still expected to satisfy her husband's sexual desires over her own. She may be able to negotiate having her desires met, but there is no social expectation that her husband would have to negotiate getting his desires met.

2) A woman goes out to a party with the expressed intent of having casual sex. When she picks up a guy, there is a sexual script already in play that dictates the satisfaction of his sexual desires. If she is lucky, he will also satisfy her's. But again, there is no expectation on him to do so.

3) A woman walks into a brothel looking to buy the sexual services of a man. If she's done her research, she's gone into a brothel that actually provides such a service. If not, she may be met with ridicule and/or homophobia. Or maybe the brothel staff will be friendly and point her in the right direction. At any rate, she can't just walk into any brothel and purchase sexual service. I am not aware of the existence of any brothel that absolutely does not provide service to men.

Given that men's sexual desires hold more social value than women's, it is not surprising that sexual entitlement is so prominent. And unquestioned! I started writing this blog a month ago, and in that time I've been noticing sexual entitlement everywhere I look. In an earlier draft of this blog I had a long list of examples of times I've encountered something similar to the anecdote I started this blog with. I think most women could come up with a few personal examples pretty easily if you asked them. I'm not going to list off my experiences here, as I've decided to go in a bit of a different direction with this post, inspired by a recent night out with my siblings in Kelowna. I want to talk about what I think men don't realise; I want to talk about what happens to women when they encounter sexual entitlement.

I'm currently in Canada, visiting family, old friends, and working on my thesis. Right now I'm in Kelowna, soaking up the last of the summer sun. Last weekend, two of my siblings were out here with me and we decided to go have a bit of a night out on the town. I wasn't crazy about the first pub we went to; it was loud and very heteronormative (that is, everyone was heterosexual and seemed to be aspiring to social standards of 'normal'). We headed off to another pub where there was a local band playing. The crowd was still pretty hetero, but less normative. I was excited to find that not only was I not the only lesbian in the place, but the other lesbian was pretty darn cute!

I thought that she was there with a straight couple, but as the night went on I discovered that she was there with a female friend who some guy was hitting on (I discovered this, btw, when said guy tried to stick his hand down my shirt while giving me a very unsolicited hug - that's a very obvious example of sexual entitlement that I hope my readers don't need me to further deconstruct). When I told my brother that I thought the lesbian was really cute, he encouraged me to go talk to her. I said nah and continued to sit and listen to the band, occasionally glancing over towards the cute girl.

As the night went on and the cute girl made her way to the dance floor, my brother dragged me onto the dance floor and tried to push me over to go and 'mac on' the girl. At that point, I got really angry with him and told him if he didn't back off I would punch him. He backed off and I was left to scratch my head about why I reacted so strongly to him trying to be my wingman.

I'm not shy about hitting on girls. I like the chase and while I don't always initiate, I'm pretty upfront about my interest. Chances are, if you're wondering if I'm into you or not, I'm probably not into you.

Eventually, I realised what was bothering me about my brother's approach: it reeked of sexual entitlement. It seemed that for my brother, my thinking the girl was cute was reason enough for me to go talk to her. In this framing, my desire for her gave me the right to access her mental/physical/emotional space - or at least the right to try. But for me, having been on the receiving end of unwanted sexual attention far, far, too many times, I didn't feel that my desire for this woman gave me any right to her at all.

I think that there is this big misconception that being hit on is a nice experience. Sure, it can be nice. If you want it to happen. But if you don't, it can be horrible. Even if the person doing the hitting on isn't horrible; even if they are, in fact, pleasant, it can still be a horrible experience. This is because of the social protocol that deems it rude not to talk to someone when they initiate a conversation with you, and the gender differential that is at play. For a man to blow someone off, he is simply being rude in that instance. If a woman does it, even once, she is forever a bitch.

Women face a lot more social pressure than men to engage in conversations with anyone who decides to talk to them - whether they want to or not. This means, when you hit on a woman, she may not be talking to you because she wants to, but because she is socially obliged to! So please, everybody, think about that the next time you decide to strike up a conversation with a woman, whatever your intent.

The reason I didn't want to go up to this woman and strike up a conversation with her was that while I was sitting at my table watching her, she wasn't watching me back. I wasn't leering at her, but I also wasn't being subtle about the fact that she had caught my eye. If she had been interested in me, it would have been easy for her to make eye contact with me. That she didn't told me that she just wanted to hang out with her friend and enjoy the night, and I can (and did) respect that.

I did contemplate doing one of my favourite moves: the toilet queue chat. There is a lot of solidarity about women's toilets and the secret business that goes on in them. It is quite easy and acceptable to strike up a conversation with someone while waiting for the toilets, and it is also a space that if you are not interested in talking, it's easy and safe to signal your disinterest in a conversation. It's a great way to break the ice with someone and get a sense of if they are interested in having a chat or not. Of course, a willingness to have a chat does not equate a desire to be hit on; it's more that if they're not interested in talking to you in the toilets, they're not interested in talking to you. As I didn't have the chance to try this move, and she had not paid me any particular attention, I felt it would be incredibly presumptuous of me to strike up a conversation with her on the dance floor.

The thing with sexual entitlement - and entitlement in general - is, I think a lot of people are really unaware of when they are acting from a place of privilege, and how that privilege impacts on others. And I also don't think that people are aware of the accumulative affect of entitlement. Because, yeah, a single instance of a bit of unwanted flirting is probably not going to cause someone a great deal of grief. But while it might be a single instance for the person doing the flirting, chances are it's not a single instance for the person on the receiving end. Your single instance may just be the straw that broke the camel's back.

I remember my straw. Back when I worked in an adult store, I had a guy come in one day and tell me that I looked very pretty. He wasn't being lewd or particularly aggressive, and his comment was incredibly tame compared to many of the other men who felt they had some sort of right to comment on me as a sexual being when they came into the store. His comment would have been sweet if it had come from someone I trusted. But he was an older man, a stranger, and the only other person in the store with me, and I did not feel safe being alone in the store - in the middle of the day - with a man who felt it was not only acceptable but innocuous to sexualise me.

I'm not the kind of person to let something like that slide, so I informed him that I did not find his comment appropriate. This made matters much worse because then he felt like he needed to justify himself, and the only way he could do this was by vilifying me. There was nothing wrong with him and what he did; it was my problem, my fault that I couldn't "take a compliment." If I didn't want to be complimented on my appearance, I shouldn't put any effort into looking professional. Nevermind that my employers required it of me, or, more importantly, that it made me feel good about myself. Apparently the only reason a woman puts any effort into her appearance is to invite the attentions of men, and she should be damn grateful when she gets them! Eventually he left the store. I ended up quitting my job - which I loved - over this, and how the company refused to deal with it.

This is what happens when we construct reality in terms of binaries: a person's disinterest in someone's sexual advances becomes a personal insult. When a person is insulted, they have to defend themselves, usually by pointing out how the other person is wrong to be insulted. There is a term for this, it's called 'victim blaming'.

But why should a person's disinterest in someone's sexual advances be taken personally? I wasn't personally insulted when the woman at the bar didn't show any interest in me. I don't actually think it has anything to do with me. She wasn't looking, and it would be insulting of me to assume that she should be.

Confrontation makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I think there's this cultural assumption that women are a lot more uncomfortable with confrontation than men are, but I think if that was true then slut shaming and victim blaming wouldn't even be things. These are tool that are used against women (by men and women) to uphold sexual entitlement. Because it's when women stand up for themselves - when they are confrontational - that they risk encountering slut shaming and/or victim blaming.

Let me take a step back here to talk about our social understandings of how women are meant to negotiate sex. On the one hand, women are told - ad nauseam - to just say 'no' to sex. On the other hand, women are told that they are horrible people if they reject someone. You know, because it is a woman's job to make everyone else feel good about themselves and nevermind about how she feels about herself. So when a woman is faced with a sexual advance, she's faced with a catch-22 situation. She's not meant to say yes because that makes her a slut, but if she says no she'll hurt the other person's feelings and that makes her a bitch. What to do, what to do? For a lot of women, the result is a complex game of avoidance.

Going back to my experience at the adult shop, it was the very innocuousness of that man's comment that made the experience so upsetting for me. He was paying me a compliment; and as he was not in clear violation of social norms, he could not understand why I would be upset by his compliment. It was much easier to deal with men who knew they were overstepping their bounds because they understood that if they didn't respect my 'no' they were in the wrong. Their actions may have been a lot more explicit, but my rights to be offended by their actions were also a lot clearer.

It's these smaller experiences that are a lot harder to avoid, and a lot harder to negotiate. I feel like there is some sort of confrontation/entitlement binary/blind spot happening in society. Some people feel that they are entitled to make sexual advances onto others, but then forget that the person they make the advance on is entitled to tell them to fuck off. And when they get told to fuck off, they feel like how dare this person feel entitled to put them in a confrontational situation, but ignore the fact that it was actually them who put the other person in a confrontational situation - and what right did they have themselves to do that?

I feel like I'm starting to spin out here, so hopefully I'm not losing you along the way. The point that I'm trying to make is, I don't think people are often aware of when they are putting someone into a confrontational situation. And I think that women get put into confrontational situations a lot, and that society does not adequately prepare women for how to manage these situations. I also think that men are not put into confrontational situations nearly enough. And I think that for everybody who gets put into a confrontational situation - whatever the situation and whatever their gender - there is far too great a tendency to try and get out of the situation by placing the blame on somebody else.

So if I can leave you with a few takeaway points, it's this:

1) Think before you act. Consider how your actions might impact on the other person, and try to think of at least 3 possible outcomes, because there are always more than two options.

2) Learn to be comfortable with your own discomfort. Nobody likes being told they are in the wrong, but before you jump in to defend yourself, consider the possibility that maybe the other person has a point.

3) Question your assumptions. What makes it OK for you to behave in a certain way? Are you sure? Is that always the case? What might happen if you behaved differently?

4) Look out for nonverbal cues. Most people are pretty crap about communicating with their words. It's not their (or our, since I am certainly not exempt from this!) fault; as a society we're pretty crap at teaching people how to communicate, and we tend to penalise those who do. Especially women. Understand this.

5) Be aware of and listen to your instincts. If you feel uncomfortable in a situation, there probably is a good reason for it, whether it's apparent or not. If you sense that someone else is uncomfortable in a situation, address it! Remember point 4. Sometimes you'll have to be the one to start the hard conversations, even when it's the other person who's got the issue.

I have so, so, so, much more to say on this, but that is enough for Part Two. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this, and writing Part Three when next the mood strikes. Until next time...

Who should be ashamed?

As the Olympics have started, I'm spending a lot of time watching Channel Nine. For those of you that don't know, Channel Nine is absolutely appalling! It's right-wing, conservative, homophobic, racist trash. But... I am actually really interested in watching the Olympic coverage. At least of the swimming. Yes, I did spend my morning yelling at the TV and talking to myself, but seriously, my love of swimming is intense! I have much love for the Australian women's freestyle relay team.

Anyways, there is a weekly 'news' show on Channel Nine called A Current Affair, and they've been advertising a story about how teenage girls are going out in Melbourne with not a whole lot of clothing on. With tag lines like "Would you let your daughter go out looking like this?" and "Do you want to look like a hooker?"

This advertisement is causing me serious distress!!! There is so much wrong about it, I don't even know where to begin. It completely infuriates me. I started to critique it last night while my flatmate and I were sitting around watching the games, but that just left me feeling even more upset. As a flatmate, mine is great. But politically, we are worlds apart.

I commented that it was a total load of bullshit to claim that parents have any control over what their adult children wear out, and she replied that if these girls were taught some self-respect then they wouldn't dress so trashy. I replied that if men were taught to actually respect women it wouldn't be an issue what women wear. This is an emotional issue for me, and so I left it at that. But it's still bothering me, so I'm gonna blog it out!

What is it about women taking ownership over their sexuality that is so threatening and offensive that it has spawned this massive culture of shame? Why are women's bodies assumed to be available for consumption by others? Why do people - both men and women - feel that they have any sort of right to tell a woman how she should or should not look? How is it that our society feels it's appropriate to claim that women are wearing too little or too much clothing? Why does anyone take these social mores seriously when they simultaneously claim that wearing a headscarf or wearing a mini skirt are disrespectful of women's sexuality? Why isn't it blatantly obvious that it is this attitude - and not the clothes women choose to wear - that is offensive?

This is something that I have been exploring both personally and academically for, oh, a decade now, and I'm still struggling to find any satisfactory answers. I think this is a really complicated issue! There is such a strong belief that sex is this mega-valuable thing that if it's just given up, makes it cheap. The problem with this though, is that it only makes it cheap for women! Men can have as much sex as early as they want and there's no claim that anything about them loses value.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is how women oppress each other through the language of slut shaming. Judgements pass so quickly and uncritically that when it happens, I wonder if women are even aware of how much damage they are doing to others and to themselves. I'm shocked that it happens at all, but I'm especially shocked at how often it happens amongst women-identified types in the queer community. Our lives are organised around a sexual 'otherness' and yet there can still be so much disrespect for those who do not follow normative conventions about women's sexuality!

Sex is something that is meant to make people feel good - physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. So I guess that makes it an easy tool to make people feel completely horrible about themselves. It's interesting, thinking about the sexual double standard, and how women are often made to feel bad for having sex.  From my interviews with heterosexual men I learned men have a lot of insecurities and anxieties about sex too. The difference is that men are encouraged to have more sex to deal with their issues, and women are encouraged to have less.

For my own part, I try to challenge assumptions about sluttiness. While reclaiming the word 'slut' is fraught with problems that I don't even want to pretend to be able to meaningfully be able to discuss, I feel like I can at least reclaim my own sexual agency, and if I'm lucky, help a few other women do the same! I don't think anyone should be made to feel badly about acting upon their sexual desire with a consenting partner. But even more than that, I actually think that people - and especially women - should be made to feel good about doing so.

Anyways, I could talk about slut shaming forever, and there very well might be more posts on this in the future. But I'll leave it at that for now. So go forth and fuck, but for fuck's sake, be nice to each other out there!!!

Nature vs Maybelline

We all know the slogan: Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline. It's the battle cry that plagues the lifes of women the world over: you are not perfect as you are, but you could be perfect if you just purchased the right combination of products. Only, as we soon find out if we go down that path, the more you buy into this idea of obtaining perfection, the harder perfection is to obtain.

I recently heard a quote that really ressonated with me: Don't sacrifice the good for the sake of the perfect. It's the kind of quote I'm tempted to get tattooed to my forehead because it's just such a simple reminder that we can lose something quite good by chasing after the illusiveness of perfection. I think it is especially important to remind ourselves of this with Christmas looming around the corner.

While this idea of trying to achieve perfection can be applied to any aspect of life, I'd like to look at how it applies to appearance, and particularly, make-up.

Joni's Top Ten Style Tips #7: A Little Make-Up Goes A Long Way

I think it's pretty common for girls and women to go through phases of piling on the make-up. Certainly the way the media presents celebrities it's easy to think that the only way to look good is to pile it on. Ladies, we have been lied to. Sure, there are times when piling on heaps of make-up is the sensible thing to do. Like when we're performing on a stage, or just want to present a dramatic side of ourselves. But I highly doubt this is when any woman looks her absolute best.

The thing is, most women look best with just a touch of make-up. Because this is the thing about make-up: it is meant to accentuate what we've already got. When we wear just a little bit of make-up to accentuate our best feature, then it really allows our natural beauty to shine through. When we wear a lot of make-up, even if it is accentuating our best feature(s), in hides the natural beauty and instead shows a mask. Also, putting on a lot of make-up tends to make one look, well, like everyone else. Because you stop seeing the person underneith the make-up. Take, for example:

Undoubtedly, I do look good. I have foundation, eye liner, mascara, lipstick, and possibly some blush on in this picture. I was going out for dinner at a fancy restaurant and wanted to get dressed up for the occassion (I was arguably over dressed, but better over than under). But when I look at this picture, I don't see me, I see my make-up. And while I like my make-up in this picture, I also think it hides me away. Whereas:

I am actually only wearing mascara in this picture. It draws attention to my eyes, but not so much that you lose sight of the rest of me. But by subtly drawing the attention to my eyes, it draws attention away from little blemishes. Finally:

Take away the mascara and all that's left is me. Sure, I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty darn good.

You've Got Personality ... So Show It!

Women's engagement with the fashion and beauty industries is one of the many things that divides feminists. In the last year of my undergrad, my academic rival presented a paper at the end of the semester arguing that it is hypocritical of feminists to wear make-up. She stared at me from the front of the class and demanded answers to how I could possibly call myself a feminist with all that gunk on my face. I smiled and chuckled to myself. I don't remember how, or even if, I responded to her attack, but I do know that throughout the semester my outspokenness about my own brand of feminism had unnerved her enough to feel the need to challenge me and my views through her work. That's a victory in and of itself.

Like it or not, we are judged by our appearance. The debates rage on about if this is right or wrong, if and to what degree it is oppressive and/or damaging to women, and whatever else the various factions take issue with. Personally, I don't care if it's right or wrong or whatever else. It is a fact of life and I would rather work with it than struggle against it, largely because to struggle against it would mean to stop judging people by their appearances, and quite frankly I think that's a stupid thing to do.

Why? Because people send cues about who they are and what they are like through their appearance. Of course these cues are never 100% accurate, and individual people will interpret these cues differently. The point is, we all develop the ability to read cues about different people based on our own experiences and these cues can give us important information, like if a stranger is trustworthy. Or, possibly on a more practical day-to-day level, if someone is likely to have similar values to ourselves.

Joni's Top Ten Style Tips #1: Show off your personality!

Given that when you step out your front door people are going to be judging you on how you look, I reckon it's pretty damn important to think about what judgements we want people to be making about us. For instance, if it would really bother you to have people think that you're a lazy slob... clean yourself up and put on some clean clothes before you leave the house! Personally, I cannot stand to be seen as a corporate drone. Actually, I cannot stand to be seen as a cookie cutter version of anything, which is why my own sense of style (amongst other things) is probably best described as consistently inconsistent.

The key to this tip, really, is to know yourself. Once you have a handle on what makes you a shiny unique snowflake, you can start thinking about how best to reflect that in your sense of style.

I know that when it comes to continuums, if for some reason I can't sit smack dab in the middle, I will sit on both ends of the extremes. The best example of this is my gender identity. As my mother will attest, I have always loved frilly girly pink clothes with matching accessories (I still do), and I would punch you in the guts if you called me cute (I promise your guts are safe if you call me cute now). In simplest (reductionist) terms, I have a feminine exterior and a masculine interior. I do not sit in the middle of the gender continuum (androgyny), but straddle both ends simultaneously. What I like best about this aspect of myself is that it means I constantly get to challenge people's assumptions. There is nothing more fun than dressing ultra-femme and showing off my intellectual muscle (or physical muscle, I do still like punching).

Returning to the debates over feminism and fashion for just a moment, I actually think that fashion is an area where men often lose out, though, thankfully, this is starting to change. The sheer options available for women to choose from really do make it quite easy for us to express whatever side of ourselves we want to express. It's only quite recently that men's fashion has started to allow for them to let their personalities shine through. So boys and girls of the world, LET IT SHINE!

In closing, who would I say has mastered this style tip best? Lady Gaga, without a doubt!

When it comes to showing off your personality to the world, Gaga's got it covered! She is my personal fashion icon, and I think there's a lot to be said for how she's taken the world by storm. But possibly that is a blog for another day.

Well my little budding fashionista monsters, that concludes the first of my style tips for you. My aim is that each of my 10 tips will build on the previous one. I hope you have found this useful, and, until next time...

Is there anything more awesome than boobs AND sparklers? I doubt it!