I am agreeing with Necros, yes. I’m not agreeing with the people who think anything that isn’t directly involved with furthering your life or whatnot is frivolous.
I never though I’d compare following fashion to cooking, though. 
Hear hear. 
Girl who can knowledgeably talk about hockey and video games? Hot.
Girl who can do so while wearing a pencil skirt and three-inch heels? Smoking hot.
Hah, I think that’s why I get along so great with my guy co-workers (I’m in IT already, but hey). I can talk about cars (I prefer a manual transmission), hockey, laugh or make dirty innuendo*… all while having styled hair, being known for knitting and dressing in said pencil skirts and high heels.
- this is the area of the office that always hopes HR will never stop by, heh.
Oh, I see now that I misunderstood the point you were making when you said that in our culture few men appreciate the finer points of shoes and handbags. I do think there’s a kind of a self-reinforcing loop with respect to strongly gendered activities. If a male client feels uncomfortable being the only guy in a nail salon, he may be less likely to get another professional manicure even if he liked the experience. Louis XIV was a male fashion maven; I honestly don’t know what cultural barriers he might have faced in adopting that role in his time, but if there were cultural barriers, his power and money may have helped him overcome them.
In any event, I agree with the broader point that you’re making about culture and gendered activities.
Honestly, it’s so hard to be the “perfect” woman nowadays. In the past all you needed to be was pretty and feminine, but now you need that PLUS you need to be able to talk about cars and be open to swinging and anal sex.
I’m only being half sarcastic here. 
Oh I totally understand what you mean. It’s like, you need the “respect” for liking “guy stuff”, but you still have to be girly enough, otherwise you’re too much like a guy. So bizarre.
You’re me. Except the working in IT bit!
Wow, I really wish I’d gotten in on this thread earlier.
Here’s my take on one of the subjects that’s come up:
Men, and the things that are traditionally/stereotypically associated with men = Traditionally higher status.
Women, and the things that are traditionally/stereotypically associated with women = traditionally lower status.
It is, as a general rule, considered a good thing to try to better one’s status, and a wrong thing to try to lower one’s status. Therefore, women who do more traditionally manly things (including being romantically involved with women) are in many ways more accepted than men who do more traditionally womanly things (including being romantically involved with men.) After all, if doing lower-status things is preferred over doing higher-status things, that means that the higher-status things aren’t as high-status as they thought!
That said: I really, really dislike the entire concept of “femininity” and “masculinity”. But I dislike “masculinity” more.
I’ve only read the OP so I don’t know how the thread has progressed but I do want to say I’m not really a girly girl, although I think if I had the funds I might be more inclined to squeal over shoes and purses. I don’t wear makeup because the cheap stuff breaks me out. I don’t have money for good hair products. I don’t get manicures or massages or facials but I do like it a lot when I have a good hair day.
I have always liked to dress my girls like girls (neither is that much interested) and get a kick out of taking my youngest to the girly frou frou salon to get her hair done.
I can’t imagine having contempt for people who are more in to the girly stuff. I may be a little envious sometimes but that’s my own demons.
My main problem is seeing people spend thousands on frivolities of any sort, whether it’s game gear or that hair pressing that costs so much, or whatever, when there are people with so little. I know it’s silly and I try not to judge. People deserve niceties when they have the money for them. This isn’t about girly things though, really.
There’s a certain COACH handbag that I really, really want, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. And I can talk about it without giggling, even.
And to jump on the defensive “I don’t only like purses” bandwagon, I will say:
I also own a lot of shoes. One of my most comfortable (and most affordable—I can find deep discounts) are a pair of beautiful, brown suede heels.
But in case that makes me sound frivolous…I also like jewelry.
When I was younger, I definitely found girly things contemptible. I thought, “Well, if I have to dress up just to be taken seriously, I don’t want to work there!” Or, “Only shallow women care what others think of them.” But now that I’m older, I appreciate all those girly things. First, I try to fight it, but I’m somewhat acquisitive by nature. Second, I like looking at and using pretty things. Third and most important, all those girly things represent something I don’t have anymore: time to bother with them. It takes time to shop and find just the right bag and shoes. It takes time to put on makeup.
I don’t know how on earth I managed to mistake my own early-20s angst for feminism, but if I could go back and tell myself to snap out of it, I would. Right now, I’m just battling against all those things magazines tell me I need to do to be truly happy. For one thing, who’s happy all the time? If I walked around giddy most of the time, I’d probably be committed. Second, if I were to do all those things I’m told would make me truly happy, I’d need an additional 10 hours in the day.
Solution? I think I need to stop reading the articles and start enjoying looking at the pretty pictures more. Until I get to a point where I can get through my 20-minute get-ready-for-work ritual without being interrupted by a preschooler or hungry baby, I’m SOL as far as the girly stuff, but I can dream, can’t I? Pink, cotton-candy dreams full of handbags, shoes and set smack dab in the middle of the biggest Sephora you ever saw.
That is because traditionally, men were responsible for important stuff like making money and putting a roof over their families head. The wife provided more of a supporting role of maintaining the home while the man was at work. The higher the mans status (ie the more money he made), the more real “woman’s work” could be outsourced to maids, housekeepers, au pairs and the like, freeing them to pursue such inane activities as shopping at gossiping with their gal pals. Many pursuits such as golf, smoking cigars and drinking whisky were really additional forums for conducting business and increasing their real monetary status.
Couldn’t you argue that stuff like maintaining home/taking care of children was considered less important just because it was done by women, not because men were just doing important things?
I really try not to show contempt for anyone else’s interests, hobbies or fetishes. Lord knows that over the years, I’ve had some strange ones myself. There are plenty I don’t “get” - and some of the stereotypically girlie, but it seems as likely to me that my not ‘getting’ it is a failure on my part and not a failure of the hobby itself.
(Sometimes I go through a girlie streak of painted nails and clothes shopping. And sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I notice handbags, and sometimes I don’t. Currently, I’ve read 20 Georgette Heyer novels in about a month, can’t get more girly than that. Funny thing, only of my “manly man” friends is reading them as fast as I can turn them over to him.)
Wow. I was waiting for this kind of post.
Shopping is an inane activity! Ha!
That’s all I have to say for the moment.
I don’t know where you live or what field you work in, but I don’t see this sort of thing around here, thank goodness. Many well-paid professionals I know have crazy hair, conspicuous tattoos, unibrows, nails bitten to the quick and bleeding, unibrows, are very fat, dress poorly, etc. This was also true when I was growing up - my parents and extended family work in academia, and so did most of their friends, many who. I know this is just one example of a white-collar industry, but it’s not the only one I can think of…
My boyfriend isn’t a professional, but he has a unibrow and I think it’s cute and wouldn’t like it if he shaved it.
It seems like you’re very personally invested in what other people do with their bodies, actually. Based on this post, and others.
On one hand, there’s going out looking presentable – as in, NOT looking like you’ve just spent the week in bed with the flu. At least put on some clean, not-ratty or pilled sweats and not-so-muddy sneakers and comb your hair. And take a shower, brush your hair and for god sakes, brush your teeth. Basically, don’t be a slob. (Unibrows, eeeeh, I think they should be trimmed, but meh. No big deal. I do draw the line however, at nose hair. That’s disgusting. Especially since it’s usually caked with boogers)
Basically, just look neat and clean. That’s all.
But yeah, mohawks, piercings, tattoos, yeah, go for it. That’s NOT being a slob. That’s just having your own style. And I don’t see it being a bar to being promoted. My last boss had an eyebrow piercing, and one of my supervisors had a labret as well as his ears gauged. Neither of them had any problems.
(Although I have to admit, I do like watching “What Not To Wear” and browsing Go Fug Yourself. I can’t help it. That’s just for fun. Yes, sometimes I want to take people and make them over. I like fashion way, way too much)
First off, thanks for quoting my ENTIRE post. Secondly, can I get a cite on the “others” assertion? Bare minimum of two separate instances, since others is plural. I eagerly await your response.
ETA: When you say your extended family “worked in academia”, what did they do exactly? Were/are they tenured professors or - be honest, now - were they secretaries and administrative personnel? My future MIL is the graduate director of her department and was tenured less than 4 years after her doctorate. She may have a different perspective.
lindsaybluth, I get what you’re saying, even if I have issues with how you present your opinions, both here and in other threads (like the “child of money” debacle). I do wonder if, as an aside, you’d give some thought to how you come across to others.
That said, I think the conversation about workplace norms and expectations is distinctly to the side of “girly” things, and it varies greatly where you work, both geographically and in what field. When I worked in a museum, anything went. Highly paid (and yes, tenured) professors could get away with all manner of individualized quirks. Where I work now (hospital administration), that’s not the case. In this hospital, in this city, you dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I could get on with my bad self and go back to my punk rock roots, complete with tri-colored hair, but not one of the managers in this building looks like that and I doubt I would ever get promoted to manager. My best friend (who makes 110% of my salary) works in a different field and showed up for her job interview with her nose ring and has had all manner of hair styles over the 10 years she has been at her job, and it doesn’t matter. She’s been promoted and makes almost twice what she did when she started.
I can also say that if I had 4" long nails that I painted pink with flower decals on them, I probably wouldn’t get promoted to manager, either. The conversation about what looks professional in a given venue does not neatly overlap with the girly-or-not conversation. And it has nothing to do with ethnicity and destroying someone’s identity. There are managers who wear Kente cloths and managers who wear dashikis here. They’re just professional as well.
This is a bit like my balance of girly and macho-- I tend to be “one of the guys” (but not re: cars) with some of my friends, but I still dress in a feminine manner when it’s functional to do so. If I didn’t have to shelve books, I’d wear dresses and skirts more often at work.