Our value as Women - or lack thereof.

I realise that I don't write much about the tumultuous side of my life; but THIS is something on my mind. Be warned - the curve from rhinestoning to this post is a steep one. But it's been brewing.
The above is me. I am 53, about a size 26, 5' 10". I love what I see in the mirror, because it is what I have to work with. I didn't get to be this way because one day when I was super modelling I thought, "eh this sucks, I'm eating all the pies." I was born and have always been a fat person.
For MANY people, this means I am less than human. I am a drain on the tax payer, lazy, unmotivated blah blah blah. For someone who is clearly MORE than, I am LESS than.
I live with this and am fairly inured to it as a result, however from time to time it cross-ignites with other things in life and I get angry.
Women readers, do you understand and relate to the experience that men make so many decisions about women based on how f*ckable we are? Men reading, please hang in there because this is important.
The woman above is unf*ckable. She is too old now to breed and she's fat so basically, she's almost invisible. Not to those who know her but walking down the street, in the supermarket, just not there.
THIS woman is f*ckable:

Yeah, right...

THIS woman gets hit on all the time. This is by men of all ages and types too. Mostly younger than me. It is not even remotely flattering; really, being hit on by someone who can't see past thick makeup, fake hair and eyebrows and sparkly clothes is like being attacked by a magpie.

SO here's what I am beginning to work out. When I was fertile, I was not every guy's idea of being f*ckable. Fat women or women who prefer to dress and groom in a masculine way (I'm going to use the word "butch" for this), have taken themselves out of trying to be as f*ckable as possible and are treated as LESS all the time. I know a disturbing number of butch women who have been beaten up, I have been threatened myself. From the oiks hanging out car windows driving past shouting out insults just so I am absolutely sure that I am unf*ckable to them, to the physical menacing that can also happen.
HOW DARE a woman of fertile age take themselves out of the game like that?
Since I hit menopause and got old and invisible, I don't get this any more. Age is something that clearly we can't help. Women who colour their hair, get face lifts or whatever and try to push back on age - they risk being judged as having failed in their attempts, although I notice this is a BIG driver for many women. I didn't realise how anxious I was not to be seen as a woman trying to push back, but it appears that I occur like that when I am Constance. Because men hit on me, women want makeup tips and I get told off when I do makeup looks that are not pretty. Like this:

It's not about looking pretty, people!

So where did this all come from? Well, on another blog I read, this image was posted, and the commenters went to town judging and speculating among themselves the relative value of the model Tess Holliday (not that anyone gave her her name as a human being) and WHY the magazine did this.

Source

For me, this is a great example of the purpose of modelling being accurate for once. Fat women find it hard to work out if RTW clothes will fit and suit them if they cannot see them on a model who represents them. Cosmo is helping to market a product to a demographic of women that is underrepresented in fashion publications, to the detriment of the industry.
But what most people see is something quite different. They see an unf*ckable on the cover of a mag and they are affronted. Because obviously a women's magazine cover is there to appeal to men, right?
SO much judgement about "The Obese" about Tess, about Cosmopolitan.
FFS people, it's a magazine cover, not an invitation for sex. WHY oh WHY must everything be about whether men want to f*ck us, how appalling it is to present as unf*ckable, how worthless we are if we are no longer f*ckable, how hopeless we are if we cannnot maintain a level of f*ckability.

I'm not sure I've nailed how I feel about this or the issue at all, but the women I have talked to about it are not at all surprised by this theory. They often hadn't thought of it quite that way but it lands as very real when they do.
To the men in the world, you have a 0.03 second moment when you decide if you would f*ck a woman or not, you can't help it but you are not animals, you can choose how you respond. Please consider that we may not care, we may not be interested, we may have other things on our minds and other intentions. PLEASE mind your own business.

Courage vs Confidence

People are always admiring my confidence, because I will do mad stuff like this photoshoot in undies. The thing is, it doesn't work like that, I'm sharing this not to blow my own trumpet, but because I think it might help people who are scared of giving these things a go to understand how it works:

I do it because I am scared, but I screw up my courage and have a go. The confidence comes FROM this, it is not the beginning of the cycle. Experience has taught me that this will mostly happen, although sometimes the outcome is awful and humiliating and terrible, just as I fear it may be. But I live through it and have another go.

ANYHOO! THIS photoshoot is to publicise our show at Art Deco Weekend in Napier; KABARETT presents NacktMusik 

 This is a thrown together look that I am improving on for the show. YES, I am in a bra and cami knickers and I will be on stage. This is a really terrible idea in many ways but I'm doing it anyway. It is a terrible idea because in spite of knowing it is perfect for my character, some people will be very judgy about it.

 Especially when I am surrounded by these babes all evening! Spending a day with them all being so gorgeous in their scanties for this shoot was nerve-wracking, even though we all love each other and it is a very safe space full of trust and mutual respect.

 There's nothing typically sexy or titillating about this.

But, we will have fun and it all makes sense. Clever Hansel and I are married in this show. A somewhat unconventional relationship that is probably not a legal marriage, given my character's actual assigned gender is probably not the one I am identifying with here.

It is a Cabaret of weird, sexy and unexpected acts, tied loosely together by snippets of insight into the lives of the cast - their loves, losses, addictions and confusions.

I could have taken an easier path with this show and worn more clothes. When I first started performing, I would no more have done this than run naked down the street. But, the courage-action-confidence cycle has moved me a long way from then, and I hope that this show will be one of the wins. I am sure it will, actually, as it is something special.