'Feminine Appropriation'

Yeah it's annoying af. And it's not even something to research. All they post is "I made this.." And "this is what I've been working on myself..." And it's so obvious that they are doing things themselves if you just look at their social media.

i guess i'd just like to bring up that the concept of "feminine appropriation" in the first place (and in particular the idea in the fader article that PC are "literally colonizing the female body") is an idea that was developed initially within trans-exclusionary radical feminism since at least the 1970s - it's very much the same discourse that was used in, for example, "the transsexual empire" or "the scum manifesto." it's tied to the really oppressive idea that transgender women are pervert men who get off on their own "womanhood," and/or that we're "parodying" womanhood, and that everything we as trans women do to affirm our identities is abusing stereotypes of femininity. that idea's really gross and not at all grounded in material reality, obviously, and it ignores basic mechanics of how gender works or -why- it works. gender as it exists now is there to uphold the gendered division of labor and to maintain the structure of the heterosexual nuclear family - gender non-confirming people are punished systemically in order to regulate that. "male privilege" doesn't exist for some abstract or arbitrary reason and it's not actually tied to our bodies at all (other than through our state-governed relationships with the genders that our doctors assigned us). it's a systemic process that's there to devalue women's work so that capitalism is more profitable, and things like misogyny/transmisogyny/queerphobia are functions of that.

by all that, i mean to say that i don't think PC Music using signifiers of the feminine in their music is any more "appropriating femininity" than like a husband who stays at home and looks after the kids is, and that the conversation being had is way way too tied to bodies when it shouldn't be, especially in a conversation about gender conformity. i still think the way they don't credit their vocalists is really shitty and rude, but i don't think "colonizing the female body" is at all an appropriate way to talk about it, especially when everyone involved has talked about the use of their vocalists mostly in the context of pitch and timbre, e.g. the way that harmonies are brighter and more vivid/full sounding when the vocals are high pitched, which is a pretty common idea in, for example, the nightcore fandom. tying high pitched voices explicitly to female bodies is, well, transmisogynistic.

i also think the conversation is being too tied to individual identities. gender exists and is reinforced outside of our individual identities, and it's absolutely possible to have a relationship to misogyny/transmisogyny without identifying as a woman (see: femme gay men) and even for certain actions or presentations to do so. i want to argue that PC Music, even the stuff made by dudes, absolutely is subject to misogyny. look at the youtube comments, look at the way that like minimal techno bros on the internet shit on it, the way it's seen as "shallow" - it's absolutely tied to PC Music's femininity! it's totally to do with the way "girly" music is seen as less serious or carrying genuine aesthetic value, and why it's treated as like exactly on the same level as Disney Channel pop (not that Disney Channel pop doesn't also have plenty of aesthetic merit). this is literally WHY we get so many contrived thinkpieces that talk literally nothing about the music, because girly music isn't actually valuable as music worthy of genuine analysis. it's actually really similar to reasons why trans women's femininities are policed - the idea that it's absolutely unthinkable that a ~man~ would want to stoop down to and genuinely engage with/in femininity unless it was for parodic, hateful or sexual reasons. it's exhausting.

i'd also like to add that the idea of the "white cishet man" as this like Symbol For Ultimate Privilege is getting really tired within most social justice discourse and again ignores the way in which dynamics of white supremacy and patriarchy play out beyond individual identities and within intra-community contexts. it's especially incoherent here when it's common knowledge by now that several women are really really integral to shaping the overall image of PC Music, that several of the men are obviously and openly queer, and that many of the main players are jewish. (i'm not really interested in getting into the "are jews white" question here, but i think it's pretty easy to accept that within the context of britain and more generally europe, jews are an oppressed minority. and like a.g. cook doesn't even look white???)

also, white women using the language of colonization and appropriation (especially within the context of really bad gender analysis) strikes me as really fucking racist.

Slow clap for that master piece boundaryfuss posted.

I have nothing original to contribute to this debate, just want to second this and say it's the best analysis into the feminine appropriation question re: PC Music I've ever seen.  Posts like this are why I love these boards.