The Feminist Case Against Cross-dressing

[jeremyyoung]

The Feminist Case Against Cross-dressing

Scene 3

Hera enters. She wheels on a manikin draped in a baby blue baby-doll nightie.

Hera
Oh spite, be damned, witness this hatred,
This sluttery and degradation of wanton
And flighty females to dress them thus.
Is it not enough to endure the pain of birth?
Yet before, and after,
to be dressed in scantiness revealed
And break the pleasure of a wife’s
Rehealed virginity: for pleasure.
For shame! For double shame of giving
Twice the pleasure than a woman receives;
And all the while risking the pain
Of children and the worry of nurture.

And these children,
When pulled from the body,
Are split into warriors for the state to slay
And subjects to be dressed thus, be tricked,
Be downcast and exploited of their maidenhood.
It is the curse of patriarchy:
Which word when sliced
Makes war of patriotism
And anarchy within the lives of women.

And just as the glories of the female form
Have increased allure, when draped sheer
In disguise of the impurity: so
Aphrodite’s waters,
Masks the sin of pettier pleasure
And call it love. I would as rather
My pearl were plucked,
That I might be senseless
To assault. Than I would dress thus.

And this curse I lay,
may it carried by the dutiful wife:
Since her life is without joy,
And her trust without reward,
For men take
The form of beasts at will
To double their double pleasure.
Let men be narrow in sensuality.
For if his licentious joys increase,
Even in the scruples weight,
The balance will o’er tip
And his need for woman will disappear.