Women dressed as rabbits

Hugh Hefner died (apparently he was still alive until last week).

I didn’t know much about Hugh Hefner. I don’t usually condone ignorance, but in this case I think it was probably better that way.

My preconception of Hefner was that he was an old rich bloke who founded Playboy in all its forms, paid women to dress as rabbits, and had a lot of sex with nubile young blond women, who presumably slept with him because he had a lot of money. There was a Playboy Mansion, which presumably was a big ole house built on the proceeds of said rabbits, in which Heffner could cavort with his girls in peace and harmony.

Since Hefner passed on to the warren in the sky, the newspapers have been full of bunny tales.

Hugh Hefner in 1966
Photo by ABC Television via Wikimedia Commons

Bunnies then

There was an interview with an ex 1970s Bunny Girl on the Today programme. She’d been working at a petrol station before she became a bunny girl. Then all of a sudden she was earning shedloads of dosh, just for smiling (all you had to do was smile she said, a number of times).

You didn’t have to have a certain type of body, she said. But you did have to have nice hair. And skin. And teeth. Oh, well that’s OK then. It didn’t matter if you didn’t have tits (just so long as you weren’t spotty).

Bunnies now

More recent accounts have painted the Playboy Mansion as more like a "prison" than a palace. Women living there got plenty of money to spend on clothes (you probably don’t get that in prison), but in return they have to observe a 9pm curfew, do Hefner’s bidding in the bedroom and watch 1950s films at his compulsory movie nights (I think I’d quite enjoy that bit). So not actually like a prison. 

I like nice clothes as much as the next girl, but I wouldn’t trade my freedom for them. I don’t really get this. I mean, I wouldn’t sleep with someone for money or power, it just doesn’t float my boat, but if that’s what you want to do, then, OK. But if you’re not really gaining from the whole thing, and you have to live in a ‘mansion’ that, according to some accounts is full of holes and covered in dog poo, then why bother? By all accounts, the women weren’t really imprisoned – they could walk away any time.

Photo by Darkain Multimedia, a member of Cosplay Photographers, via Flickr Creative Commons

Hefner gave women fame and fortune in return for demeaning themselves by dressing up as rabbits. It wasn't what you'd call a dignified outfit. They wore fluffy ears and swimsuits, not forgetting the fluffy little tail on their bottoms. You wouldn't see men demeaning themselves by doing something like that, unless it was a comedy fancy dress stunt. But Hefner's bunny girls were serious. 

A lover and a jailer

Hefner is a controversial figure. On the one hand, he's painted as a hero – lover and liberator of women, giving them sexual and economic freedom. On the other hand, a misogynist who imprisoned pretty girls. But it’s the power relationship that swings it for me. As a rich (white) man, Hefner wielded a huge amount of power. His women chose voluntarily to submit to that power in order to reap rewards. But as women they had to submit if they wanted those things. The Playboy Mansion was the age-old story of a powerful man exerting sexual and economic power over his females.

These women were free to choose, but they their culture taught them that submitting to male power was an acceptable way of getting rewards. And so they did. In return, Hefner got them to cavort about dressed as rabbits, and then he gave them money for pretty clothes. 

Since the beginning of time women have traded their appearances. Sometimes it's called prostitution. Sometimes it's called marrying for money. Sometimes it's called sleeping your way to the top. And other things. It would be nice to imagine a world where women didn't have to trade on their figures and faces, but it's a pipe dream. 

The rot at the heart of the Playboy Mansion wasn’t of Hefner’s making, or his many women, although they all exploited it. It’s from the basic assumption that men can have money and power and women can supply prettiness and sex. But not the other way around. Men just don't dress as bunnies. 

Sugar and spice and all things nice

My daughter is big on weaponry. She was given her first skipping rope this week - she used it to tie me up. It made me think about gender differences and how my offspring negotiates them. 

My case study of one, whom I cannot regard objectively, is three-and-a-half years old and very vocal.

She's not the princessy type. While some girls rush to dress up as fairies, she's more likely to go down the pirate, Batman or crocodile route. She likes climbing, riding her bike and weapons - particularly guns and swords. But sometimes she plays mothering games and watches My Little Pony.

Long Walk for a Fairy by Charamelody via Flickr Creative Commons

My bundle of joy's favourite colour is blue. She dislikes tights, but loves pretty dresses. Let her loose in a shoe shop and she'll choose something sparkly, or a (blue) boys trainer. Or both (she hedges her bets). Apparently at nursery she plays with boys and girls equally, but she's never mentioned another girl by name. I find that slightly strange.

Tomboys

I don't like to describe my daughter as a 'tomboy'. I don't like the term (and who's Tom anyway?). It suggests a girl who behaves like a boy, which in turn suggests predefined different ways that girls and boys 'should' behave. When I say she's not very 'princessy' but likes dinosaurs people suggest she is a tomboy, but she isn't - her interests aren't restricted to stereotypical male pursuits.

My daughter isn't a tomboy, she's just herself. She's interested in the things that interest her. Currently principle topics include death, weapons, dinosaurs and poo, and particularly combining these. Her theory of dinosaur extinction has the dinosaurs being killed off by a giant poo falling from space.

I think that the things she does and the choices my littlun makes are largely unrelated to any social conditioning about what girls should and shouldn't do. She's not interested in something because she thinks she should be, or because liking fairies will make her more of a girl - at three-and-a-half she's not sophisticated enough for that. She simply likes what she likes, and what a remarkably pure thing that is. How often do we try to convince ourselves and others that we enjoyed something, because we think we should have enjoyed it, that it was in some way improving, or that saying we liked it makes us look cleverer?

The three-year-old sees stuff in the world around her, and some things spark her interest and curiosity. But the things she says are very different. Toddlers have the luxury of guilt-free hypocrisy. They can speak at length about the philosophy of sharing, completely fail to act on their own advice, but see no problem with the disjunct between their actions and words. My daughter acts on instinct, but her words are much more carefully considered (though often nonsensical).

Girls can't do that

We play a game of Octonauts and swap around who plays which character. I've been told repeatedly that I can't be Captain Barnacles because "girls can't be captains". It's in vain that I explain that my grandmother was a captain in the army. It's just met with denial, because "girls can't be captains
It seems that, somehow, after just three years on the planet, my beloved child already has clear ideas of what girls and boys can and cannot do. I think I've finally succeeded in persuading her that boys can be ballet dancers, but she took some convincing. Still no joy on the captain front.

I patiently explain that girls are as good as boys and boys are as good as girls and they can do whatever they choose to do. She patiently listens and seems to agree with me. But girls still can't be captains.

No matter how hard I try to suggest women and girls can do whatever they want to in life, that we're equal to boys and men, somehow my daughter's experience is telling her differently. You can be whatever you want to be - you just can't be in charge.

The Great Weight Debate

So they say size doesn't matter...

I like food. Eating is one of my favourite things to do. But I really hate what happens to me when I have too much of it. It's a problem. I am very much not alone.

Women are so very concerned about how heavy we are. Who hasn't wanted to punch someone when they heard the hateful adage 'A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips'? But then put the cake down all the same.

It's a cruel twist of fate that as women get older they find it harder to keep off the pounds. Having children doesn't help - both the biological changes, but also the exhaustion of chasing and placating energetic little people, which makes us comfort eat, or polish off the remainder of their fish fingers on top of our own.

Tired, angry and hungry

I basically want the body of Britney Spears, circa 2000. She was 19. She's had no children. She could spend her days training to look fabulous while I spend mine at a computer. It's insane. But look how lovely she is. Who wouldn't want abs like that?

Britney Spears at the NFL Kickoff Live 2003 Concert.
Photo by Chief Warrant Officer Seth Rossman for US Navy, via Wikimedia Commons

It makes me shudder now to think of the tiny amounts I allowed myself to eat, at one stage of my life. People offered me biscuits and cake and I self-righteously refused even the smallest slice. I did get thin. But I also often felt exhausted, angry and hungry. And I doubt I'm unusual. I would bet that the majority of women, by the time they reach 40, have been through something like this at some point in their lives, had these feelings. How many of us have 'fat clothes' and 'thin clothes'?

My personal obsession with weight has ebbed and flowed for well over a decade now. When people say 'you look well' I translate that as a little bit chubbier (and I should take steps). When I lose weight people tell me. And I love it. I show a couple of extra pounds very easily, so people notice the difference, and comment on it, very quickly. I love it a little bit too much, and I know it fuels the problem, but I don't want it to stop.

Health warning: if this has never happened to you, I totally accept that you think I'm a few chocolates short of the full box. I would have thought that once too. But it's pretty normal (except the bit about Britney Spears, I think that's just me).

My friend at work and I have a weird calorie pact - if someone brings something tasty in for us all to share then either she or I will try it and determine whether it's nice enough to be worth the calories. She recently mentioned the weight loss benefits of getting a sickness bug. Obviously I looked at her like she was a lunatic, but I secretly thought she had a point. I mean, you wouldn't choose to be struck down by a horrible disease, but there's no harm in enjoying the benefits, is there?

Time waisting

The thing that annoys me most about my personal weight obsession is the time I have wasted worrying about how I wish I to be smaller and feeling sad or angry that the numbers on the scales are higher than I want them to be. And the time thinking about eating things I'd decided I 'shouldn't eat'. I wish I could think about something else, but I do really like cake. And cheese. And other food. Particularly cheesecake. I like cooking it and I like eating it. And I like it when other people cook it so that I can eat it.

Photo by Alan Cleaver, via Flickr Creative Commons

If you're not overweight, and you turn down a piece of cake, someone will look at you and say 'you don't need to worry' about all that. And you have to hold your tongue, or explain patiently that you do need to worry about all that. Because if you hadn't spent the past decade worrying about all that - going to the gym and running away from biscuits, you would be at least twice the size you are now. Fact.

Men, too can be concerned about their weight. But not in the epidemic proportions that women are. And I suspect (based on nothing whatsoever) that their worries about the issue are often less deep-routed than ours are.

Apparently, it's easier for men to lose weight than women. So if a man and a woman both start to diet, the weight will fall off him, while it will trickle, or dribble off her. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, on both sides. But our bodies are designed with an additional layer of fat to men's and it clings on to us, resisting attempts to remove it or convert it to muscle.

And of course we all know that women are judged on their appearance so much more than men - female politicians are singled out for comments on their clothes, shoes and general attractiveness, while for men it is an afterthought, usually only mentioned if a significant man is especially handsome or hideous.

Don't be greedy

I'm not advocating chucking out the quinoa and getting down to Mackie Dees. We shouldn't eat too much, or all the wrong things. We should eat well and exercise well. But we should be happy. We should love our bodies for what they are and not aspire to be something else (Britney). Yadda yadda yadda. We all know this.

Feminist, columnist and celeb-arse-licker Caitlin Moran (who annoys me as much as I admire her) was once upon a time much larger than she is now. She wrote something very sensible about the great weight debate: really all you need to do is be 'person-shaped'. We all know what that means, and if you're not too thin or too fat then you're OK and leave it at that. And think about something else.

I'm going to think about something else now.