Something to Shave About

Wigs…Dresses…Boobs! Is it Barbara Bush? Is it what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s groping? No, it’s Adams House Drag Night!

Drag Night is a hallowed annual event scheduled for tonight in Adams House. Adams was once known as the artsy, gay-friendly House before randomization, and the night has ostensibly offered a space for students to toy with gender and sexuality. Isn’t that a good thing? Maybe we all want to swagger or saunter around a bit more—and we’re grateful for a safe community in which to do this. But Drag Night doesn’t always foster the kind of freedom and diversity it purports to. Prince Charming may get some fake boobs to be beautiful for a few hours, but by the stroke of midnight, his stubble returns and he changes back into a man, his masculinity intact. So the question is, does Drag Night really allow us to play around with such entrenched categories as male and female? Or is it the kind of fun that only perpetuates these categories?

Adams Schmooze has been a-flurry with e-mails in preparation for the big Night. Although Drag Night has historically had a minority drag king showing, there have been no House e-mails from women—and this is a good indication of the lay of Drag Night land. The fetish of femininity is so powerful, that it’s just not as fun to go against the grain. So although women do participate in the event, the main acts and personalities have usually been male. At best, Drag Night allows us to flirt with the gender binary, without taking any serious risks. At worst, it celebrates expectations of femininity that women would rather do without, and ridicules the reality of trans experience.

Some would argue that Adams Drag Night helps men get in touch with their feminine side—an opportunity from which men are too often barred these days. It’s true; these are the days of Schwarzenegger, Viagra and “The Man Show,” and I’m the last person to stop men from questioning gender norms. But how does drag do that, exactly? To most, excessive hair removal, artificially high voices, painfully high heels, and lots of “excuse me’s” and “I’m sorry’s,” doesn’t question notions of femininity. Drag Night offers men the opportunity to become deranged ’50s housewives—is this womanhood? You could say that there’s no essential womanhood, and so maybe exaggerating femininity only results in us making fun of traditional categories. This would be cool, and I think Adams House Drag Night has the potential to do this. But what’s happening now, at least as I can see, is different. At Drag Night, men dress up as women or trans women, and by doing so assure themselves that they are neither of these.

One of the hardest things for me about drag in general is that sometimes I’m a big fan. Although I’ve always wanted to be a drag king but made only a few very half-hearted attempts, my favorite drag is when I get to dress up like a “woman.” I shave my legs, I harness on my thigh-high boots, and I put on something tight. But when I wear my feminine accoutrements, it’s not considered entertainment, nor is it particularly out of the ordinary. A man in drag is often perceived as doing something silly—wearing uncomfortable clothing, removing body hair in uncomfortable ways. Why would men ever do such uncomfortable things, except for show? But when I dress in drag, it’s as if all of those “silly” things are natural for me, because these are uncomfortable, time-consuming things that women do all of the time. It reminds me of a poster for some play I saw recently in a Science Center bathroom stall: “Bathrooms are places where women become themselves,” is what I remember of the quote. Drag Night furthers the idea that there is this “right” kind of femininity (I always wondered where I got my body—now I know it’s from the bathroom!). Unfortunately, my bathroom-prepared-woman drag is successful. When I put on my boots, I get lots of compliments. If my trans friend wears her stockings to school the week after Drag Night—let’s just say it won’t be too fun for her.

Which leads me to my final point, which is that, for thousands of Americans (and some Harvard students), living as the opposite sex is not something you can do once a year on a Friday night. Not to say that donning that wig and shaving that hair isn’t a hard step—I know it is. But the whole point is that underneath the make-up, masculinity is still easily confirmed. You still know which bathroom to go to; you can walk down the street without fear of harassment because, although your skirt may be short, your voice is still low. Transgression on Drag Night might make you feel good, but it makes a mockery of trans people and trans lives. Drag Night, at least in its current incarnation, doesn’t bring “diversity” or “tolerance” to Harvard (two claims made in a recent Drag Night e-mail). Instead it makes gender transgression something to shave about, dress up and sing a song for. After the night is done, we can go back to our dorm rooms and put our boxers and khakis back on.

Beccah G. Watson ’04 is a history and literature concentrator in Adams House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.