What I mean is, writing is where I get to be just a writer. Writing is where I get to be a genderless narrator -- or, at least, where I get to feel like one.
That's pretty much exactly how I felt about it. And it was true enough, too. I honestly thought it, and still do to an extent.
But that's the thing about stuff like encultured sexism -- it sneaks in all around the edges of everything. Like, for instance, if gender is really so unimportant, then what's the biggie about being a woman who writes? Why does writing need to be a genderless act inside our heads? Why the fannish obsession with male characters?
It's all of a piece, imo. And I hate to channel parents everywhere and say, "You'll understand when you grow up," because of course you are grown up, and your experience may be quite different from mine, in the end. But nonetheless, I think until you get old and curmudgeonly enough, it's hard to see how some of our preferences are not just things-that-are-because-we-like-them, but are part of this larger mosaic which includes our reactions to sexism of various stripes.
It's just as well I feel more zen about this now, or I'd be really horrified at how many of my choices in life were subtly influenced by my internalised reaction to sexism. I didn't let it stop me, most of the time, although I did change paths sometimes because some were just too hard -- like pushing the ocean.
I always felt I needed to justify myself; and it was actually worse when I was clearly really good at something. In hindsight, that should have been my first clue -- why did I feel like being talented was shameful? Shame is not something you innately feel. It's something you're made to feel by other people, usually if you do something wrong.
Several times in my life, I've been made to feel deeply ashamed of my own talent or things I've done which were actually laudable, by any objective standard (like saving someone from drowning).
Shame is a powerful tool of opression, because it's silent, you can't fight it, it's usually done by a group, and it cuts right to the heart of your own esteem -- that's the point of it, to make people stop doing the bad thing.
And look at fandom: we disparagingly call popular fans BNFs, and no one wants to be one -- that is not a badge of pride anyone would choose. And yet, everyone is chasing comments and hits.
Why? Why this double-edged reaction to popularity.
I do honestly think it's about internalised sexism, and other isms, and how so many female fans have been made to feel, in a rainbow of subtle and unsubtle ways, that they are not worthy of the honour of being considered proper human beings.
:(
Sorry to have ranted at you -- my zen only extends as far as comments; I still get het up about isms.
I'm glad you found something positive and useful in my post. And I really hope you do go off and write and post and find a way to leave the neuroticism behind. You're worth it. And if I thought it would have any beneficial effect, I'd totally magic-wand you and hand you an Official Authorial Pen.
(Edited because my new (literal, not metaphoric) keyboard is still kicking my ass. How ironic. :)
what's the biggie about being a woman who writes? Why does writing need to be a genderless act insie our heads?
Well, for me, it's necessary in order to represent characters unskewed by genderstuff. I don't want to be a male narrator either. I want to be not of a gender, but able to understand both. As for the fannish obsession with male characters - I suspect it's related to so many fannish authors being heterosexual and female. We're falling in love all over the place. ^_^
I had no idea "BNF" was disparaging. I thought it was overall just a good thing. How is it disparaging? I'm like the village idiot right now.
I've felt shame and I was treated like crap as a kid, but I've never credited it to sexism, just general parental asshattery. Hm. I mean, unfair treatment is unfair treatment. I've always focused on what would be fair, rather than why people are being unfair. But I'm not sure why.
(ETA - not true. I thought abut why they treated me unfairly for years, I just haven't thought about it lately. But I haven't credited it to sexism.)
Hah, and thank you for the pen/encouragement, and the same to you!
This fandom thing gets weirder and weirder every day. I just want to touch people with writing and have fun. What the hell? I'll get back to it. :P
Well, for me, it's necessary in order to represent characters unskewed by genderstuff. I don't want to be a male narrator either. I want to be not of a gender, but able to understand both.
Right. But think of it this way: men and women are more alike than not. We are adults of the same species; we are very, very alike. The differences culture gets us to focus on are actually tiny. Even if we move away from biological determinsim, there's going to be more difference between my world view and that of another adult woman from a very different culture (say, Egypt a millennia ago), than between me and most of the men I'm likely to bump into on the street here and now.
So I'm a woman. So what? I do actually have a pretty good idea what it's like to be a man in this culture. As long as I'm thoughtful and careful and listen to men when they speak about being men, and empathise with my particular male character, it's perfectly possible for me to write one well. Yes? It doesn't actually require me negating my gender.
There's this long tradition in Western thought which equates the body with all sorts of "bad" things: women/stupidity/emotion/sin, and because we're in a binary culture, that means the opposite of the body, mind, gets associated with "good" things: men/intelligence/logic/divinity.
Supposedly, we've chucked most of that philosophy out, now. But it keps turning up in all sorts of places. And one of the ways I think it turns up is in this idea that genderlessness is somehow necessary for empathy and inisghtfulness.
I really don't think it is. I think people who associate with no gender are perfectly capable of being human, mind you, but I don't think gender is a great evil. It's our cultural programming that makes gender problematic. But even then, I don't think it's necessary to deny the biology of our bodies in order to be able to use our minds and put ourselves in the shoes of others.
Which is probably more philosophy than you ever wanted to know, right? I've spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff, but I know it's not what most people consider interesting dinner table conversation.
It's is why I've come around to rejecting the idea of being a genderless author, though. I think that's a leftover of that whole men/intelligence/logic/divinity binary, and I DO NOT WANT to buy into that any more.
Whatever works for you, though, is totally okay. If there's one thing I've learned about self-identity, it's that there are many ways of being a decent human being, and all of them are okay.
Well... exactly. I do think of it that way. Or I think I do. I think that was why I was a little surprised that you found the head-genderlessness worthy of concern.
So I'm a woman. So what?
Again... exactly! I didn't mean, like, negating gender so much as -- I dunno, just not being it. (I haven't focused on this before, heh, just winging it right now...)
Mentally, it's just not natural for me to identify as male or female. Or operate as such. I'm just a person. You're just a person. What I mean is, I don't talk to myself as a male or as a female, so I'm not going to talk to the page as such either.
There's this long tradition in Western thought which equates the body with all sorts of "bad" things: women/stupidity/emotion/sin, and because we're in a binary culture, that means the opposite of the body, mind, gets associated with "good" things: men/intelligence/logic/divinity.
Supposedly, we've chucked most of that philosophy out, now. But it keps turning up in all sorts of places. And one of the ways I think it turns up is in this idea that genderlessness is somehow necessary for empathy and inisghtfulness.
Wait, I'm not understanding how this works. If the perceived m/f divide is what it is (or was what it was) in your first paragraph, how does holding an ideal of mental genderlessness support that? Doesn't it negate it? Wouldn't something more like "When I want to be empathetic, I identify as female, and when I want to be intelligent, I identify as male," be what supports it?
I mean, if I'm speaking on behalf of the thinking thing inside my head, the little writer in there that's lining up the words, I think gender would get in the way of that. If my thinking thing (I) were to say, "I'm a female writer," while writing, it would get all muddled up in well now I have to figure out how that applies to what I'm doing, which is a ton of extra work.
Which is probably more philosophy than you ever wanted to know, right?
No wai! You got me really interested in this now. I'm thinking I may come off as argumentative, so just in case -- I'm not trying to tell you to be different either, it's just when people start saying intelligent things to me, I like to play with them sometimes. :)
Aand, I just looked up again and this popped out:
But even then, I don't think it's necessary to deny the biology of our bodies in order to be able to use our minds and put ourselves in the shoes of others.
AHA! I don't equate the biology of the body with gender identity, which is probably unusual (lol, especially considering that for me, they happen to be the same), and I didn't clarify that.
So yes. I completely relate to what you said there -- it reflects the way I operate. I'm happy to be a body with boobs etc (boobs are nice, no facial hair is very very nice, the twixt of my nethers, also nice), and it's irrelevant to the way I think. Aah, I think I'm going in circles now, or I will soon, so I'll stop, and I'm still not sure I've figured out how all this works, which is exciting!
I should like, go read a book. After writing this massive book-sized comment. Hahah.
I've been meaning to write a proper post about this too, because it's easy to wave around shorthands for the journey I went on, and end up smooshing things together (like gender and sex) which I didn't necessaarily intend to smoosh.
But yes, I think you've got it; I'm tired of body hate, and the sexist assumptions that tend to go along with it, like women can't think logically. And because of that, I no longer say things like, "I'm just a person," because it feels too much like endorsing the rejection of women as people.
But obviously, I do think women are people, as are men, and that it's perfectly possible for one person to write about another in a deep and respectful way, even if they don't share the same history or culture or gender or ability etc.
I've really enjoyed talking with you today; I think I'm done for the moment -- I want to write fic. I might be back later with more thoughts.
And because of that, I no longer say things like, "I'm just a person," because it feels too much like endorsing the rejection of women as people.
HMMMMMMM. It does sound like that. We need to get the men who think this way to say so too. I have a feeling it only sounds sexist because sexism a preexisting assumption.
Back atcha, and have fun writing! Might follow your example, there.
Re: The BNF thing. Maybe it's just my take on it. But I've seen a lot of people use 'BNF' as a way of saying, "too big for her own boots," or "an author who is more popular than me" rather than just, "popular author". I may be over-sensitive, as I've seen people call me that, and it just never seemed like a compliment or a baggage-free description.
Re: shame. Well, there's more than one reason for people to shame someone. It's entirely possible that you were made to feel ashamed for reasons other than gender. Jealousy is a common reason, in my experience -- it can turn people into horrible bullies.
The reason I'm interested in trying to figure out why people do the things they do is because I think it makes it easier to write interesting characters. For instance, most people are not just randomly horrible to someone else -- people are not cardboard villains. We have motivations that make sense to us at the time -- we tell ourselves a story to justify what we do. So what story do people who act like assholes tell themselves? If I know that, then I can put it in one of my stories and make my villain sympathetic (not necessarily likeable, but sympathetic), even as he or she shames someone.
Owen, for instance, picks on Tosh to make himself feel powerful; he might justify it by telling himself he's doing her a favour in discouraging her crush, as he's not interested and he'd be a bad boyfriend. There's probably even a bit of truth in that excuse -- that's why it works for him; but he's still an asshole and getting off on the power game too.
People are interesting like that, because lots of different things are true at once, some of them contradictory.
My own truth is that a lot of people have tried to subtly shame me, because they were jealous; and it has often had an edge of gender powerplay to it. But that doesn't mean it's true for other people.
Hm. Yeah, some people must mean it that way, I guess. But that's just like, jealousy and jerkiness. Even if it's 'a writer/fan that's more popular than me,' well, that's okay. There's nothing wrong with being popular, right? It just means people like you. It probably means you're cool.
I would wear it like a huge badge of honor. Even if someone meant to be mean. I'm deciding it now. (I have never been called a BNF, so either I'm not cool enough, or not a big enough jerk. I do get 'troll' a lot, though. XD)
So what story do people who act like assholes tell themselves?
That is such a great way to put it.
I'm with you on what you said about figuring people out -- it's like something I already know, but often avoid. Like I'm too sensitive. Or it's more like -- I only want to figure out fictional people, because figuring out real people, or real individuals anyway, feels kind of like being invasive. I don't do it with the people I know very much, and I have a serious aversion to RPF for likely related reasons.
But yeah, I do kind of obsessively try to figure fictional people out. So I'm half-relating? I guess. :)
My own truth is that a lot of people have tried to subtly shame me,
That's pretty much exactly how I felt about it. And it was true enough, too. I honestly thought it, and still do to an extent.
But that's the thing about stuff like encultured sexism -- it sneaks in all around the edges of everything. Like, for instance, if gender is really so unimportant, then what's the biggie about being a woman who writes? Why does writing need to be a genderless act inside our heads? Why the fannish obsession with male characters?
It's all of a piece, imo. And I hate to channel parents everywhere and say, "You'll understand when you grow up," because of course you are grown up, and your experience may be quite different from mine, in the end. But nonetheless, I think until you get old and curmudgeonly enough, it's hard to see how some of our preferences are not just things-that-are-because-we-like-them, but are part of this larger mosaic which includes our reactions to sexism of various stripes.
It's just as well I feel more zen about this now, or I'd be really horrified at how many of my choices in life were subtly influenced by my internalised reaction to sexism. I didn't let it stop me, most of the time, although I did change paths sometimes because some were just too hard -- like pushing the ocean.
I always felt I needed to justify myself; and it was actually worse when I was clearly really good at something. In hindsight, that should have been my first clue -- why did I feel like being talented was shameful? Shame is not something you innately feel. It's something you're made to feel by other people, usually if you do something wrong.
Several times in my life, I've been made to feel deeply ashamed of my own talent or things I've done which were actually laudable, by any objective standard (like saving someone from drowning).
Shame is a powerful tool of opression, because it's silent, you can't fight it, it's usually done by a group, and it cuts right to the heart of your own esteem -- that's the point of it, to make people stop doing the bad thing.
And look at fandom: we disparagingly call popular fans BNFs, and no one wants to be one -- that is not a badge of pride anyone would choose. And yet, everyone is chasing comments and hits.
Why? Why this double-edged reaction to popularity.
I do honestly think it's about internalised sexism, and other isms, and how so many female fans have been made to feel, in a rainbow of subtle and unsubtle ways, that they are not worthy of the honour of being considered proper human beings.
:(
Sorry to have ranted at you -- my zen only extends as far as comments; I still get het up about isms.
I'm glad you found something positive and useful in my post. And I really hope you do go off and write and post and find a way to leave the neuroticism behind. You're worth it. And if I thought it would have any beneficial effect, I'd totally magic-wand you and hand you an Official Authorial Pen.
(Edited because my new (literal, not metaphoric) keyboard is still kicking my ass. How ironic. :)
Reply
Well, for me, it's necessary in order to represent characters unskewed by genderstuff. I don't want to be a male narrator either. I want to be not of a gender, but able to understand both. As for the fannish obsession with male characters - I suspect it's related to so many fannish authors being heterosexual and female. We're falling in love all over the place. ^_^
I had no idea "BNF" was disparaging. I thought it was overall just a good thing. How is it disparaging? I'm like the village idiot right now.
I've felt shame and I was treated like crap as a kid, but I've never credited it to sexism, just general parental asshattery. Hm. I mean, unfair treatment is unfair treatment. I've always focused on what would be fair, rather than why people are being unfair. But I'm not sure why.
(ETA - not true. I thought abut why they treated me unfairly for years, I just haven't thought about it lately. But I haven't credited it to sexism.)
Hah, and thank you for the pen/encouragement, and the same to you!
This fandom thing gets weirder and weirder every day. I just want to touch people with writing and have fun. What the hell? I'll get back to it. :P
Reply
Right. But think of it this way: men and women are more alike than not. We are adults of the same species; we are very, very alike. The differences culture gets us to focus on are actually tiny. Even if we move away from biological determinsim, there's going to be more difference between my world view and that of another adult woman from a very different culture (say, Egypt a millennia ago), than between me and most of the men I'm likely to bump into on the street here and now.
So I'm a woman. So what? I do actually have a pretty good idea what it's like to be a man in this culture. As long as I'm thoughtful and careful and listen to men when they speak about being men, and empathise with my particular male character, it's perfectly possible for me to write one well. Yes? It doesn't actually require me negating my gender.
There's this long tradition in Western thought which equates the body with all sorts of "bad" things: women/stupidity/emotion/sin, and because we're in a binary culture, that means the opposite of the body, mind, gets associated with "good" things: men/intelligence/logic/divinity.
Supposedly, we've chucked most of that philosophy out, now. But it keps turning up in all sorts of places. And one of the ways I think it turns up is in this idea that genderlessness is somehow necessary for empathy and inisghtfulness.
I really don't think it is. I think people who associate with no gender are perfectly capable of being human, mind you, but I don't think gender is a great evil. It's our cultural programming that makes gender problematic. But even then, I don't think it's necessary to deny the biology of our bodies in order to be able to use our minds and put ourselves in the shoes of others.
Which is probably more philosophy than you ever wanted to know, right? I've spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff, but I know it's not what most people consider interesting dinner table conversation.
It's is why I've come around to rejecting the idea of being a genderless author, though. I think that's a leftover of that whole men/intelligence/logic/divinity binary, and I DO NOT WANT to buy into that any more.
Whatever works for you, though, is totally okay. If there's one thing I've learned about self-identity, it's that there are many ways of being a decent human being, and all of them are okay.
Reply
Well... exactly. I do think of it that way. Or I think I do. I think that was why I was a little surprised that you found the head-genderlessness worthy of concern.
So I'm a woman. So what?
Again... exactly! I didn't mean, like, negating gender so much as -- I dunno, just not being it. (I haven't focused on this before, heh, just winging it right now...)
Mentally, it's just not natural for me to identify as male or female. Or operate as such. I'm just a person. You're just a person. What I mean is, I don't talk to myself as a male or as a female, so I'm not going to talk to the page as such either.
There's this long tradition in Western thought which equates the body with all sorts of "bad" things: women/stupidity/emotion/sin, and because we're in a binary culture, that means the opposite of the body, mind, gets associated with "good" things: men/intelligence/logic/divinity.
Supposedly, we've chucked most of that philosophy out, now. But it keps turning up in all sorts of places. And one of the ways I think it turns up is in this idea that genderlessness is somehow necessary for empathy and inisghtfulness.
Wait, I'm not understanding how this works. If the perceived m/f divide is what it is (or was what it was) in your first paragraph, how does holding an ideal of mental genderlessness support that? Doesn't it negate it? Wouldn't something more like "When I want to be empathetic, I identify as female, and when I want to be intelligent, I identify as male," be what supports it?
I mean, if I'm speaking on behalf of the thinking thing inside my head, the little writer in there that's lining up the words, I think gender would get in the way of that. If my thinking thing (I) were to say, "I'm a female writer," while writing, it would get all muddled up in well now I have to figure out how that applies to what I'm doing, which is a ton of extra work.
Which is probably more philosophy than you ever wanted to know, right?
No wai! You got me really interested in this now. I'm thinking I may come off as argumentative, so just in case -- I'm not trying to tell you to be different either, it's just when people start saying intelligent things to me, I like to play with them sometimes. :)
Aand, I just looked up again and this popped out:
But even then, I don't think it's necessary to deny the biology of our bodies in order to be able to use our minds and put ourselves in the shoes of others.
AHA! I don't equate the biology of the body with gender identity, which is probably unusual (lol, especially considering that for me, they happen to be the same), and I didn't clarify that.
So yes. I completely relate to what you said there -- it reflects the way I operate. I'm happy to be a body with boobs etc (boobs are nice, no facial hair is very very nice, the twixt of my nethers, also nice), and it's irrelevant to the way I think. Aah, I think I'm going in circles now, or I will soon, so I'll stop, and I'm still not sure I've figured out how all this works, which is exciting!
I should like, go read a book. After writing this massive book-sized comment. Hahah.
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I've been meaning to write a proper post about this too, because it's easy to wave around shorthands for the journey I went on, and end up smooshing things together (like gender and sex) which I didn't necessaarily intend to smoosh.
But yes, I think you've got it; I'm tired of body hate, and the sexist assumptions that tend to go along with it, like women can't think logically. And because of that, I no longer say things like, "I'm just a person," because it feels too much like endorsing the rejection of women as people.
But obviously, I do think women are people, as are men, and that it's perfectly possible for one person to write about another in a deep and respectful way, even if they don't share the same history or culture or gender or ability etc.
I've really enjoyed talking with you today; I think I'm done for the moment -- I want to write fic. I might be back later with more thoughts.
Reply
HMMMMMMM. It does sound like that. We need to get the men who think this way to say so too. I have a feeling it only sounds sexist because sexism a preexisting assumption.
Back atcha, and have fun writing! Might follow your example, there.
Reply
Re: shame. Well, there's more than one reason for people to shame someone. It's entirely possible that you were made to feel ashamed for reasons other than gender. Jealousy is a common reason, in my experience -- it can turn people into horrible bullies.
The reason I'm interested in trying to figure out why people do the things they do is because I think it makes it easier to write interesting characters. For instance, most people are not just randomly horrible to someone else -- people are not cardboard villains. We have motivations that make sense to us at the time -- we tell ourselves a story to justify what we do. So what story do people who act like assholes tell themselves? If I know that, then I can put it in one of my stories and make my villain sympathetic (not necessarily likeable, but sympathetic), even as he or she shames someone.
Owen, for instance, picks on Tosh to make himself feel powerful; he might justify it by telling himself he's doing her a favour in discouraging her crush, as he's not interested and he'd be a bad boyfriend. There's probably even a bit of truth in that excuse -- that's why it works for him; but he's still an asshole and getting off on the power game too.
People are interesting like that, because lots of different things are true at once, some of them contradictory.
My own truth is that a lot of people have tried to subtly shame me, because they were jealous; and it has often had an edge of gender powerplay to it. But that doesn't mean it's true for other people.
Reply
I would wear it like a huge badge of honor. Even if someone meant to be mean. I'm deciding it now. (I have never been called a BNF, so either I'm not cool enough, or not a big enough jerk. I do get 'troll' a lot, though. XD)
So what story do people who act like assholes tell themselves?
That is such a great way to put it.
I'm with you on what you said about figuring people out -- it's like something I already know, but often avoid. Like I'm too sensitive. Or it's more like -- I only want to figure out fictional people, because figuring out real people, or real individuals anyway, feels kind of like being invasive. I don't do it with the people I know very much, and I have a serious aversion to RPF for likely related reasons.
But yeah, I do kind of obsessively try to figure fictional people out. So I'm half-relating? I guess. :)
My own truth is that a lot of people have tried to subtly shame me,
They suck. All of them.
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