Some More Thoughts on Gender Stereotypes
desdenova replied to my last post by describing the gender inequalities in the science world. Since she is a Scientist!, she knows whereof she speaks. I did my time in the world of science, but mostly at a women's college, and in biology, so I can't speak to the gender issues there. However, my time in The Theatre School sure taught me a thing or two about gender and behavior and changing to suit who's in charge.
I don't know how I come across to other people, but I consider myself to be far out on both ends of the gender gradient. I have strong masculine and feminine traits. I also naturally adjust my behavior to blend with my environment, which got me in trouble in this instance, as you will see.
I went to The Theatre School to get a Master's degree in directing. Now, theater has a lot of acceptance, nay encouragement, for femininity in both genders, but not if you are a director. That is still an old boy's club, much akin to the science world. Either you have to act like a man, or you get no respect for your work. When I was at DePaul, the head of the directing department was a 70-year-old misogynist. He was also my acting teacher. I am not a great actor. I'm not even a good actor. And he would say so. That was OK, because I can rise to a challenge, but then he would say in the same breath, "But you're a director so it doesn't matter," thus depriving me of my motivation. Inherent in that commentary was a negation of my femininity, because not only were the vast majority of actors in that school women, but they were positively required to be feminine in order to succeed.
My advisor was a 50-year-old misogynist, who also taught my directing class. It was well known that he thought women weren't as committed as men, and that he regularly gave women a grade lower than men (when there were any women in the MFA program -- my year there were an unprecedented two women in the program). He, at least, was aware of his misogyny and willing to have a dialogue about it. He went to a conference on communication, where he learned that he thought women weren't as committed as men because they didn't stand on tables and yell in support of their points. He discovered that women can be determined and passionate about their opinions and not come to fisticuffs. Be that as it may, he still gave the male director a higher grade than us women that year too.
I caught a lot of disapproval and dissatisfaction from these two, some of it deserved. Not only wasn't I a good actor, I wasn't a good director either. A lot of that was due to my utter inexperience. Some was due to a lack of talent. But they could have helped me bridge the experience gap, at least. Instead I felt like I wasn't one thing or the other -- not masculine enough while directing, not feminine enough while acting. And without knowing it, I stripped away both sides of my sexuality in order to please everybody and became by the end of my first year nearly gender neutral. I had to wear a very sexy dress, bordering on trashy, when I was in a scene as a lesbian stripper coming on to another stripper (did I mention that the teachers picked our scenes?). I would have a hell of a lot of fun with that scene now, but at the time I wasn't comfortable with my femininity, and I actually apologized for the dress when I ran into a woman in my acting class. She looked at me and said, "What are you apologizing for?" It was just a costume, but I was uneasy because it declared me as a woman in no uncertain terms.
I was unhappy because of all of this, but didn't understand why until my second year. I had a different acting teacher, a woman named Christine Adaire, who taught the Shakespeare acting class as well as breathing technique, and was, by the way, a kick-ass director herself. She immediately recognized what was going on with me, and set about to re-feminize me. She picked parts for me that were all strong female characters, with the emphasis on female. I got to play Portia berating Brutus for keeping secrets from her, Beatrice goading Benedick into killing Claudio, and Helena persuing Demitrius through the forest, a scene for which I got laughs and plaudits because Helena seemed bigger and stronger than Demetrius. I got to kiss, slap, mock, and trample male characters, all without turning into a male character.
(Christine did the same for others, spotting their weaknesses and giving them scenes and characters and exercises that strengthened them, or more to the point, prevented them from hiding from things they found difficult. One actress was almost hyper-feminine in a Betty Boop kind of way. Christine had her wearing boots to ground herself because the woman was like a Barbie doll, always with her heels coming off the floor. She put her in scenes where she played female characters, but those stripped down to bedrock, no "look at me, like me" mannerisms involved.)
My first year, the only time I could connect and immerse myself in a part was when I wasn't speaking. As soon as I opened my mouth, it was gone. My second year, even though we were doing Shakespeare, which was not only dialog intensive but in a stylized form of speech, I could keep the connection even while I was speaking. I broke down and cried frequently that year, mostly because my barriers were being stripped away, but in the end I realized what had happened to me and gained a modicum of understanding and self-awareness.
Of course, all this self-exploration wasn't really helping me in the eyes of the directing teachers. That, combined with money issues and some frustrations with aspects of the program that weren't gender related (the MFA directors were the red-headed step-children of the school), led me to leave DePaul. My advisor, the 50-year-old misogynist, helped me talk it over and make a decision. For all his flaws, he was actually a great advisor. He told me I could be a stage manager without any more help from them (true: I'm a born stage manager, but it wasn't what I wanted), or I could go out and assistant direct for a few years, then come back and try again. I did stay in theater for a few more years, but ended up deciding it wasn't the life for me. In some ways, it seems like a waste of my time, but I learned so much about myself that I really wouldn't give up the experience.
I did dig myself into the gender-neutral hole one more time, while I was working in the gaming industry (another boy's club), but pulled myself out of it on my own by drawing on my Theatre School lessons. I think working out one's gender identity is an ongoing project, and I've learned that it never hurts to reexamine that aspect of one's self when experiencing unexplained weltschmerz.
Gender issues were a tangled mess at Theatre School, and I wasn't the only person who had problems in that area. As I mentioned, there were far more women than men in the acting pool, and every single actor had to be cast in something every semester. That meant finding roles for all of those women. As anyone in theater can tell you, good roles for women are few and far between. Most playwrights are men, and most of the characters they create are men, and many of the female characters they create aren't worth the paper they're written on. At The Theatre School, the best actresses (translated as the most attractive and feminine, in addition to being talented) got the best parts, and the others got dreck.
I noticed that actresses who were very powerful and came off as independent got cast as fat women, pregnant women, old women, or bitches. This trend exists in everything from Disney movies to the "serious" theater -- strong female characters that men may perceive as threatening are usually hogtied in some way to make them tamer. Because of this, I set out in one of my productions to cast women whom I admired and considered underused, and then give them parts where they were unapologically sexy and in control. They didn't die or get tamed or lose in the end. That casting decision was one of the most successful things I did as a director. The actresses were over the moon to be recognized and challenged like that, and they tore into their parts. I'm happy about their performances to this day.
P. S. -- desdenova brought up another topic in her reply: gender identity between players and characters in roleplaying games. But that's another post or ten, or perhaps a doctoral thesis, so I will walk away from that one for the time being.
I don't know how I come across to other people, but I consider myself to be far out on both ends of the gender gradient. I have strong masculine and feminine traits. I also naturally adjust my behavior to blend with my environment, which got me in trouble in this instance, as you will see.
I went to The Theatre School to get a Master's degree in directing. Now, theater has a lot of acceptance, nay encouragement, for femininity in both genders, but not if you are a director. That is still an old boy's club, much akin to the science world. Either you have to act like a man, or you get no respect for your work. When I was at DePaul, the head of the directing department was a 70-year-old misogynist. He was also my acting teacher. I am not a great actor. I'm not even a good actor. And he would say so. That was OK, because I can rise to a challenge, but then he would say in the same breath, "But you're a director so it doesn't matter," thus depriving me of my motivation. Inherent in that commentary was a negation of my femininity, because not only were the vast majority of actors in that school women, but they were positively required to be feminine in order to succeed.
My advisor was a 50-year-old misogynist, who also taught my directing class. It was well known that he thought women weren't as committed as men, and that he regularly gave women a grade lower than men (when there were any women in the MFA program -- my year there were an unprecedented two women in the program). He, at least, was aware of his misogyny and willing to have a dialogue about it. He went to a conference on communication, where he learned that he thought women weren't as committed as men because they didn't stand on tables and yell in support of their points. He discovered that women can be determined and passionate about their opinions and not come to fisticuffs. Be that as it may, he still gave the male director a higher grade than us women that year too.
I caught a lot of disapproval and dissatisfaction from these two, some of it deserved. Not only wasn't I a good actor, I wasn't a good director either. A lot of that was due to my utter inexperience. Some was due to a lack of talent. But they could have helped me bridge the experience gap, at least. Instead I felt like I wasn't one thing or the other -- not masculine enough while directing, not feminine enough while acting. And without knowing it, I stripped away both sides of my sexuality in order to please everybody and became by the end of my first year nearly gender neutral. I had to wear a very sexy dress, bordering on trashy, when I was in a scene as a lesbian stripper coming on to another stripper (did I mention that the teachers picked our scenes?). I would have a hell of a lot of fun with that scene now, but at the time I wasn't comfortable with my femininity, and I actually apologized for the dress when I ran into a woman in my acting class. She looked at me and said, "What are you apologizing for?" It was just a costume, but I was uneasy because it declared me as a woman in no uncertain terms.
I was unhappy because of all of this, but didn't understand why until my second year. I had a different acting teacher, a woman named Christine Adaire, who taught the Shakespeare acting class as well as breathing technique, and was, by the way, a kick-ass director herself. She immediately recognized what was going on with me, and set about to re-feminize me. She picked parts for me that were all strong female characters, with the emphasis on female. I got to play Portia berating Brutus for keeping secrets from her, Beatrice goading Benedick into killing Claudio, and Helena persuing Demitrius through the forest, a scene for which I got laughs and plaudits because Helena seemed bigger and stronger than Demetrius. I got to kiss, slap, mock, and trample male characters, all without turning into a male character.
(Christine did the same for others, spotting their weaknesses and giving them scenes and characters and exercises that strengthened them, or more to the point, prevented them from hiding from things they found difficult. One actress was almost hyper-feminine in a Betty Boop kind of way. Christine had her wearing boots to ground herself because the woman was like a Barbie doll, always with her heels coming off the floor. She put her in scenes where she played female characters, but those stripped down to bedrock, no "look at me, like me" mannerisms involved.)
My first year, the only time I could connect and immerse myself in a part was when I wasn't speaking. As soon as I opened my mouth, it was gone. My second year, even though we were doing Shakespeare, which was not only dialog intensive but in a stylized form of speech, I could keep the connection even while I was speaking. I broke down and cried frequently that year, mostly because my barriers were being stripped away, but in the end I realized what had happened to me and gained a modicum of understanding and self-awareness.
Of course, all this self-exploration wasn't really helping me in the eyes of the directing teachers. That, combined with money issues and some frustrations with aspects of the program that weren't gender related (the MFA directors were the red-headed step-children of the school), led me to leave DePaul. My advisor, the 50-year-old misogynist, helped me talk it over and make a decision. For all his flaws, he was actually a great advisor. He told me I could be a stage manager without any more help from them (true: I'm a born stage manager, but it wasn't what I wanted), or I could go out and assistant direct for a few years, then come back and try again. I did stay in theater for a few more years, but ended up deciding it wasn't the life for me. In some ways, it seems like a waste of my time, but I learned so much about myself that I really wouldn't give up the experience.
I did dig myself into the gender-neutral hole one more time, while I was working in the gaming industry (another boy's club), but pulled myself out of it on my own by drawing on my Theatre School lessons. I think working out one's gender identity is an ongoing project, and I've learned that it never hurts to reexamine that aspect of one's self when experiencing unexplained weltschmerz.
Gender issues were a tangled mess at Theatre School, and I wasn't the only person who had problems in that area. As I mentioned, there were far more women than men in the acting pool, and every single actor had to be cast in something every semester. That meant finding roles for all of those women. As anyone in theater can tell you, good roles for women are few and far between. Most playwrights are men, and most of the characters they create are men, and many of the female characters they create aren't worth the paper they're written on. At The Theatre School, the best actresses (translated as the most attractive and feminine, in addition to being talented) got the best parts, and the others got dreck.
I noticed that actresses who were very powerful and came off as independent got cast as fat women, pregnant women, old women, or bitches. This trend exists in everything from Disney movies to the "serious" theater -- strong female characters that men may perceive as threatening are usually hogtied in some way to make them tamer. Because of this, I set out in one of my productions to cast women whom I admired and considered underused, and then give them parts where they were unapologically sexy and in control. They didn't die or get tamed or lose in the end. That casting decision was one of the most successful things I did as a director. The actresses were over the moon to be recognized and challenged like that, and they tore into their parts. I'm happy about their performances to this day.
P. S. -- desdenova brought up another topic in her reply: gender identity between players and characters in roleplaying games. But that's another post or ten, or perhaps a doctoral thesis, so I will walk away from that one for the time being.