In which gender is an ecosystem....
I am a woman. There is no contesting that. My body fits the definition of woman. I feel like a woman-except for all the times when I don’t understand what being a woman is supposed to feel like.
You see, while I live a woman’s life, for that matter, an outwardly straight woman’s life, I don’t really know what that means. I’m not really comfortable in women spaces. No, I’m not talking about carefully carved out, politically conscious “women-only” spaces. I’m talking about spaces where the women gather after the menfolk have gone outside to smoke cigars. I’m talking about spaces like women’s clothing stores, cosmetic counters, beauty salons, and more.
I don’t fit with that feminine artifice. To me, it’s colourless, lacks texture, depth, dimension. It’s like-oh, I don’t know-it’s like a prefab house-ubiquitous, with solid construction, but devoid of character.
I find it fascinating that what brings women together in these types of spaces are the parts of us that can’t really be seen-our bodies, mostly hidden under clothes; our chromosomes, visible only to a trained eye behind a microscope; expectations about what womanness means, and what women should be doing with their time and in social space.
And, even our bodies and chromosomal makeup can’t be assumed to be the same. As many as one in 1500 babies is born intersex, according to ISNA.
So, even the things that most people point to and say “this is woman!” aren’t concretely so.
What draws us together in women-spaces isn’t what we think and feel. The thoughts and feelings women express in these spaces bore me. I won’t be so arrogant as to say that these must be the only thoughts and feelings these women have. I prefer to think that they’re better at playing the game than I am-and maybe they feel like they have more invested in it too.
Not too long ago, I was spending some “woman” time with two other women. I think it was after the menfolk had retired to play music, while our hostess was cleaning up from dinner. The conversation, I kid you not, revolved around the health problems of our menfolk…well, not my manfolk. The unspoken rule seemed to be: We can talk about our menfolk’s personal lives so long as they’re not around to hear us. I was appalled, and bored. I wasn’t interested in hearing about kidney stones, and I wasn’t interested in talking about people’s bodies without their permission. Because yes, that’s what we were doing.
For all the privacy we seem to want to accord bodies, we sure do talk about others’ bodies a lot, and make a huge deal out of them.
***
There is no one way of being man and one way of being woman. Gender isn’t a binary; it’s a continuum. It’s not an either or proposition. Some might say that it’s not black and white, but instead shades of grey. I think it’s much more richly textured than that.
I think gender is an ecosystem.
Male, female. I see them as two cliffs, surrounding a great chasm. This chasm isn’t an empty space at all, but filled with this ecosystem of foliage, desert with oases and beautiful, rare cacti, of soaring mountains and rushing streams. I am on one side of that chasm. I have no desire to make the frightening trip over, a trip many must make (and sadly sometimes lose their lives in the process), yet I, in ways, meander through the gentle slopes that surround the cliffs of my birth. My femininity is mine, yet I resist the constraints, the requirement to hang-out on the cliff in a space dappled with concrete parking lots and gleaming glass and metal buildings.
I love being a woman, but not because of what society gives me as reward for my femininity, and it’s certainly not because of what is taken away that I love my womanness. I love being able to wear soft, drapey, colorful, even sparkly things without fear of ridicule or physical violence (something people on other parts of the gender spectrum, including on the other side of the ravine, don’t always get to do). Yes, I enjoy the body that our culture has assigned womanness to. I love many of the pretty things assigned to femininity, but not the industrial side of those-the pastes, powders, and creams designed to make my face “pretty,” not the girdles that would hold my “inappropriate” curves in while accentuating the “appropriate” ones, not the teachings that tell me that being a woman means to talk and behave in certain ways.
I want to be perceived not as woman, but as me.
I don’t want to behave in these ways, these ways that would quash my spirit. I don’t often feel comfortable on the woman-cliff.
I’d rather traverse the plains and angles occupied by my queer friends…the dark and hidden forests where my gender-nonconforming friends are often forced to hide,. I’d rather hang out with my lesbian sisters on the gentle slopes adjacent to but not quite a part of the woman’s side.
faerie_spark has been thinking a lot about gender lately after reading kate Bornstein’s delightful and intense memoir.
This has been my entry for therealljidol. Feedback is appreciated.
You see, while I live a woman’s life, for that matter, an outwardly straight woman’s life, I don’t really know what that means. I’m not really comfortable in women spaces. No, I’m not talking about carefully carved out, politically conscious “women-only” spaces. I’m talking about spaces where the women gather after the menfolk have gone outside to smoke cigars. I’m talking about spaces like women’s clothing stores, cosmetic counters, beauty salons, and more.
I don’t fit with that feminine artifice. To me, it’s colourless, lacks texture, depth, dimension. It’s like-oh, I don’t know-it’s like a prefab house-ubiquitous, with solid construction, but devoid of character.
I find it fascinating that what brings women together in these types of spaces are the parts of us that can’t really be seen-our bodies, mostly hidden under clothes; our chromosomes, visible only to a trained eye behind a microscope; expectations about what womanness means, and what women should be doing with their time and in social space.
And, even our bodies and chromosomal makeup can’t be assumed to be the same. As many as one in 1500 babies is born intersex, according to ISNA.
So, even the things that most people point to and say “this is woman!” aren’t concretely so.
What draws us together in women-spaces isn’t what we think and feel. The thoughts and feelings women express in these spaces bore me. I won’t be so arrogant as to say that these must be the only thoughts and feelings these women have. I prefer to think that they’re better at playing the game than I am-and maybe they feel like they have more invested in it too.
Not too long ago, I was spending some “woman” time with two other women. I think it was after the menfolk had retired to play music, while our hostess was cleaning up from dinner. The conversation, I kid you not, revolved around the health problems of our menfolk…well, not my manfolk. The unspoken rule seemed to be: We can talk about our menfolk’s personal lives so long as they’re not around to hear us. I was appalled, and bored. I wasn’t interested in hearing about kidney stones, and I wasn’t interested in talking about people’s bodies without their permission. Because yes, that’s what we were doing.
For all the privacy we seem to want to accord bodies, we sure do talk about others’ bodies a lot, and make a huge deal out of them.
***
There is no one way of being man and one way of being woman. Gender isn’t a binary; it’s a continuum. It’s not an either or proposition. Some might say that it’s not black and white, but instead shades of grey. I think it’s much more richly textured than that.
I think gender is an ecosystem.
Male, female. I see them as two cliffs, surrounding a great chasm. This chasm isn’t an empty space at all, but filled with this ecosystem of foliage, desert with oases and beautiful, rare cacti, of soaring mountains and rushing streams. I am on one side of that chasm. I have no desire to make the frightening trip over, a trip many must make (and sadly sometimes lose their lives in the process), yet I, in ways, meander through the gentle slopes that surround the cliffs of my birth. My femininity is mine, yet I resist the constraints, the requirement to hang-out on the cliff in a space dappled with concrete parking lots and gleaming glass and metal buildings.
I love being a woman, but not because of what society gives me as reward for my femininity, and it’s certainly not because of what is taken away that I love my womanness. I love being able to wear soft, drapey, colorful, even sparkly things without fear of ridicule or physical violence (something people on other parts of the gender spectrum, including on the other side of the ravine, don’t always get to do). Yes, I enjoy the body that our culture has assigned womanness to. I love many of the pretty things assigned to femininity, but not the industrial side of those-the pastes, powders, and creams designed to make my face “pretty,” not the girdles that would hold my “inappropriate” curves in while accentuating the “appropriate” ones, not the teachings that tell me that being a woman means to talk and behave in certain ways.
I want to be perceived not as woman, but as me.
I don’t want to behave in these ways, these ways that would quash my spirit. I don’t often feel comfortable on the woman-cliff.
I’d rather traverse the plains and angles occupied by my queer friends…the dark and hidden forests where my gender-nonconforming friends are often forced to hide,. I’d rather hang out with my lesbian sisters on the gentle slopes adjacent to but not quite a part of the woman’s side.
faerie_spark has been thinking a lot about gender lately after reading kate Bornstein’s delightful and intense memoir.
This has been my entry for therealljidol. Feedback is appreciated.