Sidebars, Handlebars, Dyke Bars
So now I am back from a bike ride and have been thinking alot about my last post. Bike rides do that to you: Make you think. Especially when it is your first post-op bike ride and you were wishing that your sports bra was made out of iron.
I've made an edit to the beginning part of my last post which I though was cruial to my point. And as a corollary....
I've never fit in anywhere, nor have I wanted to fit in. Even in my hippie days, I hated hippies but I tried to fit in there because it was a place I found that a sensative "guy" with long hair and an obvious feminine expression could exist in peace in early 90's NYC - sort of like FTM's who hover in dyke/butch/etc.... spaces because it is a place where they are allowed to exist, even if it isn't right for them.
So why all of a sudden do (actually more did than do) I want to exist/be accepted in/join the mainstream of female space? Status as a female is held quite highly - most so by other females. Female power structure is all based on how (blank) you are. That could be how pretty, how popular, how thin, how femme, how butch, how lesbian, how sporty, how smart, how nerdy, how feminist, how bald, how Ani, how successful executive powerbitch, how raw food vegan. It is part and parcel with female socialization. It is the basis for societal, female-on-female and ulitmately individually internalized misogyny. It is rooted in male-defined standards of femininity, hegemonized and dished down through the ages in patriarchy after patriarchy.
Male socialization is all about the individual. It's learning to not give a shit what others think/say, and if they disagree with you, well, fuck 'em (and maybe kill 'em). Seriously, why do so many people worship "Cool Hand Luke"? Why does everyone love a good western and idealize the protagonist? They are all loners, fierce individualists who step outside the party lines, fight the power, sometimes win, sometimes lose, but always stay true to self. They are punk fucking rock.
As a result of the patriarchy and it's strict definition of acceptable banchmarks of femininity, the women we have historically looked to as role models (and still do in alot of mainstream arenas) are "strong family types", models, actresses, entertainers, anorexics, body-negative disaster cases, and other less-than-positive influences on the development of the strength of individualism in young (and older) females. Sigh.
So where does that leave us? It leaves us with large swathes of puportedly feminist and queer-women-spaces which are still oscillating with the echoes of this misguided behavior mapping. Spaces where you look around the room and realize that everyone is trying their hardest to look different, but the "right kind of different" - in effect we've just replaced one set of rules with another.
Now in these feminist/lesbian spaces your value as a female is not measured in how many children you have, how big your suburban house is, how much your husband makes or how well you bake a lemon cake. Instead it is now measured by where you bought that leather wrist band, weather or not your AC/DC 3/4 sleeve tour shirt is an original or an E-Bay copy, if your hair is too short to wear a dress or too long to wear that cowboy vest. In the case of transwomen it's measured in some cases by how well you "pass", in other cases if you've had bottom surgery, and in some cases well, it's just not permitted to be measured. Apparently in some cases it has nothing to do with who you are, your interests, your current lived and shared experiences as female.
Allow me to make an analogy. Back in the PC early-90's, we changed "black" to "African-American". But what did that mean? What it meant was that we went into the societal vernacular with the text-replace tool and took out "Black", replacing each instance with "African-American". Only we have a problem; Not everyone with black skin is (or identifies as) African or American. What about a black-skinned person with roots in the Dominican Republic who lives in Germany, is on vacation in the US and is the victim of racism, descrimination or even a racial hate-crime? They will be called "African-American" by the news, by the person-on-the-street, by the ACLU lawyers. But this is just incorrect and is a theft of identity. What IS correct is that this BLACK person experienced racism, an experience SHARED by other BLACK people in this backwards society, regardless of where they are from or how they identify.
So ya know what? People who like to point out that my
"male socialization" would prevent me from ever understanding the female experience - you're really just out to lunch. I will, for the first time in my life admit that it does prevent me from understanding all this rule/code stuff. And for the many female-born, female socialized persons (of whatever gender they may be now) who have gotten to this same "I don't give a shit" point, I really, REALLY respect you - having been socialized in that female-space where ideas like individualism were far less important than conformity.
Time to hit the showers.