gender

So this summer, rather than pulling my shoulder length hair into a ponytail and getting on with my life, I decided to try a little experiment. I cut off all but two inches of my hair, which I styled into the common men's hairstyle of a faux-hawk, you know, that fake mohawk that it seems like every guy in my neighborhood is sporting?

It was the shortest my hair has ever been. I mean, I've had short hair before, but I've always had it longer in the front to frame my face and make it look distinctly feminine. So why the extremely short, extremely male 'do? I wanted to see how many people I could fool into looking twice to see if I was male or female.

I've been getting really into spoken word lately, So heres one of my new pieces. And I hope you enjoy it.

YR Gender Binary Roles:

YR gender binary roles, they control me like no other, just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean I should be a mother. It’s like the moment I stand up, and I shout my beliefs from the rooftops. YR first response isn’t listening to what I have to say. It’s putting me down, Figuring out some reason for you not to listen, for YR ears not to hear me, for YR heart not to feel me. But that isn’t going to happen anymore….Nah….. .Its time to open up, for YR heart to really feel me…Cause I know who I am. And as bell hooks said “Aint I a woman?!” and my response is for sure I am a WOMYN, That is with a Y instead of a E to the N....and I am my own beautiful human being. And this womyn is proud to be a womyn. But not proud to be put in a place where YR gender roles say I should stay. You say I should stay in the kitchen; I should cook, clean and take care of the kids. Well all I can say is fuck YR ways. I will choose to do what I want, and be who I want. Don’t stereotype me and throw me in the kitchen because I am a womyn. Let me be who I am and choose where I stay….Let my soul and creative being be whatever the energy wants me to be. YR ways, And YR thoughts need to be changed. Change YR mind and frame, and listen to me. Believe for once that it doesn’t matter that I have a vagina or breast…Believe…What matters is what I am saying, what you are saying, what this world is saying. The gender of one, the orientation or the race of one, has no matter in any thing we say, our speech or our words should be allowed to flow…. Flow through the pen as I write this down, free from hate or judgment that is just based on the author’s sex. Lets let everyone be free to be, who they choose to be…

Out of interest, curiosity and just a plain old need for money, I briefly returned to modeling last week. From the 15th to the 23rd, I worked as a hostess for a company exhibiting at the IAA in Frankfurt (an automobile fair, sort of like the Auto Show in Detroit). My job description sounded fairly innocuous: Show up on time, wear the prescribed outfit (consisting of a short, black skirt, high-heeled boots and a shirt with the company logo) and be friendly to the customers at all times. The reality was that I spent 10 hours out of every day standing around on those obscenly high heels, smiling politely at everyone and observing the people walking past.

Last night I had the pleasure of listening to a guest lecture by Professor Naomi Goldernberg from the University of Ottawa on the topic of "A Feminist, Psychoanalytic Reflection on 'The Cat in the Hat Comes Back: Exploring the Male Claim to the Ownership of Sacred Texts".

The three main themes of the lecture where the function of language in the story, the religioius themes and the gender issues. While the first two were equally interersting, I am going to focus on the third theme, as it's most relevant to Feminism.

... female these past 23 years".

Earlier this evening, I had a phone conversation with a guy I'd met at a club last Saturday. In an attempt to move on from my failed relationship and just because I wanted to have som fun, I've been going dancing with a collegue on the weekends for the past month. And I had a blast. I danced until I collapsed, I made new friends, I kissed some perfect strangers. And then I left the club at four in the morning, music in my veins, feeling like a goddess.

The guy I met last weekend was different. He bought me a coke, he waited for my explicit invitation with every move he made and he walked me to the car at the crack of dawn. So I accepted when he proposed we exchange phone numbers. He's called me several times since, always while I was away from the phone or in situations where I could not pick up. This afternoon I picked up to let him know that I was at work and couldn't talk. He hung up, sounding annoyed. When I finally had time to talk tonight, he greeted my by asking why I had not called him. Anger in his voice.

It's been said that gender roles aren't really defined in children until they are four or five years old, and wouldn't be nearly so extreme if it weren't for pressure from parents and peers- e.g., a Family Almanac column in my local paper featured parents that were extremely worried over their 3-year-old son's interest in Disney Princesses. I support the notion that it isn't the kids themselves that learn these roles, and here's a small anecdote to support that:

I babysit a little girl fairly regularly. She's going through a phase now where she likes to play House, and insisted that she got to be the mommy (I got to be the daddy), and a stuffed animal of hers named Love was the baby. After these decisions and after hosting a party "for the neighbuhs," she put on a pair of fancy shoes that were impossibly large for her, some binoculars, a doctor's kit, and a hat.

When I come across blatant misogyny in mainstream articles; clichés, stereotypes and sexist jokes that are enjoyed tolerated or ignored, I often ask myself; Would this be acceptable if it was written about black people?
In most cases it wouldn’t be. It would not be acceptable for a college newspaper to publish an article about how black people who go to nightclubs are sluts. It would not be acceptable for a respectable news channel to label a news segment about a black celebrity with a racial epithet. At the same time though, just last week a recognized comedian launched into a hate tirade against the black people heckling his standup routine. How can we even consider having defeated prejudice when Mel Gibson decides to defend him?

I've been thinking a lot about my last post. I'm glad I was so open, selfish, petulant, stubborn, even bitchy--I needed to do that. The past few days have been really good, now that I've got my head back on my shoulders. There are so many things I want to talk about.

I finally got my hair evened out by my friend who lives in the art house. It's quite cute--it can be masculine at a moment's notice, and it can go feminine when the mood strikes it. Kind of like me. I can part my hair on the side with gel and make it like Frank Sinatra's, so I'm thinking of dressing in full drag some time next week (aka Coming Out Week), but I need to get hair gel, a new suit, and a better binder. I've been using 4" wide self-adhesive ACE bandages over a too-small sports bra--do they come in wider widths? I'm starting with a D-cup, and it's hard. Anyone have any suggestions? We used duct tape in a pinch for our Drag King show last year, but I really don't want to resort to that.

I began reading my textbook for my political science class and after a few pages noticed something new. Rather than using the usual "he" and "his" in sentences which should ideally be gender neutral, the textbook used "she" and "her". For example, rather than " A researcher must do the best he can with the available information," the textbook used she.

At first this was refreshing. It was nice to see that a feminist concern had been taken into account and a change had been made. Then I thought about it a little more and I realised that the author had kind of missed ths point. Making the substitution, in fact, began to seem a little condescending to me. As though the author had listened to complaints about the patriarchal assumption obvious in his grammar and had said, "fine, whatever, change it to she".

This summer I have spent most of my days working with children and their often more annoying parents.

I direct children's activities at resort in Myrtle Beach. Me and my co-workers have a room in which we paint, colour, play games and make complete fools of ourselves for the entertainment of our clients.

A lot of times parents come in and the room is sheer chaos. Sand is all over the floor, balls are being kicked up to the ceiling, and kids are racing around the too-small room, screaming at the top of their lungs and tripping over chairs.

Often a parent will come in and see their son trying to hit another kid over the head with a shovel and smile. "Boys." They say and hurry back out to the poolside bar.

When I ways in first grade, a friend of mine and I got so bored during class one morning that we started dividing our crayons into genders. Blue was male, yellow female; black was male, purple female. It was a no-brainer until we got to orange: Conny said it was definitely male, while I was convinced that it was definitely female. I was completely shocked that she'd think otherwise.

I don't remember how we resolved the problem of the intersex crayon, but this scene is the first thing that pops into my head when I think about gender stereotypes and how easily they come to all of us. Our culture is so steeped with gender stereotpyes that sometimes we don't even see them anymore and we are confronted with them every day.