Back in heyday here I used to write about politics a fair amount. I stopped both because I started writing way less and because I wasn’t sure that politics fit in with my (new-ish) theme. In reality there may be nothing more fitting for a blog about faith and fear but I wish that weren’t the case. I wish that politicians didn’t live on fear, but it seems that they do and maybe always will.
Since it is relevant or, well, actually just because I feel like it and last week two of my favorite things got attacked (Planned Parenthood and boys with painted toenails), I’m going to turn my focus on current events again.
Since Stephen Colbert did such a great job smacking down Jon Kyl over his ridiculous lie about Planned Parenthood I probably don’t need to rehash it but do yourself a favor and watch this and this and then go to Twitter and have some fun with the hashtag #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement.
So, I’m going with door number two: Gender Idenity. I’m what you might call a little butch for a chick. If you were inclined to stereotype you might say I’m super butch for a straight chick. I suppose I have s few decidedly feminine traits, but not a lot. There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to be a housewife which I guess is kind of traditionally feminine. And I do like to get pedicures which according to the recent media storm is super girly.
It’s an odd balance I’ve struck I guess. My mother is very feminist in some respects and I used to agitate her by saying that I only went to college to meet a man and things of that ilk. Recently though she’s decided I’m not girly enough and has been trying to get me to be more girly. I usually just laugh at her attempts. When I went back to college at age 27, with her chances for grandchildren starting to dwindle, she actually told me that college was a great place to meet someone. This week she finally acknowledged to me that her focus on femininity is a new thing. She told me that when I was a kid who loved Tonka trucks and baseball she loved the fact that I was a tomboy and encouraged it. Of course as a kid I also took dance lessons for 8 years and tried to convince her to let me wear three inch purple suede heals to school in 8th grade. So for me it’s always been a balance — one foot in both worlds.
Cornell professor Ritch Savin-Williams was quoted in the New York Times saying, “Bullying is less about sexuality than about gender nonconformity” and Dan Savage then addressed the issue on SLOG in the context of his It Gets Better Project. This week most of the media proceeded to contribute to that problem by completely freaking out over a 5 year old boy with pink toenails (do yourself a favor and watch this Daily Show bit about it).
I think, and Dr. Peggy Drexler agrees, that it may be easier for girls to be less feminine than for boys to be less masculine (especially in Malaysia), but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for girls (just easier than for boys).
Who gets to decide what it means to be a man or woman? It’s always defined in relative terms, as compared to others in your culture, and then passed along from one generation to the next until enough people insist on a different definition that it changes. But then the next generation is still stuck with the definition created by the previous one. If no one ever told you when you were 5 years old that it’s not okay to paint your toenails because you’re a boy or that it’s not okay to play baseball because you’re a girl you might be able to decide for yourself.
Kids, like the one in the J.Crew ad, have a natural curiosity that we lose as we get older. Ask a 35 year old man if he’d like to have his toenails painted and he’s likely to have a vastly different reply than the 5 year old in that ad. My personal journey, my goal, is to regain that lost curiosity. To try anything I think for a moment I might enjoy and see for myself what I like and don’t like. I want to define for myself what it means to be a woman or at very least what it means to be me.
I think my mom’s new focus on my being more girly is based entirely on her wanting grandchildren. She thinks if I were more girly I’d meet a man and settle down. But what I’d meet is a man who wants someone girly and that’s not really me. The It Gets Better Project may be primarily aimed at helping LGBT kids but it’s message can be useful to anyone. The message is that as you get older and go out in the world and meet more people many of them, or at least some of them, will be like you and you will be able to form a community of people like you and/or people who aren’t like you but who like you just as you are anyway.
There’s a sense amoung non-gender conforming straight people that it might be easier if they were gay. To find someone I mean. I’ve avoided this concern somewhat by simply not looking to for someone (to date) but I definitely understand it. I never in a million years would have expected that there would be someone out there who would both like me just as I am and, in the imortal words of Carole King, make me feel like a natural woman. Sure there are plenty of people (my friends and family) who like me just as I am but that other piece is tough to find. It’s out there though. So, be yourself. It does get better.