Fatmanonice
Banned via Warnings
Link to original post: [drupal=4155]Growing Up as a Girl and What it Means to be a Man in America: Part 1.5[/drupal]
I wanted to wait about a month before I started the second part of my analysis. I wanted to choose my words carefully and see if I would have any more experiences that would highlight what a "girl" that I am. As time has progressed since writing the first part, I’ve come to realize that the subject of gender socialization appeals to me so much that I’m strongly considering writing my thesis on it. As you can see from the title, this really isn’t a subject that I just want to suddenly stop talking about and will probably do another 2-3 parts following this one. Before I jump back into the swing of things, I’d like to address a few things that various people have asked me or told me in response to what they interpreted in the first part of this series.
1. I’m not a girl trapped in a woman’s body and I wouldn’t prefer to be a woman than a man. The title is supposed to be ironic because by American standards, I literally am “a girl” because I like to do things like cook, dress nice, etc. All in all, the point of these essays is to point out how ridiculous gender stereotypes can be and why people shouldn’t be ashamed of who they are. If anything, I’d probably label myself a metrosexual or, by Victorian England standards, a “dandy.” In short, I’m in touch with my feminine side, not all around absorbed by it.
2. I’m not trying to put men or women in boxes in these essays because society already does that enough. I had one person say that I was stereotyping women by what I wrote in the last essay. If anything, I’m identifying with what society dubs feminine and masculine, not saying “this is how women/men ought to be.” In the past 50 years, women have made great strides to jump the gender barriers while men have mostly stayed put. What a woman can be has greatly expanded while what a man can be has stayed stagnant. I’ll address this more in coming essays.
3. I do not hate men but I am critical of American masculine ideals. It is true that I prefer the company of women but overall I would still say that I have more male friends. I will also admit that I consider myself a male feminist largely because I believe double standards are still prevalent in the world and its women who get the short end of the stick most of the time. Some of my bias also stems from my life experiences where I have clashed with American male ideals.
It seems like an appropriate time to continue this essay with some food for thought; a minor detour from the subject at hand. Yesterday, I saw the Vagina Monologues for the third year in a row and played Just Dance 2 for the Wii with three girls for about four hours. Both experiences, of course, brought my mind back to gender stereotypes. The Vagina Monologues is always fun not only because what is said but how the audience reacts to what is said. If you’ve never seen the show, it largely focuses on women’s sexuality and aspects of it positive and negative, humorous and serious. It’s like mixing Sex in the City, Sixty Minutes, and South Park together to create a performance that invokes mixed reactions across the board. As you may have guessed, it isn’t a show that a lot of straight men go to willingly. Year after year, I’m usually one of the few men in the audience that A) is straight, B) hasn’t been dragged there by a girlfriend or C) has been forced to go for a class. There’s usually one who gets up and leaves before the show is over and there’s always one guy that looks so uncomfortable that if he could tear a crack in the chair and crawl into it, he would.
What’s even stranger is that there are usually just as many women like the men that seem so uncomfortable that they are probably teetering between passing out, throwing up fire hydrant style or spontaneously combusting. I’ve come to believe it’s because the show kind of kicks gender stereotypes in the nads, so to speak, and allows women to take on a role that’s normally seen as masculine: being open about sex. We’ve all been in public and have heard one guy brag about his junk as if he could use it to swing over alligator pits but how often do you hear women begin a sentence with “if my vagina could talk…?” Men can be frank about how they **** (by Dr. Seuss) but women, not so much. What I find so interesting is how much this relates to the subject of gender socialization at large.
When we’re presented with something that goes against gender/sex stereotypes, how do we usually react? Does it initially shock us? Make us angry? I’ll be honest, I think I just about peed myself in sheer terror when I saw a man wearing an earring for the first time back in middle school. What judgments do we usually make? Like I mentioned in the last essay, it took me years to get over the, as the famous philosopher and social critic Peter Griffin in a Family Guy episode eloquently put it, “floatin’ around, makin’ noise, not the good kind that fixes up your house” gay stereotype. In regards to that, I think going to Independence Place, a gay bar in downtown Cape, for the first time was one of the more enlightening moments in the past year when I found, lo and behold, nearly all the gay guys I ran into acted similarly to straight men I’d known all my life. What? Extended interactions with different people will cause you to eat crow from time to time? Impossible! Sometimes running into these differences is like taking a punch to the face: they come out of no-where and they leave us dazed and confused for a bit.
What has really made me think about this as of late is movies in general because they tend to be the worst offenders. Honestly, just grab any random movie and watch it for gender stereotypes. I did this last night and I was about as blown away as a toddler sticking a fork in a light socket. Watch how the characters react to characters that follow them and watch how they react to characters that go against them. Seriously, watch “the Breakfast Club” from this perspective and you’ll feel like your brain has gone into God mode. You will hear Molly Ringwald’s pink sweater and smell “Don’t You Forget about Me.” From a philosophical and sociological standpoint, you will start tripping balls. How can such minor things that are right in front of our face all the time be all that thought provoking?
The “dance party” I went to last night made me think of the other end of this spectrum. Gender/sex stereotypes make us think a certain way about other people but how do they make us feel about ourselves? As I mentioned earlier on, I was the only guy at the party so making comparisons was all too easy. What first got the gears in my mind going was how I came to the party. I showed up in dress clothes and I brought a pan of focaccia that I had sent probably 5 hours preparing. It sort of reminded me of the Dexter’s Laboratory episode where he shows up at “Action Hank’s” military headquarters in a tutu and a basket of gingerbread men. I felt comfortable but it really brought to light how I was awkwardly rolling over gender stereotypes like a quadriplegic doing somersaults.
The next leg of my recreational philosophical thinking started when we actually put the game in and starting dancing. I don’t really need to say it because my personality should make it all too clear that I’m God awful at dancing. Watching me dance is both funny and sad, like watching a penguin with a broken foot try to walk. Despite this, I danced to more than half of the tracks in the game and somehow ended up as the girl in nearly all the duets. I danced to emasculating hits like “It’s Raining Men” with an uncoordinated vigor that probably inspired a horrified sense of awe that’s usually reserved for moments like seeing a mushroom cloud only a few miles off in the distance. As time went on, I felt less and less self-conscientious, that is until the host’s parents came back home. Her mom came in, that was fine but when her step dad came in, I felt like I wanted to stuff myself in the living room couch. He didn’t seem to care but I felt my remaining man cards were singeing to ashes regardless. Her parents left the room and the moment passed. The party continued and, all in all, I had a great time aside from that little hiccup. Even as a "girl", there are still times when I feel some shame about how I am, even if it’s entirely in my head.
I’m still trying to figure out why we’re wired like this. I’ve heard similar stories from tomboys to effeminate gay men where, despite being perfectly fine with themselves most of the time, there are still moments where you feel like you’ve done something wrong just for being who you are. Other examples are when I’ve gone to Super Bowl parties in the past and have almost felt guilty for not liking football. Nobody even has to say anything and it still gnaws at you a little bit on the inside. It gives you an idea of how even the most non-conforming people are forced to conform, if only for a little bit, by their own thought processes.
This essay didn’t turn out how I originally wanted it to. I started making plans for this second part within hours of finishing the first part but I find my mind has been expanded a great deal in this short month period when it comes to this topic. I believe this is the best kind of thinking and I believe this is what creates my better essays. You take an idea and you expand upon it over and over again until you have a web of connecting ideas. I look at myself and then I look at other people which is ultimately what I want my readers to do through-out this series. How do you view yourself and how do you see others based on appearances and stereotypes alone? In the next essay in this series on gender/sex, I want to look into the “man-child” epidemic, the idea that “wimpy men are destroying America” and what roles women have in both issues. There’s more to come after the break.
Fatmanonice, April 3rd, 2011
“Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.”- Oscar Wilde
“To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”- Anne Rice
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.” –Eleanor Roosevelt
I wanted to wait about a month before I started the second part of my analysis. I wanted to choose my words carefully and see if I would have any more experiences that would highlight what a "girl" that I am. As time has progressed since writing the first part, I’ve come to realize that the subject of gender socialization appeals to me so much that I’m strongly considering writing my thesis on it. As you can see from the title, this really isn’t a subject that I just want to suddenly stop talking about and will probably do another 2-3 parts following this one. Before I jump back into the swing of things, I’d like to address a few things that various people have asked me or told me in response to what they interpreted in the first part of this series.
1. I’m not a girl trapped in a woman’s body and I wouldn’t prefer to be a woman than a man. The title is supposed to be ironic because by American standards, I literally am “a girl” because I like to do things like cook, dress nice, etc. All in all, the point of these essays is to point out how ridiculous gender stereotypes can be and why people shouldn’t be ashamed of who they are. If anything, I’d probably label myself a metrosexual or, by Victorian England standards, a “dandy.” In short, I’m in touch with my feminine side, not all around absorbed by it.
2. I’m not trying to put men or women in boxes in these essays because society already does that enough. I had one person say that I was stereotyping women by what I wrote in the last essay. If anything, I’m identifying with what society dubs feminine and masculine, not saying “this is how women/men ought to be.” In the past 50 years, women have made great strides to jump the gender barriers while men have mostly stayed put. What a woman can be has greatly expanded while what a man can be has stayed stagnant. I’ll address this more in coming essays.
3. I do not hate men but I am critical of American masculine ideals. It is true that I prefer the company of women but overall I would still say that I have more male friends. I will also admit that I consider myself a male feminist largely because I believe double standards are still prevalent in the world and its women who get the short end of the stick most of the time. Some of my bias also stems from my life experiences where I have clashed with American male ideals.
It seems like an appropriate time to continue this essay with some food for thought; a minor detour from the subject at hand. Yesterday, I saw the Vagina Monologues for the third year in a row and played Just Dance 2 for the Wii with three girls for about four hours. Both experiences, of course, brought my mind back to gender stereotypes. The Vagina Monologues is always fun not only because what is said but how the audience reacts to what is said. If you’ve never seen the show, it largely focuses on women’s sexuality and aspects of it positive and negative, humorous and serious. It’s like mixing Sex in the City, Sixty Minutes, and South Park together to create a performance that invokes mixed reactions across the board. As you may have guessed, it isn’t a show that a lot of straight men go to willingly. Year after year, I’m usually one of the few men in the audience that A) is straight, B) hasn’t been dragged there by a girlfriend or C) has been forced to go for a class. There’s usually one who gets up and leaves before the show is over and there’s always one guy that looks so uncomfortable that if he could tear a crack in the chair and crawl into it, he would.
What’s even stranger is that there are usually just as many women like the men that seem so uncomfortable that they are probably teetering between passing out, throwing up fire hydrant style or spontaneously combusting. I’ve come to believe it’s because the show kind of kicks gender stereotypes in the nads, so to speak, and allows women to take on a role that’s normally seen as masculine: being open about sex. We’ve all been in public and have heard one guy brag about his junk as if he could use it to swing over alligator pits but how often do you hear women begin a sentence with “if my vagina could talk…?” Men can be frank about how they **** (by Dr. Seuss) but women, not so much. What I find so interesting is how much this relates to the subject of gender socialization at large.
When we’re presented with something that goes against gender/sex stereotypes, how do we usually react? Does it initially shock us? Make us angry? I’ll be honest, I think I just about peed myself in sheer terror when I saw a man wearing an earring for the first time back in middle school. What judgments do we usually make? Like I mentioned in the last essay, it took me years to get over the, as the famous philosopher and social critic Peter Griffin in a Family Guy episode eloquently put it, “floatin’ around, makin’ noise, not the good kind that fixes up your house” gay stereotype. In regards to that, I think going to Independence Place, a gay bar in downtown Cape, for the first time was one of the more enlightening moments in the past year when I found, lo and behold, nearly all the gay guys I ran into acted similarly to straight men I’d known all my life. What? Extended interactions with different people will cause you to eat crow from time to time? Impossible! Sometimes running into these differences is like taking a punch to the face: they come out of no-where and they leave us dazed and confused for a bit.
What has really made me think about this as of late is movies in general because they tend to be the worst offenders. Honestly, just grab any random movie and watch it for gender stereotypes. I did this last night and I was about as blown away as a toddler sticking a fork in a light socket. Watch how the characters react to characters that follow them and watch how they react to characters that go against them. Seriously, watch “the Breakfast Club” from this perspective and you’ll feel like your brain has gone into God mode. You will hear Molly Ringwald’s pink sweater and smell “Don’t You Forget about Me.” From a philosophical and sociological standpoint, you will start tripping balls. How can such minor things that are right in front of our face all the time be all that thought provoking?
The “dance party” I went to last night made me think of the other end of this spectrum. Gender/sex stereotypes make us think a certain way about other people but how do they make us feel about ourselves? As I mentioned earlier on, I was the only guy at the party so making comparisons was all too easy. What first got the gears in my mind going was how I came to the party. I showed up in dress clothes and I brought a pan of focaccia that I had sent probably 5 hours preparing. It sort of reminded me of the Dexter’s Laboratory episode where he shows up at “Action Hank’s” military headquarters in a tutu and a basket of gingerbread men. I felt comfortable but it really brought to light how I was awkwardly rolling over gender stereotypes like a quadriplegic doing somersaults.
The next leg of my recreational philosophical thinking started when we actually put the game in and starting dancing. I don’t really need to say it because my personality should make it all too clear that I’m God awful at dancing. Watching me dance is both funny and sad, like watching a penguin with a broken foot try to walk. Despite this, I danced to more than half of the tracks in the game and somehow ended up as the girl in nearly all the duets. I danced to emasculating hits like “It’s Raining Men” with an uncoordinated vigor that probably inspired a horrified sense of awe that’s usually reserved for moments like seeing a mushroom cloud only a few miles off in the distance. As time went on, I felt less and less self-conscientious, that is until the host’s parents came back home. Her mom came in, that was fine but when her step dad came in, I felt like I wanted to stuff myself in the living room couch. He didn’t seem to care but I felt my remaining man cards were singeing to ashes regardless. Her parents left the room and the moment passed. The party continued and, all in all, I had a great time aside from that little hiccup. Even as a "girl", there are still times when I feel some shame about how I am, even if it’s entirely in my head.
I’m still trying to figure out why we’re wired like this. I’ve heard similar stories from tomboys to effeminate gay men where, despite being perfectly fine with themselves most of the time, there are still moments where you feel like you’ve done something wrong just for being who you are. Other examples are when I’ve gone to Super Bowl parties in the past and have almost felt guilty for not liking football. Nobody even has to say anything and it still gnaws at you a little bit on the inside. It gives you an idea of how even the most non-conforming people are forced to conform, if only for a little bit, by their own thought processes.
This essay didn’t turn out how I originally wanted it to. I started making plans for this second part within hours of finishing the first part but I find my mind has been expanded a great deal in this short month period when it comes to this topic. I believe this is the best kind of thinking and I believe this is what creates my better essays. You take an idea and you expand upon it over and over again until you have a web of connecting ideas. I look at myself and then I look at other people which is ultimately what I want my readers to do through-out this series. How do you view yourself and how do you see others based on appearances and stereotypes alone? In the next essay in this series on gender/sex, I want to look into the “man-child” epidemic, the idea that “wimpy men are destroying America” and what roles women have in both issues. There’s more to come after the break.
Fatmanonice, April 3rd, 2011
“Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.”- Oscar Wilde
“To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”- Anne Rice
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.” –Eleanor Roosevelt
