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summer_jackelSo, I'm going to vent a bit of frustration regarding gender stuff, because a couple of minor things that happened this week irritated me and are still nagging. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it would be really cool if people regularly noticed and made efforts to curb gender biases as they crop up, at least the really obvious ones.
The first incident was at the feed store and involved me directly. I'd just loaded 2 40-lb sacks of feed into my truck, when a store employee who was walking behind me said, "wow, you really manhandled those bags!" There was a point in my life (ok, so most of it) where I'd have just ignored him completely, but something in me was in a toothy mood, and without thinking much about it I snapped, "or woman-handled as the case may be." He said something I don't remember; I told him that I didn't think my gender had anything to do with my ability to load feed and hissed off.
I will note that I'm not exactly a frail-looking woman. I have three horses, four dogs, four cats (with two feline guests, groan) and a housefull of miscellaneous little critters that get feed in heavy bags, so I lug around what amounts to probably a couple hundred pounds of feed a month. Still, tossing a couple of bags of dog food in a car is not exactly a stunning feat of strength and masculinity.
The second was a brief observation I made of a guy who seemed like the dad playing with 2 small children, a boy and a girl. Dad was throwing a foam football to the boy, who seemed a little nervous about catching it.
The girl said something about wanting to play with the ball; dad kind of dismissively told her to be the cheerleader and re-focused his attention on the boy. Obviously this was a very brief glimpse into the lives of people I don't know at all; arrogant of me to judge and all that. Maybe the girl really likes to play cheerleaders and dad lavishes focused playtime free of gender stereotypes on her all the time, but this seemed like such a groaningly-bad caricature of gender stereotype that it should be painful and obvious even to, I don't know, my chickens. Like, the really dumb little pullets I have right now who can't even figure out how to get in and out of the coop half the time. Come on, dude, those kids look barely school-age and playing with balls is good for their gross motor skills regardless of gender.
(This also reminded me of how REALLY GLAD I am not to be around small kids much at all anymore. Sweet).
These are minor irritations in the grand scheme of things, but I'm glad in retrospect that I spoke up to feed store guy. I think most of us have at some point experienced a harmful gender or racial or whatever bias cropping up in our thinking by now. I try to keep an eye on mine and explore them when I find them. This just seems like routine 'I want to be a decent person' self-maintenance to me; I'm not particularly proud of it or anything. I have total compassion for having unexamined harmful cultural assumptions as long as the person is willing to reflect upon them when they are pointed out. Hopefully feed guy was utterly mortified by my challenge and is rethinking his ideas about gender right now. (You all knew I'm a stupidly, incurably romantic, right? The poetry gave it away)?
I will skip the whole line of reasoning that leads from these thoughts to contemplating National Coming-Out Day, which is tomorrow, October 11, and why it's so very important to be out and proud and/or supportive even in some small and quiet way. (Although if anyone wants more detail I will provide, because it's important).
I spent yesterday evening at a play in San Francisco* in the delightful company of a big group of friends that included all of my current sweethearts and most of their sweethearts (poly, when it works, can be really, really neat like that). The whole outing was lots of fun. I notice now how nice it was to be able to share mild public affection with my girlfriend without worrying about that becoming some kind of problem---and not to be thinking about it at the time. I'm pretty damned fortunate to inhabit such a public environment, and that is very recent and utterly precious social change.
So, rather bemusedly, (anyone hadn't noticed I was out?), here we go. For what very little it actually matters in 90% of my social functioning, I'm a cisgendered lesbian (for a definition of 'lesbian' that includes enjoying my male partner). I'm polyamorous and really happy about that. I do my best to divorce my gender identity from my ability to lug feed around, for that way lies madness, but I will confess an occasional flash of butch-y machismo about it. While we're on the subject, I don't identify particularly as butch or femme and you really don't have to ; that's one of those irritatingly challengeworthy stereotypes. I'll mention that I have my moments with both, it varies greatly and is mostly irrelevant, and leave it at that.
So there you go. As a statement it seems a little anticlimactic and pointless to me, but I guess it did take me a while to get here, this comfortable with it. I've enjoyed the privilege of experiencing very little violence of any kind around gender, which is another factor. Being out when you can and noticing cultural stupidity around gender stuff when it arises is a really good and important thing, and I think that's enough politics from me for a good while.
______________
*The play was Jerry Springer, the Opera, and it was all kinds of fun and awesome. It is a beautiful, vulgar, insightful piece of theater. My friend Becca has the part of Baby Jane in it, and all the performances are stellar. If any of you are local-ish and want to see a play in the city this week, go see!
The first incident was at the feed store and involved me directly. I'd just loaded 2 40-lb sacks of feed into my truck, when a store employee who was walking behind me said, "wow, you really manhandled those bags!" There was a point in my life (ok, so most of it) where I'd have just ignored him completely, but something in me was in a toothy mood, and without thinking much about it I snapped, "or woman-handled as the case may be." He said something I don't remember; I told him that I didn't think my gender had anything to do with my ability to load feed and hissed off.
I will note that I'm not exactly a frail-looking woman. I have three horses, four dogs, four cats (with two feline guests, groan) and a housefull of miscellaneous little critters that get feed in heavy bags, so I lug around what amounts to probably a couple hundred pounds of feed a month. Still, tossing a couple of bags of dog food in a car is not exactly a stunning feat of strength and masculinity.
The second was a brief observation I made of a guy who seemed like the dad playing with 2 small children, a boy and a girl. Dad was throwing a foam football to the boy, who seemed a little nervous about catching it.
The girl said something about wanting to play with the ball; dad kind of dismissively told her to be the cheerleader and re-focused his attention on the boy. Obviously this was a very brief glimpse into the lives of people I don't know at all; arrogant of me to judge and all that. Maybe the girl really likes to play cheerleaders and dad lavishes focused playtime free of gender stereotypes on her all the time, but this seemed like such a groaningly-bad caricature of gender stereotype that it should be painful and obvious even to, I don't know, my chickens. Like, the really dumb little pullets I have right now who can't even figure out how to get in and out of the coop half the time. Come on, dude, those kids look barely school-age and playing with balls is good for their gross motor skills regardless of gender.
(This also reminded me of how REALLY GLAD I am not to be around small kids much at all anymore. Sweet).
These are minor irritations in the grand scheme of things, but I'm glad in retrospect that I spoke up to feed store guy. I think most of us have at some point experienced a harmful gender or racial or whatever bias cropping up in our thinking by now. I try to keep an eye on mine and explore them when I find them. This just seems like routine 'I want to be a decent person' self-maintenance to me; I'm not particularly proud of it or anything. I have total compassion for having unexamined harmful cultural assumptions as long as the person is willing to reflect upon them when they are pointed out. Hopefully feed guy was utterly mortified by my challenge and is rethinking his ideas about gender right now. (You all knew I'm a stupidly, incurably romantic, right? The poetry gave it away)?
I will skip the whole line of reasoning that leads from these thoughts to contemplating National Coming-Out Day, which is tomorrow, October 11, and why it's so very important to be out and proud and/or supportive even in some small and quiet way. (Although if anyone wants more detail I will provide, because it's important).
I spent yesterday evening at a play in San Francisco* in the delightful company of a big group of friends that included all of my current sweethearts and most of their sweethearts (poly, when it works, can be really, really neat like that). The whole outing was lots of fun. I notice now how nice it was to be able to share mild public affection with my girlfriend without worrying about that becoming some kind of problem---and not to be thinking about it at the time. I'm pretty damned fortunate to inhabit such a public environment, and that is very recent and utterly precious social change.
So, rather bemusedly, (anyone hadn't noticed I was out?), here we go. For what very little it actually matters in 90% of my social functioning, I'm a cisgendered lesbian (for a definition of 'lesbian' that includes enjoying my male partner). I'm polyamorous and really happy about that. I do my best to divorce my gender identity from my ability to lug feed around, for that way lies madness, but I will confess an occasional flash of butch-y machismo about it. While we're on the subject, I don't identify particularly as butch or femme and you really don't have to ; that's one of those irritatingly challengeworthy stereotypes. I'll mention that I have my moments with both, it varies greatly and is mostly irrelevant, and leave it at that.
So there you go. As a statement it seems a little anticlimactic and pointless to me, but I guess it did take me a while to get here, this comfortable with it. I've enjoyed the privilege of experiencing very little violence of any kind around gender, which is another factor. Being out when you can and noticing cultural stupidity around gender stuff when it arises is a really good and important thing, and I think that's enough politics from me for a good while.
______________
*The play was Jerry Springer, the Opera, and it was all kinds of fun and awesome. It is a beautiful, vulgar, insightful piece of theater. My friend Becca has the part of Baby Jane in it, and all the performances are stellar. If any of you are local-ish and want to see a play in the city this week, go see!
