(no subject)

[owlectomy]

So as I'm getting a ride back from my meeting with my A Certain Library Person*, and she tells the "joke" that goes,

"If you ask a woman where north is, what does she say?"
(points at the sky).

"That's a pretty terrible joke," I say.
"But it's true."
"I never get lost. And if I do get lost I can get my bearings from the sun."
"Yeah, but most women--"
"Not on the planet I'm from."
"Yeah, but for women over thirty, 'cause they don't drive, their husbands drive them everywhere."

AAAAAAUUUUUUGHH.

Okay, I just needed to say that.

I think most "men's brains are like THIS, women's brains are like THIS" stuff is complete BS for any number of reasons, but the most personal and petty one is that by almost any measure I have a man's brain.

(1) I don't talk.
(2) I can easily orient myself, and I really like maps.
(3) I'm good at math.
(4) I don't really care how I look.
(5) Sometimes I'm sensitive (or more often, oversensitive) to people's emotions, but just as often I can be extremely dense.

And I spent most of my middle school years, not trying to be more feminine, but building up emotional defenses against the idea that I wasn't feminine enough. What I was, was: Canadian, culture-shocked, friendless enough not to have anyone to show me how to perform femininity, extremely disinclined to get up any earlier than 6:00 just to preen, depressed, and so resistant to the idea that I might ever be pretty that I never really tried.

(I could be wrong, but I do think the Canadian thing is important; I think if I'd stayed I'd have gotten a year or two more to adjust to the girly stuff).

Some of those still apply, actually, for better or for worse. I've gotten better at not succumbing to dualism and thinking of myself as (basically) a brain in a jar, but I've still got a ways to go. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with skin care, and hair care, and clothes shopping in a way that's authentic without being apathetic -- apathetic being my natural inclination.

I like being a woman, actually. (27 days out of the month, at least). But it's so hard to tease it apart from the gender roles that would cast me as a bad specimen of womankind.

*Yes, THAT library person.

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

It is SO WEIRD to me to be around people who regularly spout the "men are like this, women are like this" stuff. Even tho' I am totally burnt out on 501(c) 3 nonprofits, one benefit was that almost no one I encountered tried that stuff. But during my library internship & @ my new job, people bring up these supposed facts all the time. (& they're also always going on about their diets, which is another ugh)

I've gotten better at not succumbing to dualism and thinking of myself as (basically) a brain in a jar, but I've still got a ways to go.

Oh me too, me too! Randomly: have you ever done martial arts? One thing that really, really started me getting out of that mindset was doing karate for a couple of years (alas, I stopped right when I moved into NYC, & haven't picked it up since, but I should).

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

I used to do karate when I was younger (9-ish?) but I gave it up because I didn't have any flexibility and because I hadn't yet learned to stick with things I was bad at (wait, I still haven't learned that.) I've been wanting to start again, but I'm still trying to rehab an achy knee.

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

Bah on all that. If you don't mind my saying so, I tend to feel more and more these days, that women can be anything, while men are stuck trying to live up to some expectation of manliness.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

Agreed that Patriarchy Hurts Men Too and all that. Agreed also that the social penalties on unmasculine men are worse than the ones on unfeminine women.

But with the idea that women can be anything comes the idea that women MUST be everything. Find enough money & hours in the day to be pretty and feminine and smart and successful and everything else.