“I carry my mug because I’m not allowed to wear my dresses at work on the days when I might feel like it. I carry my mug because I can’t tell people I understand women better because in many ways I am one. I carry my mug because it’s a small way of showing the reality of who I am.”(1)
Unfortunately, in my excitement I think I got away from what my writings are supposed to be about: Facts and information backing up why LGBT people believe the things they do. Instead, it was more the opposite.
I also made a statement of fact without actually backing it up, when I called our Western culture “sexually restrained.” Not that this was an earth-shattering statement. But it’s certainly the kind of opinion-as-fact thing -- or maybe it’s the other way around -- that I try to avoid.
I am very embarrassed.
I think part this leap of faith into fact stems from everything I learned about gender expression verifying that which I already had observed to be true in my travels about the world. Traveling in Vietnam, I saw women seemed to hold the dominant leadership role in the family, something that’s atypical in the west. From my time working on a Native American Indian Reservation, I knew that masculinity doesn’t always have to involve physical strength.
Believing is one thing, however, proving it is another. So that’s what I’m going to do.
We covered last week that gender expression “refers to all of the external characteristics and behaviors that are socially defined as either masculine or feminine, such as dress, grooming, mannerisms, speech patterns and social interactions.”(2)
Here’s the rub, however: Whose culture? Obviously in the United States it’s our western one, which “ has come to view gender as a binary concept, with two rigidly fixed options: male or female.”(3) But as I’ve observed, and will now prove: “Social or cultural norms can vary widely and some characteristics that may be accepted as masculine, feminine or neutral in one culture may not be assessed similarly in another.”(2)
All over the world, there are societies with a different definition of what it means to be a “woman” or a “man.” And no, I’m not talking about Amazon women.
(Did they exist? Yes. Did they actually live in the Amazon? Nope, sorry, they were Greek. Did they cut off a breast so they could throw a javelin better? Maybe, though every statue of an Amazon seems to have two breasts.(4))
Rather, I’m talking about cultures like Hijras of India, the Juchitán de Zaragoza of Mexico, the Navajo Indians, and the Kathoey of Thailand.(5) And the list goes on: The Nandi of Western Kenya, and the Waria of Indonesia, where there are five distinct gender roles.(6) In each one of these, what it means to be “male” or “female” has nothing to do with physical strength, overt shows of emotion, or any of the other stereotypes we so often associate with Western culture.
Does this mean those stereotypes are wrong? Of course not. If people want to choose those things for themselves, in Western or any other culture, so be it. But for those that choose something else, clearly there are enough examples around the world to demonstrate that the Western way isn’t the only way.(7)
Heck even the Western way wasn’t always the Western way. In 16th century France high heels were considered a masculine type of shoe.(8)
More, the Western way is ever changing. In 1972 vice-presidential candidate Edmund Muskie basically ended his national career when cried while speaking in defense of his wife. By 2014, every U.S. President since the first President Bush has been caught weeping on camera.(9)
Researching this column and others, I’ve been relieved to find out I was right about some of the things I’ve observed over the years. Living amongst large populations of Native Americans at verious times in my life, I’m beginning to understand why I’ve always felt so comfortable.
I was even right about the Vietnamese: “Female headed households are common, particularly in urban areas. Unlike most other societies where female heads are usually divorced, widowed or deserted by their husbands, a substantial number of Vietnamese female heads are actually married and reportedly living in the same household as their spouse.”(10)
So I was right, though it feels nice to be able to prove it. Facts can be exciting, too.
It’s a mistake I’ll try not to make again.
References:
1) Raina Bowe: Pink Mugs and “Pocahontas On Ice”: A Story of Gender Expression
http://rainabowe.weebly.com/2/post/2014/01/pink-mugs-and-pocahontas-on-ice-a-story-of-gender-expression.html
2) Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: Terminology and Definitions
http://www.hrc.org/resources/entry/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-terminology-and-definitions
3) Gender Spectrum: Understanding Gender
https://www.genderspectrum.org/understanding-gender
4) Wikipedia: Amazons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons
4a) I say “seems” because the right breast always seems to be covered.
4b) Having watched female javelin throwers at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles I can report all of the athletes had two breasts and did just fine.
5) Wikipedia: Gender Systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_systems
6) The People’s Record: Going beyond the western binary
http://thepeoplesrecord.com/post/41383164754/going-beyond-the-western-gender-binary
7) For instance, I am pretty sure the Nandi don’t ask their biological men why they carry a pink coffee cup.
8) Wikipedia: Femininity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femininity#In_history
9) BBC News: Can you trust a leader who cries?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11683192
10) Reconfiguring Families in Contemporary Vietnam: Chapter 11
http://books.google.com/books?id=cWvTAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT410&lpg=PT410&dq=Vietnamese+matriarch+research&source=bl&ots=51fnL3kyTs&sig=aeAxuLgBrr0V_g7d4cI72stnO-U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=J2PuUsv_L5KGogSo0YAo&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=Vietnamese%20matriarch%20research&f=false