mesotablar | Entries tagged with gender

I studied identity and self at university many years ago, so I have half remembered frameworks floating around in the back of my mind. I could do my research and find all my sources (because I still have all my readers, textbooks and work assignments) but I felt I just had to get this down in words or it would never happen. I can always come back and add references as I refine my ideas…

It can be understood that self has 2 basic components, an personal sense that you control by choices you make, and a external perception within society where other people make assumptions about you. Basically what you think about yourself and what other people think about you.

Labels can be ones you choose for yourself or are assigned to you by others. Labels are everywhere and most are not questioned or cause reaction. There is no reaction to these because you have in someway chosen or feel that they are accurate. Your job description, your generation moniker, your hair colour, your nationality.

But society works on defaults, so it is possible for externally applied labels to be ill-fitting or wrong, which leads to questioning. Finding a label can be cathartic, or bring a sense of freedom and community. That is when you are accepting a label you have found that fits your own sense of self.

When you are confronted by people in society labeling you with words defining their perception of you, things you may not have thought of (let alone questioned) or simply have a gut reaction against, things get painful*. Most of the discussion I have seen is in regards to gender and pronouns, but I remember a bit of argument just after I joined Arocalypse surrounding the use of alloromantic.

( My Aromantic Section )

( My Racial Rant Section )

*That is why most forums have rules about labeling others, and pronouns are made explicit in introductions or profiles.

Current Mood: contemplative

I watched a complaint recently of a trans person feeling singled out by the best intended social inclusion practice of a group of women going around the circle identifying their preferred pronouns. Everyone in that scenario used She/Her but would they have bothered doing that declaration if they didn't have a trans woman there? If they looked around and just assumed everyone was cis, as they are probably used to doing when they aren't confronted with someone who is very open about being in the gender section of LGBT+, would they have done it?

Asking or declaring pronouns is fairly common on the internet where people are anonymous behind animal pictures and assumed names. It is good practice not to assume gender on the internet because on a long post you might misgender someone multiple times and they would be unable to correct you as it happens, but only after the fact.

Is there a way to establish pronouns without singling someone out?
I was thinking you could ask "whether anyone uses pronouns other than what they could be assumed to use according to the way they have visually presented themselves that day" It would have worked for the situation detailed above but it is problematic for other situations. It relies on traditional ideas of what men and women wear, and not fitting those boxes might be assumed to be one of the identities that uses 'they' when in fact you might prefer 'zer'. Not to mention all the other issues that might arise with non-transitioning trans people and the variety of clothing choices and styles across microcultures and traditional cultures and gendered mannerisms and secondary sexual features (or lack there of).

I don't know the answer. I am only a spectator for these gender discussions because I am cis. I don't know all the ways you might be hurt but I understand good intentions does not protect you from hurting others.

Would the best path be, for now at least, to use people's names as pronouns until they feel comfortable to come out to me as to what their pronouns are? no singling out, no assuming people are something or different, and I do it to everyone whether they obviously present within the understood visual criteria of a gender or not.

Current Mood: curious

Recently I have gone through emotional changes and this past week I seem to keep finding the same topics popping up again and again, which I choose to take as a sign that I should try to work through some of my feelings.

I grew up in an environment of conservative and progressive influences, I'm sure many people have but all in our own unique recipe of the two. Since the deaths in my family I have found I am more body confident than I had been in years. I am also feeling much more settled inside myself as a person. For the first time in forever I feel like my internal storm has truly abated and I can see the internal scene and all the accumulated debris. Which lead about the terrible realisation that much of the dissatisfaction was actually external input. Semi-regular flippant comments about hair and weight, dating and boys, physical ability and life goals, that I thought I had ignored actually cut me deeply. Now those thoughts which were not my own are now literally in the grave with the persons who made them.

I am not a good self-critic. I can only analyse things in hindsight if I am prompted to do so. Basically much of the time I flail and hope I come across other people who give me ideas to make sense of my reactions and life.

I have discovered I do in fact have quite a lot of internalised misogyny linked to a sense of inferiority related to my disability (Internalised Ableism Alert!). I don't even know if misogyny is really the right word, a more apt term might be Toxic Femininity. I push back against amatonormativity a lot. I feel that expectations of romantic love force themselves on me all the time, but might I be letting them in to torment me? My last post 'Females Love' talked about this. I have internal expectations of what women are, very traditional European ideals. If I write them out specifically I see how silly they are and can rebuke them but there is still this deep vague sense that they are correct.

Being in Queer spaces has exposed me to many people of different genders and many different journeys those people have made to get there. I have no gender journey, do I? How am I female then? How do I know? up rises the 28 year old monster of memories of comments, expectations and traditions (this monster it seems has always been present lurking beneath the surface and informing my experiences, but it lets itself be seen every so often). I have no role models who are aromantic or disabled in the same way I am, let alone both. Truthfully I was never really interested finding any. One group I am intrinsicly connected to is my bloodline, so they sort of became my 'best fit' role models for certain things, and it certainly makes sense when it comes to health history. But what of the rest of history?

Half of my family migrated to Australia after WWII, and they kept almost nothing of their old home countries, very little sense of culture was passed down. So I, wanting some sort of anchor clasped whatever I could. Much of that is from a time almost unrecognisable, but I absorbed it and in many ways I thought it applicable to me. Deep inside I still think it is applicable to me, but that is just causing me pain, but is it worse to keep pushing against external factors I invite in or to remove all the internalised issues themselves?
Here is a list of some which I abstractly know are not true to my experience but they are specific to my sense of who my family is and in turn who I am.
(TL;DR I've had this list of stuff subtly reinforced in me for 28 years, now I'm deciding to try to purge it. I'm so screwed)

Love can grow from passion
Certainty-of-marriage-partner at first sight/Love at first sight is real
a long-term relationship is the most significant relationship you will have outside of children (Sometimes not even children)
a partner gives you better social status
families arrange suitable suitors
family approval is of the upmost importance
you must master the duties of a housewife
sacrificing everything for love may improve your future
Being submissive is better
being slightly masochistic will serve you well because life/love is painful
get married as a young virgin

Current Mood: distressed

This is my entry for aromagni.tumblr.com/post/611540309244018688/carnival-of-aros-call-for-submissions-march using the prompt: How does your experience of gender intersect with romance and/or amatonormativity?
I always seem to end up talking about amatonormativity...

Females Love

My gender matches my biology. Because I had no conflict or dysphoria I just accepted it when I was young and grew with it. I take it for granted most of the time. Specifically: ‘my gender’ is barely ever in the forefront of my mind as it is so fused with my own sense of self.

However there have been many moments where I was forced to feel less than female. From about the age of 8 love changes its meaning from describing family connections to budding romantic hopes. The experience of growing up as a girl is like swimming in a river, where all the solid ground is ‘love’. People start expecting you to show interest, and assume it is a forgone conclusion that you will eventually find yourself washed ashore into first love. Loving family is taken for granted as everyone, parents, teachers, friends, all start anticipating that you will begin making tentative steps in making romantic connections.

Love becomes a constant presence bordering life. Love is the topic of many conversations. Girls pester each other with questions about romantic interest. Parents begin setting out rules of engagement to control the access boys have to their daughters. Celebrity crushes become a way of judging and sorting classmates. The popular media; books, shows, music, movies, is generally centred on love, and popular media is the centre of at least half of all the conversations.

Sure there are those that reject certain mainstream influences, like me, but there was no escaping the flow of my cohort or the expectation of my own inevitable falling in love. As more and more girls around me fulfilled those expectations I was left more isolated. Love is what girls seemed to do, so what are you if you don’t fall in love? Not a girl? Not growing up as you should? Not human?

Media had told me over and over again that romantic love is intrinsic to the female experience. Yes, it is all terribly binary, girls love and boys fight….though the binary assumption after puberty for boys becomes a different four letter F-word. That was just the environment I was raised in. Feminism and strong female role models were present, women can do the same jobs as men for the same wage, women don’t need to become baby machines, women don’t have to cook. All good stuff, but underlying gender and human stereotypes were not contradicted, they weren't even thought of. Girls love, it is just what happens after you hit puberty. First the growing pains that keep you from sleeping, you grow an inches in your sleep. Then your chest swells and you start wearing training bras, preparing you for the torture device underwire bras. Then the period arrives with very little warning, expected yet unexpected. Then boom! First love. Okay, maybe not immediately but definitely within 10 years. Definitely.

It seemed all the adults in my live automatically assumed love would be part of my teenage years so there was a watchful anticipation in the background of most conversation and interaction. It was continuous and unpleasant. My lack of interest in love connection singled me out amongst my friends. It made me feel sub-optimal. I wasn't fulfilling one of the core essentials of being of the female gender. I was a failing, I was less than truly female.

The many uses of the word ‘love’ helped confuse matters. I love that show. I love that band. I love that actor. Love your body. Love your neighbour. I love what you are wearing. I love your hair. I love you.

There was a disconnect somewhere for me and the (only partially effective) outlet I found was being a tomboy. I rejected femininity even though that is what I am most comfortable with just because the feminine package seemed to be soaked with love. Tomboyishness did not last long. I always felt too female to be constrained in those clothes and I didn't fit in with the other tomboys. So I didn't fit with the girly girls, I didn't fit with the tomboys, and as the years rolled by and the cliques were all corrupted by dating couples I was left further and further outside my own understanding of what it is to be female.

I've lied to make my history fit more along the lines of a standard female experience. I've been given reassurances about dating. I am older now and the expectant eyes have gotten bored, and after finding out about aromanticism I am much more comfortable in my own skin. Before aromanticism no one had ever said it is okay not to date. No one ever said it is okay to remain single. No one ever told me friends are enough for some people. No one ever said that romance is not intrinsic to the female gender.

Well, it is okay not to date. It is okay to remain single. Friends can be enough. I am female. I am aromantic. Aromantic women are legitimately female.

Current Mood: accomplished

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Mesotablar

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I thought it was a good idea at the time...

Personal Journal with Many Aromantic Thoughts

Entries tagged with gender

Being Labeled

Gender and Pronouns: Unsolved

Shedding Toxicity

Females Love