Blending In, Friend or Foe?

For the past eighteen years of my life I have noticed a common connection when it comes to kids and people in general, we all want to blend in. People tend to want to be the same as everyone else than to be ostracized for their differences. From personal experience, blending in has proven to be safer than to make a stance that you may not have intended to make in the first place. But I did not learn how to blend in on my own. Blending in has been practiced for so long, adults engrain social norms onto their kids, which leads to their kids blending in, and it’s all one big messy cycle. When it comes to blending in, some people can do it far better than others. Take David Sedaris for example, was a gay kid growing up in North Carolina where the holiest you could be, was at a football game. In the first chapter “Carolina” from Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris was taken out of class to go to speech therapy. It was not just speech therapy for mispronouncing your “r’s” or for a lisp, but boys who spoke with a lisp a tad too effeminate, or the pitch of their voices were a bit too high for the macho men of North Carolina. Speech therapy in general is great for kids who struggle with speaking in front of their class or other people in general, but therapy for those who don’t speak to one’s standards doesn’t seem to me to be okay at all. When is it okay to tell kids that the way they are isn’t okay? A quote that really stuck out to me from this passage is, “She was probably thinking along the lines of SPEECH THERAPY LAB, though a more appropriate marker would have read FUTURE HOMOSEXUALS OF AMERICA” (Sedaris). These kids were being told they were different from a very young age. It wasn’t even that their differences were acknowledged, it was that the school was telling them they needed to change. They were told they needed to be “normal.” If you ask me, being normal is totally overrated, and I believe everyone deserves to be whatever the hell they feel like being. Telling someone to change for the sake of normalcy is sickening, and we need to let those kids with “lisps” that they’re not less than just because of the way they act or talk. You. Do. You.

   

Struggling in Silence

In my experience, attempting to interpret Silence from a 21^st century perspective overcomplicated the text; negotiating Silence’s pronouns throughout the book was a struggle, attempting to identify Silence as transgender made their character confusing, and much of the word choice in the translation of the original 13^th century text was questionable. Does a modern day reading of Silence render the meaning “lost in translation”?

Being born and raised in the midst of the third wave of feminism’s cultural influence, I feel like our generation is more socially conscious than most. In addressing and attempting to rectify the effects of social inequality, participating members of society consider being well informed a responsibility. Reflecting on historical transgressions through the lens of social enlightenment sometimes renders actions and events incomprehensible on our end. An example of this is when we try to make sense of someone’s poor decision making (What Would George Bush Do?), we’ll analyze the effects of their choices based on what we would have done in that situation—but everything is clearer in retrospect.

With the aforementioned word vomit in mind, is it even possible for us to really understand what the author (not the translator, it’s pretty obvious what she was thinking) of Silence really intended the reader to take away from the story? If Professor Blake hadn’t put the story into a historically appropriate context because we are students with no real scholarship in medieval literature, what would our textual analysis look like? Is attempting to apply a 21^st century interpretation to a 13^th century text dismissive of the work’s original integrity?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions and while I am certain that my experiences shape the way I read any text, the mystery behind the author/it’s publication being so very old has left me wondering what exactly the motivations and meanings that make up Silence really are.

“And the human heart is a creature

that has a strange and peculiar nature:

it thinks a great deal,

turns the deep thoughts it harbors

over and over again, far too often,

and causes itself a great deal of grief.” (Silence 125)

Okay so I’m positive this quote is not meant to be about how difficult it was for me to interpret Silence, but I am pretty sure it could be.

The fetishization, commodification, and exposure of transness and trans bodies has become rampant in the past years because transness is being seen as more accepted (read interesting.) The gross interest in trans bodies, especially when it comes to anatomy, transitions, and gender performance, has only increased and is still believed, by many, to be acceptable topics to discuss with trans individuals. 

Asking about a trans person’s genitals is no more acceptable than asking a cis man if he is circumcised or not, and yet these questions are extremely common to ask trans individuals online, IRL, even in talk show interviews (looking at you Katie Couric.) The fact that these questions are still asked every day of every trans person means, essentially, that as a culture we view transness as an act and not as a state of being. And yes! Gender is indeed an act preformed by all (who have a gender) but by no means does sex equal gender and by no means are trans individuals pretending to be trans. Therefore, why are these questions still ok to ask? Why aren't we asking trans individuals about their experiences as a trans individual rather than trying to put ourselves in their place? Why are we not asking how to be more respectful of them? Why are we not asking how we can be effective allies? Why are we not asking them about how they experience job discrimination? How medical access can be legally denied or made all but impossible to achieve? Why are we not more concerned with the way the government treats trans individuals and the laws that make legally changing their names or getting new birth certificates almost impossible? Why is it that we would rather see a trans individual as an experiment, play thing, or zoo animal than a human?

When we start to ask if a trans person is really “committed” to their transition based on whether or not they've had “the surgery” there is a problem. The fact that experts on queer and gender theory still write papers, with little to no backlash, about how “gender isn't real” is a problem. As a community, we need to come together and realize that there are so many ways to do gender that it’s not revolutionary or “strange” at all to have people doing gender that isn't their assigned sex. And, we also need to understand that there are many reasons people do gender the way they do. Many people use gender as armor: if you can preform it well enough no one can fault you for your behavior or beliefs because it’s all about your gender. Some people do gender as a self care act or a statement, there is, I believe, no wrong way to do gender. But, we need to start realizing that it is different for everyone and that’s ok. It’s not all about understanding someone’s gender, it’s about accepting their gender as valid and real and ok.    

Categorizing Silence

         During our discussion of Silence, I came across a major issue when we were discussing the characteristics of Silence. The question of Silence’s gender identity came up, and people went back and forth debating whether or not Silence was transgender, agender, or gender fluid. I joined in on this argument, because at first, I found it to be interesting. However, the more I thought about it, the more it really bothered me. I think that when we are discussing Silence, or any character from the middle ages, it is important that we do not try and force our 21^st century nomenclature and thought processes on the character. Silence was not thinking that perhaps she was transgender, instead she was concerned that despite being female, she had played the role of a male for so long that she was beginning to become more comfortable in this role. I understand the desire that we, as 21^st century students, have to try and bring everything into this century, but it simply isn’t realistic, and we lose sight of the actual issue being told in the story.

            A more appropriate comparison to make would be to Julia Serano’s essay in Gender Outlaws, where she argues that gender is an act that helps us categorize in society. Despite being female, Silence was forced into the role of a male, due to inheritance laws. After lots of internal struggle, she finally comes to the decision that this is not the role that she fits into, and begins to play her “natural” role, which is that of a female.

            My statement is not meant to say that there are not people from the middle ages, who if we brought into today’s society, would be regarded as transgender, it just isn’t applicable to Silence.

            To compare it to something more modern, within the community of Drag Queens, there are queens who become lost in the role that they play when they paint their face. Their true selves become lost inside the outgoing personality that is their stage persona. It leads to the same type of internal struggle we see with Silence, where they attempt to sort between this fake personality that has taken over their lives, and their true selves. Eventually, they tend to find their way, just like Silence, back into their natural roles. They are not transgender, simply lost in the roles that they are forced to put on.

Gender: An Act?

Growing up, my room was white. When we redid the room, I chose the color of a soft bubblegum pink, not quite a coral, but not so god-awful one couldn’t stand to be in there. In my room, I had a plethora of stuffed animals, Barbie dolls, ballerina figurines (even though I was not a dancer in any shape or form), a dress up box in my closet, all the typical things one would think of when they heard the words “girl’s room.” I loved playing with my dolls in the pink dollhouse, coming up with kid-friendly soap operas, and making little tea parties as I clopped around in those little plastic princess heels. My brother was born and he received the GI Joes, the trains, the cars, the Bakugan toys, a blue room, and the little plastic toy soldiers too.

Never once did I question that there were other terms out there than just “boy” or “girl.” I had no idea that sexuality was even a thing. Growing up, I brushed my long hair, sang into my hairbrush, listened to music in the shower, had a birthday slumber party dedicated to the color pink, and did all the things that “girls” were supposed to do.

Never once did it occur to me that everything I was doing could be perceived as an act, that all of it had been placed in front of me to consciously think about which gender I was performing. I never questioned if I was doing as girls were supposed to do. I was instructed to wear shorts underneath skirts and dresses, to keep my knees together while sitting down, and just thought it made sense. I never questioned why. I figured it was just modesty.

Now that I’m in college, my “act” has not changed. To hear that gender is a social construct, that everything is acted just confuses me. Being a “girl” came naturally. Yes, l was given every opportunity there was to act the part of a girl, to dream of being a Disney princess and tie the huge bow on the backs of my dresses (I later told my uncle that those were for babies), but never did it occur to me that I might be performing something I didn’t feel like I was. With my background, I’d never heard the words “hermaphrodite” or “intersex” until college and never knew about different sexualities from my own until high school, when I made that scary transition from Catholic school to public school.

It frustrates me to think that my life could have been a lie, to get me to “become” a girl. It saddens me that some don’t feel like they’re who they’re meant to be. Personally, I don’t believe gender is an act at all. I believe with that the way we’re raised might or might not determine who we are or want to be. I believe that putting on earrings every morning to match the rest of my attire does not determine that I am a girl. If a fellow “boy” peer of mine has eyeliner "on fleek," or a nail polish color I like, I don’t believe that to be “wrong” in any way. I’d probably ask him for tutorials! When it comes down to it, the way we view ourselves may be mistaken in the eyes of someone else, but just because others act, speak, or “perform” their gender differently than another doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be treated with the same and utmost respect that all humans deserve.

Gender as an act? Please. Instead of thinking about what gender someone’s “performing,” maybe we should all try to perform the role of a respectful human being.

Are Women’s Bodies Objectified in Media?

This blog post will focus on the objectification of women’s bodies in Middlesex and Marilyn Monroe's portrayal in media. Marilyn Monroe’s peak career and the first half of Middlesex both occurred during the mid-1900s; this similar timeline makes the comparison somewhat relevant, as well as the study on gender in Middlesex and the status of Marilyn Monroe as a sex symbol in American culture.

In Middlesex, different female characters share different attitudes on the “ideal” female body type. Desdemona is described as having a very curvaceous, feminine figure that she is embarrassed about. She attempts to hide her figure behind bulky clothing, as she believes that her body sends off sexual messages that she does not want. For example, she gets catcalled by men while walking down a street in Detroit for her curvy figure. While Desdemona tries to hide her feminine figure, Victoria Pappas and Lucille Kafkalis try to play up their femininity by dressing up like women from an erotic magazine to attract a man. On the other hand, Lina is criticized by her husband for daring to wear bolder, western clothing. Lefty capitalizes on women’s curvy body figures through his erotic photography business in which barely-dressed women are portrayed in suggestive poses on cars. In such erotic photos and magazines, the person behind the body becomes lost, as the body is the sole focus. With the emergence of a market that capitalizes on the sex appeal of female figures, it seems that the female body has become more objectified within society.

In media, Marilyn Monroe is known for her curvy figure and her acting, as she plays women who are highly sexualized and seemingly objectified. For example, in the movie “Seven Year Itch”, Marilyn Monroe plays a female character who was a former model and commercial actress who made money by capitalizing on her body’s sex appeal. In the same movie, Marilyn Monroe’s character is lusted after by a male neighbor who daydreams about her upon her first visual appearance. In the movie “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, Marilyn Monroe plays a blonde bombshell character who voluntarily flaunts her body to manipulate men into giving her wealth and riches. 

In real life, it seems that Marilyn Monroe struggled with her own public image. Although she became Hollywood’s most famous sex symbol, she seemed to resent the title and fought against it. She felt that she was never taken seriously for her acting and person but appreciated for her body instead. Although Marilyn Monroe broke past many barriers for women and helped them to achieve more freedom in dress, she may have also suffered from objectification of women’s bodies in society.

Gendering Kids Starts Early and Just Doesn't Quit

Just like Desdemona and her spoon as well as Milton and his thermometer, every couple wants to know what the gender of their unborn baby is- and since it’s no longer the seventies, it’s often fairly easy to do for a baby. Which is understandable for parents to want- with the pretty clear-cut lines of gender that our society draws, it’s a natural next step that everyone wants to know ahead of time. Even without the male-centered inheritance laws in Silence, a baby’s early life is going to be different whether they’re a boy or girl, even though those differences are shaped by the same society that dictates that people know ahead of time so that they can choose to treat their unborn child as a boy or girl early… so it sort of seems like a cycle that feeds itself to me.

And with social media being so prevalent in our society and a big way of how we keep in contact with others, I guess it’s another natural next step for “gender reveal” parties or announcements start popping up. Like the cake filled with blue or pink m&m’s. Or the box filled with blue or pink chalk that you then shoot to make the gender of your baby… explode… (?) into the air… filling the air with your love/ its gender? That’s where it gets weird. I feel like there’s some strange associations to be made with that particular type of gender reveal.

And even once they’re born, the babies are going to be highly gendered once again. There’s the clear cut of “boy” and “girl” clothes from the very start, with vastly different messages on the tiny, identical in structure, little onesies. Often, the messages on girls’ clothes are self-deprecating or talking about dating before they’re even old enough to understand what self-esteem or boyfriends are. Even though they obviously aren’t able to read this message, other people are and these people are going to be able to and will form some opinions of this and other babies from the very start. This also seems like of Silence being the most over-sexualized, hourglass figure little newborn, but updated and created for the mass consumption of all consumers.

This trend continues as the babies grow up into kids, with one notable exception that is also making small-time, facebook feed news- Target is specifically creating a kids’ room decoration brand that doesn’t have an overly gendered vibe. There’s a lot of speculation about why they’re doing it, and the main conclusion is, of course, profit. However, the fact remains that there’s some amount of hope that this weird gendering of babies and kids who don’t have any concept of what gender is could maybe not be so widespread in some future.

I think this concept also illustrates the difficulties in distinguishing the influences of nature and nurture, because the nurture that two babies will get is going to be different based on their nature, at least in some senses. While these are some extreme examples, I think they show the distinction that is made in the way kids are treated from the moment they enter social media and how it’s not the same and is often very strange.