by compared2what? » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:39 am
Who stands against it? I read them, too. I pin a rose on both of us. When I got into adolescent reading on the other hand, assuming we were still reading the same sort of things, when we read Catch-22, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or anything by J.D. Salinger, what gender were the people with whom we would naturally identify? Because unless you identified with Franny, which I sure didn't, my guess would be that one of us felt like an unnatural being, and without thinking about it or even knowing how to think about it, strengthened the foundations of the assumption that she was in some way a hideously deformed freak, and equally unthinkingly continued to modify her understanding of what she wanted or needed or deserved in order to express them in a way that would not reveal her inner deviation. And one of us didn't.
This is not the hugest or most immediate tragedy of our times. In my case, it was not even a tragedy, because I was lucky enough to have been born into circumstances that valued some innate qualities other than gender, and I happened to have them. So I had alternate routes to take on my boring little journey to self-esteem. Many people, both male and female, do not have alternate routes, and for a wide variety of reasons. Those are the people who need all the help they can get. And....I'm having a hard time not being the bitch that in reality I am not, again.
And I guess the reason is that still to this day, some degree of misogyny is so entrenched in the culture that I am fearful and angry when I try to point it out. Furthermore, I don't entirely like myself for pointing it out, since I am a part of the culture and thus as reflexively, unthinkingly misogynist as the next well-meaning, woman-liking, liberty-affirming man is, though I am a woman. And that's the consequence of living your entire life alert to the many, many signals that indicate in their many, many forms: Be reasonable, dear. Don't cause a situation in which you, the weaker party, will only get hurt. Which creates a false dichotomy, so that my unthinking shouting at those voices, "Shut the fuck up, you assholes, I got a right to have feelings" prompts me, unthinkingly, to throw a counterpunch, when no punch has been thrown.
I apologize. What I meant was: I too stand by your inclusion of Harriet the Spy! And I really do mean that.
I am posting this in whole anyway, because though most of it's not my ultimate position, it is part of the microsecond round trip my mind travels each and every time that button is pushed. And by some bizarre irony, when I arrive at the conclusion that yelling at forum members who have done nothing to deserve it is unjust, the end result is that somehow, I still was silent when I had something pertinent to say that I know for a fact can be conveyed without drama or ill will. But in this medium, I have no idea how.
I welcome feedback on this topic, and it doesn't have to be supportive. Because I'm actually not a victim or vulnerable child, and will not be devastated by it.
What would be a fair and effective way to communicate feelings of unease regarding gender bias in the medium of this forum from y'all's point of view? I would prefer to communicate effectively with persons of all genders than to waste microseconds of my time shouting at myself, or actual seconds of yours listening to me, since once anything makes the transition from thought to expression it gains length in time. As Lou Reed points out so pithily in "Some Kind of Love."
