Friday, September 14, 2012

I should probably learn to write transitions

Especially when my lists are actually themed.  But lists are so much easier...

Notes on the intersection of gender and my life:

1. I am turning 33 soon.  Like, in fifteen days.  Which is four days after I get a tooth.  (Not the finished product, but at least I won't have to take it out to eat.)

So I made a Facebook Event, likeyado, and invited anyone it wouldn't be creepy to invite.  And, looking at this list of People I Think Might Want to Knit or Eat Sushi With Me, I notice that, out of 27 people I invited, three of them are men.

I do have one other male friend who wouldn't be weird to invite, except that he lives in Chicago and probably isn't going to drive for 10 hours on Saturday so he can spend two hours eating sushi with me.  But that still only brings my total up to four.

I had something written that explained why this is, or at least some obvious and influential factors.  But, meh.  The reasons are not exceptional.  I just thought the results were kind of interesting.

2.  I really hate it when people use "male" and "female" as nouns.  I don't quite know why.

3. I was not a feminist in college.  I defined feminist as being someone who A) agrees with basic feminist theory, and B) often looks at things from the point of view of gender and power.  Actually, I still define it that way.  Feminism, to me, is not just agreeing with tenants of feminist theory, it's using those theories to look at the world.  Ideally, it's attempting action, but I'll settle for awareness.  I had part A down, but I didn't pick up B until the last five years or so.  I think, really, I didn't pick up B until Iowa.

4. I was talking about self-identification, specifically in terms of what categories do we prioritize in our self-image.   I think, in order of priority, from high to low, mine goes something like this:

Female
American
Atheist
Queer
33 years old (I always round up in my head)
Somewhat Asian

Something like this, at least.  I had "Liberal" in there, but I was kind of going for non-voluntary attributes, except that I kept "Atheist."  Liberal seems like what you get when you add everything else together, though, a derived statistic instead of a primary one.  Because, honestly, I don't see how it's possible to have this list and not be a liberal.

In high school, Queer was much higher on the list, and Female would have been at the bottom.  In college, Somewhat Asian was above Female and possibly Queer.  These days, it seems as if everything in my life is gendered, sometimes happily, sometimes not.  And every time it happens, Female moves a little higher on the list, and now that I'm (almost) 33 years old, I think it's my primary self-defined characteristic.

5. A few links that came up today, unsurprisingly appropriate (see above about everything being gender-related these days):

http://inourwordsblog.com/2012/09/06/why-women-need-to-stop-apologizing-for-everything/

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012/09/guest-post-the-omniscient-breasts-by-kate-elliott/


No comments: