• Home
• About
• Contact
• RSS

Not Born a Woman: Gender Socialization & The Female Body

I cannot remember much from when I was little. My earliest memories begin with school. When I was a little girl I was teased a lot. Children love to taunt when they receive a reaction and because I got upset easily (still do) I became a daily target. Mostly I was told that I was ugly. This was probably the worst name a young girl growing up in the late 70s could be called. Everyone around me, myself included, knew that it was important for women to be beautiful or else no one would marry them. Marriage was paramount and it was talked about constantly on the playground even if we all did have cooties.

Because I so desperately did not want to be ugly I tried to combat this by becoming hyperfeminine in the only ways I could understand. I tried to be a very good girl. I never got in trouble, I did all my schoolwork quickly, I helped the teacher, I helped other students, and I tried to be friendly and ‘nice’. A perfect young lady. Not only did this not help me in the schoolyard, it stuck me with the label Teacher’s Pet.

Read more

Baby!

Baby Abby

Theorizing the Body

There are four main/popular schools of thought in regards to feminist theory:

egalitarian,
radical/essentialist,
social constructionist, and
post-structuralist

The two that have the most relevance to me are social constructionist and post-structuralist theory although I know I am influenced by all four in understanding the female bodies around me.

I have been told that there are things I am not allowed to do because I am female. In childhood I was discouraged from some things while being encouraged in others because there were social mores in place about what boys and girls ‘should’ do. Thus I was encouraged to bake and dance and my brother was encouraged to help in the garage and to build things. I was anxious around power tools and behind the wheel of a car because I had been taught that these are things girls were not good at. It was never explained to me what part of my corporeality created this inferiority, it was simply presented to me as fact. As I have gotten older and read and observed more I realize there is nothing innate in me as a woman that predisposes me to baking and dancing just like there was nothing innate in my brother than led him to mechanics. But now I am a dance teacher and he is a mechanic. Even though I have power tools of my own (and have developed skill in using them) we both followed the teachings we received in our childhoods.

Read more

Put ’em all together and what does it spell?
G-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-L-L-L!!!!!!!

Exotic Erotic at the Electronic Entertainment Expo

This woman like the other booth babes stands ready to have her picture taken with anyone who requests it. Although I’ve captured her at a slow moment (closing time on the very last day of the convention) she was of particular interest. She represents the exotic and erotic appeal of a doubly subordinated group of women. Buy taking her photograph, dominant society can attempt to appropriate her culture further. There is no contemplation of whether this culture is real or fabricated only for the context of the game she is promoting. She is ‘different’ and that is all that matters. She is ripe for colonization, both as a representative of her culture, and as an individual. Her body is the gateway to this.

Racialized Bodies

Because I am white I have experienced the privilege of being part of my society’s dominant group. I have never worried that I would be the only person ‘like me’ wherever I have needed to go. I have not stood out as being visibly different and in the community where I live; whenever I have preferred to blend into a crowd I have been able to do so.

I live minutes from Detroit, Michigan where in many communities I am a visible minority. Because I am white I have been taught to be afraid of going across the border because my colour puts me in danger as if all Black people in Detroit are gun toting and blood-thirsty with a hatred of all white people. Even though I know this is a stereotype, years of brainwashing and minimal experience have left me feeling insecure in some parts of the city. I have been warned by customs officers not to go places. Police officers have escorted white women I know out of neighbourhoods where they “were not supposed to be”. It is hard to separate which reason justified the warning and escort: is it because we are women or because we are white? Or are the two so linked that they cannot (and should not) be separated?

Read more

“Things My Foresisters Saw”

Leslie McCurdy as Viola Desmond

Historical Bodies

According to the website Shrine of the Forgotten Goddesses, fat and being fat were valuable attributes for female goddesses of the prehistoric era. Thighs, breasts, vulvas, hips were all round and abundant. Women are depicted as fruitful and with great emphasis on their ability to procreate.

The Magna Mater, Inanna, and Gaia are all portrayed as fat, happy women, full of love, and fertility. In times when food was difficult to find, lean women were less likely to conceive, carry a child to term or being able to make milk. A fat woman meant a woman with some stored nutritional reserves to sustain herself and her children. This is what ensured survival for the human species.

Women’s ability to give birth was also associated with the fertility of the planet. Fertility was women’s great power and they were valued for it. It was said that if Sangiyan Sari (Lady Rice) of the Celebes Island left the island there would be famine in the land. But now in the 21st century, farmers are male and women’s contribution is devalued.

Read more

History

Could this woman really have existed?

Rethinking Women’s Bodies

Individuals are many-dimensional and I am no different. I share the colour of my skin with the dominant and therefore privileged group of society, but the rest of me, at this time in my life is a myriad of marginalized components. Because I share characteristics of the dominant group there is potential for me to be perceived and accepted as one of the in-group. This allows me to share in those privileges accorded only to people of the dominant group.

On the male-female continuum I stand closer to what society calls female. I have female sex-characteristics but in many ways I do not feel particularly female. My school, work and family keep me fairly isolated from society but I feel I do not look or behave like the other women I see around me.

I am in my early thirties. I am divorced. I receive no government support and have 3 dependents. I have not lived above the poverty line since I left my parents’ home at age 18. Even still, because I am white, I am more privileged in this society than any other dimension could allow.

Read more