Just another type of normal

The book “My Gender Workbook” is not making me uncomfortable, just not sure I share all her/his assumptions about what gender means since, in his/her mind, it seems to encompass all forms of power. People of color might argue that skin more than gender is the determining factor in their life. I think both, but they aren’t same in my book. And class, is that purely a function of the other two? It certainly plays into power. And, the newer studies that emphasize the differences in brain chemistry or whatever between the sexes feels like the old argument recycled. I think that the basic differences between us are those between human beings, not necessarily due to our genitalia, that between our ears or between our legs. That the difference across the spectrum of all XX females overlaps mightily with all XY males. That to come up with some ideal male to compare any other male against presupposes that there is an average to which all XY males should strive. How about we just all be human beings and acknowledge that some of us are shorter and less strong and that the bigger ones don’t need to take advantage of their size to get their way all the time, just as the smaller ones need to make an effort before helplessly dropping a task. Or figure out a smarter way to do it.

My body image horizons didn’t seem set beyond the fact that I wore my hair long at the requirement of my father and that we had to wear dresses to school and church, but somehow this didn’t feel like anything against me, more like the custom. As soon as I got home I was straight into play clothes and those were pretty much pants and old shirts. I climbed trees, road bikes, made up stories for my sibs to enact. Built forts and lean-tos. Harvested berries and made them into weird juice concoctions. Felt I could keep my family fed on what I had scavenged. Felt that I was strong and wiley enough as a pioneer to survive. Could cook pies and can, and studied pre-vet medicine in 4-H, aspired to be Tarzan, not Jane, and wanted to b an astronaut, wanted to be president and wanted to swim in the Olympics. Wanted to build a tree house and live in the country with my animals and one little girl with a visiting lover who would be and actor or a writer or a sailor. I wanted to fly, and did all those things. I wanted to travel, too, and do that likewise.

Bless my mother for giving me adventure books like “Bomba the Jungle Boy” (even I recognized it as racist before aged 12) and Marvel Comic Books and letting me stay up late to watch Star Trek and telling me when I asked why there were no female Tarzans, “Well, who’s stopping you?”

Actually I’m not conflicted about being a female. Rather it’s that I don’t feel feminine. I know that I am a woman, but I don’t feel womanly. I just feel like me. I don’t feel like a freak, I just feel I’m on the odd end of the spectrum, but still ‘normal.’ I’m not a man, but I feel echoes of manly things. I don’t think of other people as being more womanly, just of ‘acting’ more feminine, of liking, or (and this is what I sometimes believe) pretending to like, things that have been designated ‘girlish.’ I don’t value makeup, so I don’t put a lot of effort into learning to use it well. It’s not something in which I want to invest much of myself. On the other hand, I like clothing and sexy shoes. I feel I am a normal woman, just another type of normal.