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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThings I’ve Learned From Writing Under A Gender-Neutral Name
This is one of the best things I've read all year. Someone posted a link in the giant thread about how bad men have it and how we women just don't understand. I clicked the link and read it after the thread was locked, and I searched but didn't find it again, so a hat tip to whoever posted this. Thank you!
(UPDATE: That hat tip goes to Tien1985, my new favorite DUer! )
He so brilliantly describes what is so losthesome about Katy Perry. I think I'm in love.
(To any potential jurors, please note he is not using certain terms to insult. He is referring to them in a discussion about their use and impact, thanks.)
Things Ive Learned From Writing Under A Gender-Neutral Name
MAR. 3, 2013
By NICO LANG
...
But the comment I get more often than any other is people questioning my gender which I often dont make explicit. At first it wasnt a conscious decision, but as someone who dabbles in dating columns, I noticed that respondents would automatically assume that I was female. They would look at my name, which could go either way on the gender divide, and check the female box every single time. Even in pieces where I did briefly bring up the fact of my assigned sex, the comment board would somehow miss that part. Any fact that didnt support the discourse of my femaleness would be left out, not part of the dominant narrative of my gender.
...
This sort of thing happens to me all the time on the internet. When Im writing a dating piece, commenters automatically assume that Im a woman. If Im writing on the Womens section on Huffington Post, that makes sense to mebecause the title of the section interpellates my gender. However, on Thought Catalog, my columns give the reader no marker by which to assume my gender, yet its projected onto my work in telling ways. That readers assume a dating columnist would be female isnt a shock, because society tells us that women are supposed to be the only ones that obsess over a relationship and analyze everything to death.
...
But this question should be equally insulting to heterosexual couples, as it assumes total masculinity and total femininity. Being the man and the woman reaffirms limiting power hierarchies that we should be problematizing. We should be challenging what those terms mean and building a society where femininity is seen as strong and positive. We should all want to be the woman. Who wants to live in a society where little girls will grow up being ashamed of their gender and learning to hate other women, in order to externalize their own self-hatred? When we ask women to tear each other down, its because were asking them to be punished. Its that Eve bullshit all over again.
...
Interestingly, the only time that my maleness comes into play is when respondents dismiss me because of my perceived sexuality. I interchangeably call myself bi- or pansexual, which really just means that application is open to all (especially Christina Hendricks), but my queerness usually gets coopted by the binary. Im never silenced for being a heterosexual male but a faggot another marker of feminization.
...
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/things-ive-learned-from-writing-under-a-gender-neutral-name/
Little Star
(17,055 posts)good stuff.
Thanks for this RQ!
redqueen
(115,103 posts)I hope the person who linked it posts here so I can credit them for sharing it here.
Tien1985
(920 posts)I linked it in the now-dead thread
Thanks for reposting, I thought it was a good read and deserved some more discussion.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)You're my new favorite DUer!
BainsBane
(53,056 posts)There is so much to note in it. I particularly liked this passage: "Being the man and the woman reaffirms limiting power hierarchies that we should be problematizing. We should be challenging what those terms mean and building a society where femininity is seen as strong and positive. We should all want to be the woman. Who wants to live in a society where little girls will grow up being ashamed of their gender and learning to hate other women, in order to externalize their own self-hatred?"
Gender norms limit men as well; they restrict their ability to be full, emotionally expressive human beings. While those norms can likewise create a subconscious self-loathing on the part of women.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)I'm so glad I happened to see that link.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)MuseRider
(34,117 posts)Interesting.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)thanks
Solly Mack
(90,780 posts)ismnotwasm
(42,000 posts)Articulates much of what I feel on the topic.
A Wise person
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)Another part is that (based on the research of Whorf, Sapir, and Korzybski) the language we use conditions our reality. The combination of our language being "clumsy" when gender is not assigned and the notion that the language we use shapes the universe we observe work synergetically to manifest in many of the issues in your excerpt. To address this, it seems we would need to rigorously reform the syntactic structure of English (and the Romance languages and possibly several others, etc).
redqueen
(115,103 posts)The rest is all patriarchy.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)But, yes.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)I've only ever seen it used by women. Even if it's ambiguous, I don't think it goes as far as neutral.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)... Prison Girls:
Where am I tonight, la da da
My hotel room won't remember me
And this dream will die
Die by morning
And this dream will not remember me
Wakened by a droning voice
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
Is it a lady or is it a man
Humming helicopters through the blades of a fan
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
On my feet to chase it down
A light switch spooks and runs away
I stumble back and hit the floor
Long shadows crawl beneath the door
To a passage so poorly lit
There's moths flying away from it
Oh oh oh oh oh
Who am I tonight, la da da
My hotel room won't remember me
Darkness
Enter prison girls
Pushing mops and kicking pails
Now's my chance
I clasp my chest
And declare unto my audience
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
Prison girls are not impressed
They're the ones who have to clean this mess
They've traded more for cigarettes
Than I've managed to express
Oh oh oh oh oh
Filing past miles along
My cheek is frozen
To the floor
The prison girls have filled their beds
Their socks to dry above their heads
I wear them in the morning
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
TYY
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Ms. Toad
(34,086 posts)are generally masculine.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)It isn't a name Americans use. I think of it as unambiguously masculine. Every person I can think of called "Nico" is male (with the sole exception of the Nico known for collaborating with the Velvet Underground; her real name was Christina, though); it's a shortened form of "Nicholas/Nicolas".
tblue37
(65,483 posts)"smiling" in Japanese.
libodem
(19,288 posts)For a good solid discussion on gender and gender identity. Thanks RQ. I think a lot of this is learned 'roles' apart from our essence, the part of us that is aware or our own consciousness, which is neither male nor female.
I spent a bit of time in my twenties thinking about being an androgenous being, all in all.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)And while a good (and growing) number of people nowadays just don't care what the 'norms' are, it still is internalized by far too many and causes so much pain and misery.
Glad you liked it!
libodem
(19,288 posts)Thanks again.