7:49pm March 12, 2014

the-problem-isnt-that-clothes-are-gendered-i

youneedacat:

kaninchenzero:

the problem isn’t that clothes are gendered. i mean, we wear clothes to communicate with each other much more than we use them as protection from the elements. it’s fine to communicate “i’m feeling particularly feminine today” by wearing a pretty frock.

it’s the hierarchy of gender, the…

I don’t know.

For me there is a problem with clothes communicating gender. I mean I guess it’s not a problem if you have a gender you want to communicate. But if I have long hair and wear skirts it doesn’t mean I want to communicate anything feminine, and I get annoyed at the presumption that I do want to communicate anything of the sort. There’s nothing about a lower garment with one hole for both legs that is more feminine than a lower garment with two holes, one for each leg. And I’m starting to get annoyed at the amount of people in the world that presume I want anything to do with femininity just because of some of my clothes and actions. So for more, that presumption is itself a problem. Even without feminine being considered inferior. Because I’m not communicating “I’m feeling particularly feminine today”, I’m communicating, if anything, “I like the way this looks”, “I like the way this feels”, or “There’s a reason that I’m wearing this and it has nothing to do with gender”?

If I change from one set of clothes to another, one hairstyle to another, people practically perceive me as a whole different person because of the way they attribute gender to these things in a way that I don’t.

Someone said of me to a friend of mine recently, “She’s wearing skirts, she’s grown out her hair, she’s learning to crochet, she even shaved her armpits… do you think maybe she’ll shave off her beard?” Um… no. Because none of those things are even related to each other, let alone through gender, and they’re not somehow in opposition to having chin hair.

I don’t mind the fact that other people communicate gender through clothing, but it’s a pain in the ass when you don’t relate to gender that way at all and everyone insists on interpreting you that way.

Yep I can relate to this so much. I do pluck out my chin hairs but that’s more because they annoy me than anything else (they feel weird and itchy if I leave them alone.) But I can’t remember the last time I shaved my legs or armpits, and if I do shave them in the future it’ll be because I am too warm or something.

Yeah exactly.

I like the way skirts feel, and they’re much more convenient while bedridden (and for bed baths) than pants.

I shave my armpits because otherwise they hold odor too much when it starts getting warmer.

I wear my hair long because, at this particular point in my life, it feels more ‘grounded’ somehow than when I used to shave it, especially after a long complicated relationship with my hair type.

I crochet because I like making things and working with my hands.

None of these things are connected with each other.

Oh also the reason I have long hair, and the reason I don’t pluck my chin hairs, or my unibrow, are pretty much identical. Even though long hair is seen as feminine, chin hairs are seen as masculine, and unibrows are just seen as ugly (and unrelated to gender, in people’s minds). (Also I don’t bleach the hairs under my nose for the same reason.) I think I’m actually more attached to my chin hair and unibrow than to my head hair, but there’s still a common thread there involving feeling more like myself, more grounded in my body, with all of these things present, than with them absent. (And in fact I really wish I could grow more chin hair than I have.)

So all of those hair-related things are the same for me, and none of them are related to gender. Meanwhile, none of the several things cited as evidence of my ‘femininity’ are for the same reasons as each other, and none of them are related to gender.

Also another question in my mind…

Why is crochet and knitting considered feminine? And why are they considered super-different from other arts that involve designing, creating, and manipulating the shape of physical objects?

In fact, why are they so often not considered arts at all, nor considered something you need any particular degree of skill to pull off? (And does that have anything to do with them being considered “feminine” or “women’s things” and therefore worthless?)

Because to me, I put crochet and knitting in a similar category as woodworking, sculpture, or metalworking. Same with sewing. But somehow woodworking and metalworking are considered skilled art forms. And crochet and knitting are considered not quite really arts and not really skilled in any way.

(Plus they are considered “old lady” things, and old ladies are barely considered people at all, and that can’t help. Old people who crochet and knit really impress me given what it means to have arthritis and still work with your hands like that.)