I think, and I'm aware I'm pushing this thread further into P&R here, but to defend H a little bit, I think there is a very big difference between a gender role and a gender identity.
The former is decided for you, and it's a prejudice. It closes doors, it clouds judgment, and it can in the worst scenario map out your life before you're old enough to read this sentence - although in fairness you do need to be quite old to read it cos it's got a swear word in (fucking) brackets. There's still more than enough inequality here in the first world, but if life's a lottery then in some corners of the planet being born a woman is a guaranteed losing ticket. The latter, though, the identity bit, I quite like. It's a similar beast, inasmuch as people can and will still use them to form snap decisions about you right off the bat, but a person or demographic owns an identity. It puts them in the driver's seat. There's more freedom to flount the stereotype.
I live in a little village in the arse end of nowhere. It's full of pensioners and young families, and walking to the polling station to vote anything other than conservative is frankly a waste of good shoe rubber. My votes never leave the town hall. And you're probably already building up a little picture in your head of the kind of person who lives here.
Because identities help us do that. If I described someone as a citizen of my village, someone fairly local will already be building up a mental picture. Old, married, conservative, sweet-tempered, bit too much money - they've got the idea! I'm a grand total of exactly none of those, but I still like the identity. If people were to assume I was in the Cameron Youth, if they used my heritage as a stick to beat me with, then yes, I'd be very annoyed. I am not defending prejudice at all, and the second an identity closes a door to someone, the second it's used to deny someone's access to a new stage of life, I'm in a position of staunch disgust. But I'd rather the village kept its connotation for better or for worse than lost its identity.
That's kind of what I love about words. Take the word "suited." Say someone's a "suited man" and connotations are already growing like tendrils out of the sides. He's wealthy, slick, clean, fashionable, refined pallet - all you need is the two words and you've already got a vague sense of who he is, what he's about. You could be wrong, but the ability to sketch him in so quickly is absolutely superb. "Foul-mouthed" is a good one. As soon as I say "foul-mouthed," you've got a vague image of the person. Or "Scientologist." All rich with connotations.
I'm all for gender equality. In fact, I'm constantly disgusted by how much further we've still got to go. Why the fuck, in 2012, are politicians still middle class white men? Why are there still a thousand comments on the end of every comedienne's YouTube video saying "women arent funny, get back in the kitchen?" It's bollocks, it's institutionalised sexism, and it needs to be fucking stopped. But at the same time, I love the richness that connotation adds to our language. I wouldn't say I want girls to be girls and boys to be boys - I want people to be the people they want to be and fuck the guiderails - but I like that the two genders have very individual identities, different codes and different characters. I'm firmly against the homogenisation of gender - and while, yes, I did gasp a little at the OP, it'd be insincere of me to claim I'm not broadly in favour of archetypes. The only bit I disapprove of is when people use them as sticks to bludgeon each other with. So while I don't want girls to feel they have to be girls and boys to feel they have to be boys - everyone should have the freedom to defy every single prejudice thrown at them - I like the idea of each gender retaining some sense of girlishness and boyishness. Our own cultures and sets of values, with plenty of crossover, each on each gender's own terms.
Signed,
A man who hates sports, moisturises, would be rubbish in a war, and is frankly too klutzy for any form of manual labour.
Topic: Growing up too soft (Read 8178 times)
