I'm taking a women's studies course this semester. My first formally theoretical look at gender through the eyes of a sociologist. While it's a step above my last gender class (taught by an art prof that turned into 'let's talk about our feelings as women'), it's still a little too topical for my tastes (burquas, female circumcision, birth control). I want to dive into Judith Butler people. Still I guess it's an alright "introduction" and survey for most, and I accept that this is really just a mark on my CV... yes I actually took women's studies courses, it wasn't all self-taught.
The one thing that has come out of this course (aside from my liberation from research papers.... I'll be doing a feminist art piece this semester instead), is that it has provoked questions in me of why I focus so much on gender as a scholar. I was raised in conservative West Texas. I should have the big hair, large turquoise jewelry, and have 4 kids by now (an image made painfully aware since my 10 year high school reunion is coming up).
The professor asks us about gender in our childhood, giving the anecdote of her playing football as a child. That dug up tons of memories and everything started making sense. Growing up in small-town football-obsessed Texas, you are taught from infancy that on Fridays you wear your high school team's colors. By grade school, every Friday has mock football games on the playground, with the girls *literally* in baby cheerleading outfits and the guys in little football jerseys. [If your parents don't costume you to the occasion, they'll dress you in a shirt of the proper color, frequently with your mascot emblazioned on it.] I typically played football... I wanted to be a center- in control of the ball, in control of protecting the quarterback. Solid in stature, steadfast rock of the offensive line. Quite symbolic actually..... So in second grade I asked my mother for a football jersey-- not the typical little girl request of a cheerleading skirt. It just now hit me that I never got one, and I asked mom last week why that was. Occasionally she would postpone my outrageous requests and I would get over such things. But she tells me that in this case, they couldn't find a jersey that would fit me. I was just a too tiny little girl. Oh well. At least I had the sentiment.
There were other tell-tale signs... After joining band in middle school, I decided that someday I'd be the first girl to join the cowboy band at a nearby small university. But even before grade school began, I watched He-Man more than She-Ra and enacted my "master of the universe" fantasies in my treehouse with my *male* imaginary friend. I wore dresses because that's what you do to church, and really I've never had a problem with dressing feminine when the occasion arose. But I'd much rather be in boots and jeans. And I still would rather not wear makeup. All the women in my family weren't overly feminine. All the women I looked up to were strong and fiercely independent.
So perhaps that's why today I focus on projections of femininity. I live for RuPaul's drag race because of the gendered language and dichotomies. I cringe at the thought of having a child someday and have to deal with color-coded baby showers. I love the idea of women who were doing somewhat subversive acts while outwardly appearing ridiculously feminine as to appease musical culture. (Think about it-- Jenny Lind, Cecile Chaminade-- women without children and real romantic attachments at their most public time of their lives-- were performing in large public concert venues for thousands of men and women-- in an era that demanded they go home and stay there to make babies.)
I want to see how other women negotiated being women. Especially since I can relate to women like Chaminade... I don't go out and do slut walks or perform in the Vagina Monologues... I'm not an outspoken feminist. But I find a way to manage my ideals of gender within the expected gender ideals of the era while still feeling true to myself. So then the next question is why I'm focusing on this time period. And this summer I asked myself why I was going to do a dissertation on the same time period and the same general subject-- gender in fin de siecle America, 1880-1930. And we return again to my childhood. I grew up watching Anne of Green Gables on the Disney channel. I was obsessed with the Titanic for a while. My mother loved Gibson Girls and had prints all over her art studio. So there we go. A theme and a time frame.
Moral of this post?? Our childhood defines us. Sometimes in good ways, sometimes not quite so good. But it helps shape what we become. Helps mold our beliefs for later in life. And I'm happy with the way this all (life, dissertation) has turned out.
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