Sunday, May 14, 2017

Gender Nonconformity

From the Wikipedia on gender nonconformity: "For women, adult gender non-conformity is often associated with lesbianism due to the limited identities women are faced with at adulthood. Notions of heterosexual womanhood often require a rejection of physically demanding activities, social submission to a male figure (husband or boyfriend), an interest in reproduction and homemaking, and an interest in making oneself look more attractive for men with appropriate clothing, make-up, hair styles and body shape. A rejection of any of these factors may lead to a woman being called a lesbian regardless of her actual sexual orientation..."

What is this crap? Never in my life have I met any of these criteria for a normal het woman. I thought these criteria went out in the 1960s.
Make yourself look attractive for men? I dress for myself and other women. Men don't notice. Well. some gay men do.

Social submission? Are you nuts? Homemaking? If you mean decor, yes, I do that. I learned it from my father. If you mean house cleaning, I do it, but I'm not interested. I'm kind of lazy, so I do avoid physically demanding activities, except weight lifting, kettle bells and TRX.

I know women who run races, who work demanding jobs, who do kettle bells and TRX. (Men have tried our TRX class, but they quit, because it's too hard.) Who dress to please themselves and possibly other women. Who may or may not be interested in reproduction. I would call all of these women normal. I figure the description of 'normal women' in the Wikipedia entry appies to members of weird Xian sects and to the sad young women who hang out in sports bars with their boy friends.

3 Comments:

Blogger delagar said...


I once had a (male) student ask me, "So you're a feminist, right? Is that why you don't dress like a woman?"

By which he meant, apparently, why I didn't wear skirts or dresses, a lot of jewelry, heels and makeup. It's not like I was wearing a man's suit, after all, or a fedora. Just jeans and a perfectly nice shirt.

I started to interrogated him Socratically ("And what does a woman dress like?") but I didn't get the chance: the other students* in the class began to mock him with with delight and hilarity, and he was so mortified I had to call them off.



*Many of them women in jeans and teeshirts

7:34 AM  
Blogger Eleanor said...

I wear a lot of jewelry, along with my jeans and tee shirt and New Balance athletic shoes. After falling, I am not going to switch to less stable shoes. Besides, they are comfortable. One of the lovely changes in my life is old women now wear jeans. They look a lot more comfortable than the ladies in corsets and double breasted dresses.

8:18 AM  
Blogger thanida said...

Hello, Good afternoon….. Great points,your post helped answer this question for me.Thanks again!
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10:30 PM  

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