Re girls only

Clár faisnéise ceoil ina mbeidh Neil Young- TG4 fyi

gael garcia bernal is threateningly sexy

i just like well-dressed gennlemen debating feminism tbh

― i am mad cool cos i don't like coldpay (Julie Lagger),

fuck sake but christopher nolan is really struggling for plot at this stage

nolan's never met a lady so he doesn't count

gael garcia bernal is actually julia roberts side-project

no ladies in the "no ladies" thread

can't help but feel if anybody from Sailor is still alive they cd bring a decent copyright case against Franz Ferdinand

i have posted twice to the girls-only thread. i don't regret the first one (a link) at all, but the second post (today) was unnecessary shit-stirring directed at a male (though in reference to an earlier discussion on that thread).

at any rate, i like to think i am respectful of everyone, though i suppose it is just like a guy to barge in, no matter how respectfully. so, sorry about that.

and while i do think it's fair for gabbneb to be able to respond when shit is being talked about him, no matter the thread/board, i may have kind of started it on that thread. sorry about that too.

Ha, the only time I ~really~ wanted to post on the girls thread was when Amanda posted about vocal fry.

― jaymc, Tuesday, December 27, 2011 5:25 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark
haha!

Friend on fb (a grade school teacher) shared this recently.
http://togetherforjacksoncountykids.tumblr.com/post/14314184651/one-teachers-approach-to-preventing-gender-bullying-in

enjoyable anecdotage

No breast checks until post-menopause, though. Would sort of appreciate an exam because when I do a self-check I always feel like I have no idea what I'm looking for.

I took a women's health class in college in which we practiced breast exams on a fake breast that contained lumps. They were pretty clearly lumpy.

I don't get embarrassed very easily, but after the other two guys dropped, I was the only man in the class, so the breast exam day was kind of awkward, and the day we were each issued a clear acrylic speculum was pretty terrible.

Do you still have that?

I'm wearing it right now.

(no. i did not move it here from north carolina!)

x-posts while I've written this, sorry...

I didn't get to read that "gender bullying" blog when it was originally posted on the Girl Thread coz I was having Cornish broadband issues. I'm having pretty mixed feelings about it, and struggling to articulate why.

On the most immediate level, obviously it's great that this teacher is doing their best to combat gender bullying, and try to challenge the relentless gender stereotyping. I think the lessons that Tempel is teaching are v v important, and were taught in an accessible way.

But on another level, I think that I really kind of recoil from labels like "gender variance" in the first place. Because it gives that kind of relentless pinkification/commodification of childhood gender a kind of legitimacy which I really don't think it deserves. It's also the horrifying realisation that if I were a child today, I'd be labeled as "gender variant" instead of just being left to get on with mud and frogs. But is that the fault of the label itself, or the commodified bifurcation of childhood which really didn't exert the same kind of pressure when I was that age? Like, I definitely feel like it was more OK to just be a "tomboy" in the 70s when all kids wore dungarees in unisex colours? (Though, that said, young kids certainly found other things to bully me about in grade school - being an English person with a stupid accent in an American school being number one, what, are you going to call that "Accent Variance" now?)

But I often feel like a cranky old person when confronted with the exploding plethora of labels. Like, labels might be good if they give people a name for something they thought was abnormal or "I'm the only one" before - but at the same time, labels are, always, kind of limiting.

I think what this teacher did, for this child, and this class, was great. It's fantastic to teach kids to resist this kind of commodification of gender pressure, and early. But at the same time, it doesn't really get at the root issues. Like, *why* is gender bifurcation being pushed so much harder and so much earlier? Oh, that's right. Because you can sell twice as many toys if you manufacture one pink one and one blue one, instead of like it was back in the 70s, when my brother and I got one unisex toybox we had to share. What is driving this construction of gender - and gender (as opposed to sex) *is* a construct, it varies so much from culture to culture (which, to me, makes a mockery of the idea of "gender variance" - ALL gender varies) - but I know, just because gender is a Construct, that doesn't mean that Constructs don't have power. Like, *money* is a total Construct, but it's one of the most powerful things on earth (hell, even *power* is a total construct.)

For a supposed "feelgood" article, it's raising a lot more questions for me than it answers.

But I am a curmudgeon.

variating from what.

Yeah, that is precisely it.

What is this monolithic GENDER from which kids are supposed to be varying? Who made it up? And can I have a word with them?

And by "a word" I mean "a punch in the nose"?

:D

i dunno - i think there might have been a period in the 60s/70s that were more relaxed in terms of gendered toys for kids. I struggle to believe that things were better in that regard in the early 60s and prior.

I have thought about this article a fair amount since reading it, too.
I think that is a good thing.

As far as it raising more questions than it answers. It seems like the only way to get around accepted notions of gender stereotyping are to challenge them.

this is all classically foucauldian, that the response to any disruption of regimes of gender is to just keep producing new categories. "variant."

this is probably better than just straight up gender policing but yeah id definitely opens up a its own set of problems.

Not the sort of problems that mean you shouldn't talk about/explore it, though? Doesn't the discourse have to work through some levels to get closer to an "ideal" level?

I think it really depends where? Meaning, in what culture? And under what circumstances? And in which class? And when? (Remember that little boys were dressed in dresses for their early years until just over a century ago.) There were so many ways in which gender is coded differently. This idea of "gender variance" includes this idea of a unified gender construction which is just so manufactured itself.

x-posts to Sarahel

i think the idea behind "variant" isn't new categories, but referring to there being a spectrum or continuum of gender, with "variant" perhaps being a statistical reference to variations from the mean.

I have been experiencing a lot of trouble with "Gender" recently (LOL not Judith Butler) and just really... argh. I don't even know where to begin. But I think labels are part of the problem for me.

Variations from the mean? Who decides what the ~mean~ is, when it's all been made up? Mostly for maximising profit, these days?

while i feel that it is important and necessary to challenge these gender norms, i think it's also important to make kids aware of their existence. i think there's been a significant emphasis in the past 10? years in American education of teaching kids to fit in socially, but in an empowering way, as opposed to a "thou shalt not color outside the lines" way. And it's more, what you would call, holistic than when i was a kid, where as long as a kid was doing their work and not making or being involved in trouble, if they were weird and other kids disliked them, the teacher would generally ignore the issue. And in the spirit of "no child left behind," it tries to assimilate (in as neutral a way as possible) every kid, as opposed to writing off those on the extreme ends of the spectrum.

It seems to follow the trend, as i see it, of the school system doing the jobs of parents.

god bless them for it because the parents of the kids who bullied me incessantly throughout elementary + middle school certainly weren't doing the job

Yeah, I totally see the point of making kids *aware* of the existence of gender expectations (I think that expectations prob is a better word than norms) in order to challenge them - or in order to stop the bullying of kids who do not meet those expectations. I think this is a totally worthwhile thing to be doing.

And I don't know if the shifting of that role from "parents" onto "teachers" is such a bad thing either, because the nuclear family is such a recent invention itself that I'm not sure why "parents" got that role in the first place. (This is a whole nother kettle of fish.)

I guess my problem is with the translation of gender expectations into gender *norms* - I don't think it's just a semantic quibble, though I really lack the ability to adequately express why at the moment.

i'm not saying that shifting that role from parents onto teachers is a bad thing, however, that's a lot of responsibility to put on teachers, who have so much as it is, and don't get paid nearly enough. Also, there's only so much a teacher can do without the parent's cooperation/support.

Well, I have watched two girls grow up into the people they wanted to be.

Key, to me anyway, should be: Not that we are "all the same really", but that "we are all different"

I was a pretty weird kid (socially awkward tomboy with hyperactive imagination) and I feel like if 6y/o me was in school these days I would probably get diagnosed as having... something

so I am kinda on the fence abt whether it was better for me to suck it up and tentatively grope my own way towards not getting yelled at in the street, or whether it would've been good to have it explained to me how to walk past strangers without being spat on, or how to organise myself and learn something while unattended in college instead of dropping out, but also have official validation that I shouldn't be expected to be anything other than weird and other people should get used to it, not me

these are things I think about as I am vaguely, terrifiedly considering parenthood, and wondering what I should do if my children are diagnosed with the things I was not

this is not a gender post, but since 80% of the things yelled at me during my teenage years started with "are you a boy or a girl" (and since my college experience involved rocking up on a 90% male course and finding myself without a support network) it possibly could be

god bless them for it because the parents of the kids who bullied me incessantly throughout elementary + middle school certainly weren't doing the job

appropos of nothing, i suppose, but i had this problem throughout high-school, and i know how terrible it can be. sorry to hear you had the same generally problem.

same "general" problem. senility is creeping in fast.

Easiest way to think about it as an adult is just to project the idea to kids that injurious behavior is never acceptable from anyone, but after that problem is eliminated, it's all pretty much ok by you. Kids pick up on this quickly and the more explicit you are with this message, the stronger the effect it will have.

In regard to bullying, it is impossible to eliminate it for the same reason that you can't stop people from lying: it is an obvious strategy that kids will discover no matter what adults model for them. All you can do is be vigilant about it and stop it whenever and wherever you see it happening, and give kids as many alternative tools to work with as you can, for when you aren't there to be the cop.

its been noticed that the growing need to pathologise "gender variance" in children, has risen as that kind of language has been retracted from adult sexuality. an acute illustration of this is the fact that the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to contain an entry for childhood gender identity disorder was also the first not to mention homosexuality. i mean i think what bothers me is the introduction of this new terminology of "variant."

its kindof impossible to think through this example without the context of gender policing children in general (it's interesting that its a "tomboyish" girl as well. people are a lot more comfortable with tomboys that with sissy boys). The only way to escape from these gender categories is to produce this new category of variant. and i disagree that its not really making a new category. to say it is just opening a spectrum of positionality doesn't really get away from the fact that all positions are defined in terms of differentiation. this solidification of a "type" under a specific name gives rise to a whole technology of integrating the child into a class of "normal" boys and girls.

i mean obviously there is a lot that is positive that can be taken away from this. the strategy the teacher is using is pretty empowering, the dislocating objects and behaviours from specific gender coding.

so is the issue one of "naming" something that was already viewed as an inferior "other," but not defined?

naming is just part of a process by which these children become the object a particular set of scrutinies.

but it isn't like they weren't subject to a set of scrutinies before the term was defined/pathologized.

it is just changing the dynamics of the problem, rather than creating a problem that didn't exist before.

i think the history of gay and trans rights have shown the negative effects that this patholigisation can have. this kid is lucky that this particular school is obviously very liberal (there's nothing in it about parents objecting or the principle freaking out) but not all proactive reactions to "gender identity disorder in children" are quite so positive and reinforcing. medicine, in these contexts, has traditionally had a worryingly normative influence and children are particularly vulnerable to these interventions. these various prescriptions come in tandem with diagnosis which has a lot to do with this "naming."

I think Judith there might be a point that the pathologising of children's gender expression might be serving for a repository for anxiety about adult sexuality, but I'm just not familiar enough with the subject. It just feels instinctively right, that "won't someone think of the children" is actually often a way of demarking tension around a subject that ppl can't really address or even *see* in adults. (See also the hysteria about the "sexualisation of children" which is also actually mostly tension around the commodification of sexuality in adults, it just seems more noticable and therefore grotesque when it's pole-dancing and nipple-tassels for 9 year olds when it's much more uncomfortable to confront whether it's desirable in 19 year olds because of the complicating aspects of Agency.)

But it's also touching for me on those issues of how people think around gender policing, and when societal attitudes give in one place, they tighten in another.

I get a lot of confusion in mine own head over this, so I apologise if I say this in a clumsy manner. There has been over the past few years a rise in the discussion and push for acceptance of trans issues (or maybe it's just me noticing it more, but I do actually think it has increased) - which is, obviously, a very very good thing. The rise in visibility and acceptance is a sign of progress (though obviously there is still a lot of progress to be made.)

BUT - and these are only my feelings, I don't claim to speak for anyone else. To me, it feels like, in some ways, to some people, the acceptance of trans people almost pushes for reinforcement of the gender binary, rather than this bold new scribbling all over it. Because it seems like other people (not trans people themselves, but the "gender police" type people) almost have this new thing now, of, if you are one of those "gender variants" then that's unacceptable - that if you're not comfortable with your birth gender, you should transition to the other one, you still can't go scribbling outside the lines of the established gender roles. And this, to me, I dislike. I dislike being *told* that I'm "genderqueer" or whatever - no, I'm just me. Labels, to me, are an attempt to push people into categories that make other people comfortable. Rather than accepting someone in the full and complicated mess that they are.

But on the other hand, I've been hanging out on a forum dedicated to discussing a certain minority sexuality and there are a *lot* of trans ppl and genderqueer ppl and neutrois ppl there - and they themselves seem to be scribbling all over the lines quite happily, esp the genderqueer and neutrois ppl. (Though it is weird that the ppl who identify under those two labels were mostly born female - I don't know if this is because it's easier for females to identify that way, or if it's because females are more oppressed by gender roles to start with - or if it's not true at all, but just because of the general gender slant of the forum itself attracting more females.) So obviously this is way more personal for me than a story about children in a school. Because as much comfort and succor as I have found in feminism and the company of women, being in an environment where I was free to identify as non-gendered (which should really be a giveaway in itself) I have found that my personna and interests make me code to other people as "male." Which is interesting. I don't know what that shows, that even among gender neutral people, gender or at least the perception of it still has a clinging kind of stink.

I don't know what the point of all this. Probably that ppl project onto children, and stories told about children, all kinds of fears and tensions about their adults selves. Maybe.

(I hate when I type something out that looks like a reasonable length and then I post and it turns up as a wall of text. Argh.)

And that KLANG when a massive and overthought post hits the bottom of the thread and the conversation dries up into an awkward silence.

Not knowing whether to carry on talking bcuz you had another THOT or if you'll be shouted at to get a livejournal bcuz no one wants to have conversations with YOU you poxy FULE.

Realised with a bump why it is that so many more women than men specifically *identify* as neutrois or agender. I think it's because our culture so overwhelming has appointed Male as default - whether that be dress / appearance or English pronouns or just simply representation. So that a man doesn't really have to do much to dodge the issue of gender, because, when the gender of male is taken as default, they are already in the default (i.e. not-gendered) category. It's much easier for men to sidestep the issue of *removal* of gender.

I *do* think that men have it much harder taking on the characteristics of "female" gender - to be a sissy-boy or a fop/dandy is to be marked as taking on "additional" characteristics which are relegated to women (and therefore identified as bad). But for men to inhabit a space which is read as agender is much, much simpler, when your gender is already generally considered the default gender.

So for women, becoming "without gender" actually involves the removal of external gender-defining characteristics (mostly that's physical, such as long hair/dresses or breasts) and therefore has to be made as a conscious decision to go against what you've been assigned, and therefore is more likely to be adopted as an *identity*, a conscious opting out, rather than a just being.

Sorry if this is all "My Gender Workbook" 101 but I'm trying to puzzle this stuff. But for gods sake don't tell me it's not worth talking about blah blah blah. {/automatic ILX defensive twitch}