This isn't the first time that my dislike of being female has been at issue. It comes up often, for example, with my husband -- I'm not sure what it is he thinks we're all doing --
but it was probably the first time that another woman has expressed surprise that I don't wake up each morning thrilled over another round of Lean Cuisine, ironic-but-not-really injokes whose punchline inevitably is fuck my life, I'm old, and coexistence with the knowledge that not just Lena Dunham, but a large chunk of anonymous white men somewhere (perhaps the same ones determining the Republican Party's policies on reproductive rights?) believe that the TV show Girls speaks for me.
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but it was probably the first time that another woman has expressed surprise that I don't wake up each morning thrilled over another round of Lean Cuisine, ironic-but-not-really injokes whose punchline inevitably is fuck my life, I'm old, and coexistence with the knowledge that not just Lena Dunham, but a large chunk of anonymous white men somewhere (perhaps the same ones determining the Republican Party's policies on reproductive rights?) believe that the TV show Girls speaks for me.
The thing is, I was equally surprised that my friend does enjoy being a woman, especially given that this friend lives in a community in which gender roles arguably are both more rigid and more explicit than in mainstream culture (she's an Orthodox Jew). And especially since her personality -- she is not only most often the smartest person in a given room; she is also extremely direct, ambitious, and goal-oriented -- is comprised of characteristics that that I associate with being male, things that, in all the time that I've been dating men and marrying men (just the one, but still) and producing little men, have just never been tenable traits for a woman to have. It's not just awkward for a woman to be the way she is; Judd Apatow, et al, have constructed a sizable franchise making the point that women Like This ruin men's lives.
I don't know enough about Orthodox culture to really unpack the interesting, and delightful, prospect that a woman with so many "male" characteristics can feel so comfortable occupying a female space. But it did make me think a lot about this:
On paper, officially, I have way more options than your average Orthodox wife-and-mother when it comes to experiencing what the kids at Excelsior publishing call my "sense of being female". No one is expecting me to cook dinner for my husband or stay home from church to watch the kids while my husband relates to God. It's no longer even really acceptable to endorse restrictions like that, and those of us living in mainstream culture make a lot out of the restrictions and expectations to which female members of religious minorities are subject. (If I hear one more time about how horrified someone is by the burkha...)
And yet, women in these cultures often seem to me to be, not just happier (as though what we all really want is to be domestic and "submissive") but more assertive, more complete, than women who have no reason to identify themselves through the men in their lives -- but choose to do so anyway.
On paper, officially, I have way more options than your average Orthodox wife-and-mother when it comes to experiencing what the kids at Excelsior publishing call my "sense of being female". No one is expecting me to cook dinner for my husband or stay home from church to watch the kids while my husband relates to God. It's no longer even really acceptable to endorse restrictions like that, and those of us living in mainstream culture make a lot out of the restrictions and expectations to which female members of religious minorities are subject. (If I hear one more time about how horrified someone is by the burkha...)
And yet, women in these cultures often seem to me to be, not just happier (as though what we all really want is to be domestic and "submissive") but more assertive, more complete, than women who have no reason to identify themselves through the men in their lives -- but choose to do so anyway.
I think the thing is: the rules for what women do in a given community can be restrictive, but because they are explicit, they are also limited: we expect you to x and y. The expectations for being a woman in our "mainstream" culture are invisible: no one is really going to come out and say anymore, You don't deserve to have sex if you weigh more than 150 pounds -- but I feel strongly that that is the case, and that entire industries exist and are sustained by the fact that that is what a lot of women believe, and that because it's never actually put into words, it can, on another day, morph into, You don't deserve to walk down the street if your ass is too fat, where "too fat" is determined, not by a number that stays the same, but by anyone who has a penis and is on that street.
The non-rule might -- and will, should you reach that magical land of "thin enough" -- change shape so weight is no longer the issue. Should you not be personally attractive to Men, should you have lines on your face or hair on your back, you are not only not Hot, but your lack of hotness becomes a punchline that creeps up and flings itself in your path when you really thought you were just going to the post office.
The thing is, all of the maintstream images of how to be a woman communicate much more about how not to be a woman: don't not be a MILF, or you're disgusting and passé and your life is over and your child has ended it by "destroying" your body. (Bear in mind that when childbirth "destroys" a mainstream American woman's body, it isn't because, say, fistulas have left her incontinent or seizures have left her dead; it is because her breasts and hips no longer look like those of a twenty-five-year old.) Don't not be "sexy", or -- whether you are Lena Dunham or Hillary Clinton -- when people get done actually addressing whatever you've done or failed to do, they can, and will, slap on the corollary "and she looks like [whatever, a horse or a fat little boy or a fat little boy horse]".
Perhaps how you look is no longer vulnerable: I am less "attractive" than I was at twenty, but because a man values me enough to marry me and stay faithful to me, my value no longer hinges on what Men think. His approval is my get-out-of-jail free card, because while your average asshole on the street may not feel I measure up, he no longer has the power to determine my value absolutely; this other guy's opinion matters. The claim that I am entirely worthless is no longer valid, is no longer available to any man who dislikes me, because this other man values me.
The trade off, of course, is the incredible power that man has, by virtue of the fact that his approval, his estimation of how valuable you are, now comprises your worth. You don't have to be thin or hot anymore. Now, you can run an errand or wear a skirt without opening yourself to ridicule, provided he still thinks you're doing okay. And because he is an actual person, because he actually exists, it is possible to obtain his approval. Whereas before, well, there is always someone who thinks you're not hot enough, and even odds are one of those someones is male, or knows a guy who is.
You've gone from a truly impossible situation to situation that feels, comparatively, like freedom. To the extant that you can forget you are female, you're almost like two people who just love one another, value one another, are buddies. But, of course, the fact that you are female is not inconsequential to your partner -- so it will come up, and you won't be able to ignore it, and inevitably you will be asked why you are always so angry.
And if you are me, you won't have an answer, at least not one that will make sense now, without your explaining, first, about being eight and twelve and nineteen, about just wanting to wear a swimsuit or walk down the street or go to a job interview or on a business trip without first trying on eight outfits and shaving your legs three times. About being tired of apologizing for being attractive, for not being attractive; about feeling like twenty-three is an unreasonable expiration date for a person; about wishing you'd never heard of a Brazilian wax or a labiaplasty but living in a world in which you are expected to take for granted that those are legitimate items for one's to-do list.
About the fact that the cognitive dissonance engendered by being a body, and being compelled to agree that that body is, at best, a thing to be apologized for, the subject of self-deprecading jokes, and at worst, a thing to be held up for ridicule and violence, is an enormous fucking drag, and when it comes down to it, even on days when you feel kind of okay about yourself, it's rare that you wouldn't jump at the chance to just be a guy. Given how "guy" can pretty much always sub in person "person", and "women" -- or worse, "female", that reified categorical/imperative that loves to masquerade as a noun -- never can.
The trade off, of course, is the incredible power that man has, by virtue of the fact that his approval, his estimation of how valuable you are, now comprises your worth. You don't have to be thin or hot anymore. Now, you can run an errand or wear a skirt without opening yourself to ridicule, provided he still thinks you're doing okay. And because he is an actual person, because he actually exists, it is possible to obtain his approval. Whereas before, well, there is always someone who thinks you're not hot enough, and even odds are one of those someones is male, or knows a guy who is.
You've gone from a truly impossible situation to situation that feels, comparatively, like freedom. To the extant that you can forget you are female, you're almost like two people who just love one another, value one another, are buddies. But, of course, the fact that you are female is not inconsequential to your partner -- so it will come up, and you won't be able to ignore it, and inevitably you will be asked why you are always so angry.
And if you are me, you won't have an answer, at least not one that will make sense now, without your explaining, first, about being eight and twelve and nineteen, about just wanting to wear a swimsuit or walk down the street or go to a job interview or on a business trip without first trying on eight outfits and shaving your legs three times. About being tired of apologizing for being attractive, for not being attractive; about feeling like twenty-three is an unreasonable expiration date for a person; about wishing you'd never heard of a Brazilian wax or a labiaplasty but living in a world in which you are expected to take for granted that those are legitimate items for one's to-do list.
About the fact that the cognitive dissonance engendered by being a body, and being compelled to agree that that body is, at best, a thing to be apologized for, the subject of self-deprecading jokes, and at worst, a thing to be held up for ridicule and violence, is an enormous fucking drag, and when it comes down to it, even on days when you feel kind of okay about yourself, it's rare that you wouldn't jump at the chance to just be a guy. Given how "guy" can pretty much always sub in person "person", and "women" -- or worse, "female", that reified categorical/imperative that loves to masquerade as a noun -- never can.
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