Society's Gender Situation

Society's Gender Situation 

For my study on the rest of this blog, I chose to talk about gender and how society forces a perception of that onto us. I know that isn't something very new or much of an issue in the place I live (San Fransisco), but I thought it would be interesting from my point of view. I come from a conservative spot in Orange County called Huntington Beach. While it was a cute little relaxed beach town, it could be pretty close-minded. Sex and gender identity were rarely brought up, even in my health class in high school, and if they were, it was pretty biased. There were about three gay people at my school, including me and one was a teacher, but he kept it VERY down low. We also did have a trans woman at our school and was actually voted homecoming queen, but she then left the school a few days later because of severe bullying. So, not a great place to be different from the people around you. As this was what I grew up in, some of those ideas did develop in me. One of them being certain pieces of gender roles, like men wear men's clothing and women, well, women could wear both. It didn't really matter for women, because most boy clothes are masculine and masculinity is received better than femininity. So I would look at how versatile and tailored women's clothing was and would ponder what it was like to wear it. Now, just to be clear, I am not transgender, or a drag queen, and it isn't a sexual thing, I am completely comfortable as a gay cis man. I just wished that my pants would fit better as men's pants never fit my waist properly (I have a 28 inch waist which is rare for a guy and most brands don't sell my size). But I always felt that I shouldn't, I always felt that I would be judged and people would disavow me. And that would be embarrassing and I couldn't handle that, and that still partially persists to this day. I am too afraid to walk into a woman's brand store to get, like a nice fitting pair of jeans, because I don't want to be seen as weird or a creeper and be judged for it. so, one of the reasons I write this is to convince myself that this ok. To try and erase the feelings of judgment on myself, because I don't judge other guys for wearing women's clothing, live your life and do what you want! But for some stupid reason, I put the double standard on myself. 

Another aspect to society's idea of gender is how one acts. A man acts like a man, he doesn't cry, he loves sports, and he tries to sleep with lots of girls. Women are sensitive and nurturing, they like to bake and have fashion sense, and nurture children. We all have had this idea ingrained in us since we were young, and ever since I was young, I was the opposite of how I was suppose to be. All the guys were playing with trucks and Star Wars action figures, I loved playing with Barbies with the girls. The guys would scribble obscenities on their desks, I liked to organize mine. The guys would have crazy illegible, and mine was the neatest of the class. All the guys would bully me, and I would always cry. I was always known as the sensitive kid also known as crybaby, gay, fag, queer, freak, weirdo, fairy, and girly. Mind you, this came from boys in elementary school. This really informed my early years as an outcast among boys. Even later when I hit puberty in middle school, I was still known as very different. My voice, even though it got deeper, was still feminine and had that...gay sound for lack of a better term. I also stood or posed for feminine with my hand on my hip with my hip thrusted to that side. And my mannerisms were girly, with my hand movements being very free haha. With all of these things constantly on my mind, I was very conflicted with myself. I wanted to fit in with the guys, but I couldn't even connect with guys mostly because of my early relationship with them. I couldn't trust them. But women and girls were different. When I was bullied the girls would stand up for me. Who would I play with at recess time, the girls. Who did I connect with on social levels and deeper during elementary and middle school, the girls! The girls were always my closest and most wonderful friends (I still respect girls more for always standing up for me and being there for me). And as I said in the first paragraph, I still deal with some that residually. I hate hearing my voice on video because it sounds so...well....gay. So, this again is to try and allow myself to be myself. And not let these ideas stop me from experimenting with how I act or what I wear. 

These issues, in my opinion, effect everyone. We are still dealing with how men don't really get to express their feelings, particularly when it comes to crying, because it is seen as weak. Even in the gay community we have an issue with masculinity. Gay guys  want that guy who is straight acting, who someone would never suspect as gay and has this amazing body also known as masc for masc. And gay guys who are feminine who wear lots of pink or wear crop tops aren't as desirable because of that. I find all of these issues that society forced us to go through, very interesting. We also let society teach us these ideas without questioning them or doing something about them for quite a while now. It definitely has only been a few years since a bigger minority of us actually kind of gone against these ideas in broad day light. People and groups have gone against these ideas, I just feel it was more underground and wasn't seen enough by society. Now we are starting to have things like magazines (the picture above is from a magazine called "Pansy" that basically styles women's clothing on men), and celebrities like Nico Tortorella or Jaden Smith go against gender issues by wearing what is seen normally as women's clothing. And these are good things, because we need the puck back so people or kids like me don't have to feel so much like an outsider. We need to open our minds to allow ourselves more freedom and less judgement! I need to as well, I'm so judgmental on myself and I put myself to some of society's standards when it comes to gender, which seems stupid because it is only on certain pieces that do. So, we shall dive into society's ideas on gender and the things people do to reinforce or oppose those ideas.