Gender Prac: Gender As Performance, Not Gender Theory
I recently came across a quarterly publication by the Australian Psychological Society called the Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology Review. It's an interesting publication because it combines academic reports with real life narratives, and it's not too heavy reading. A couple of articles in the December 2005 edition caught my attention.
The first is an anecdotal account from a post-op transexual of her observations of gender at various stages of her life. She makes some points that I would like to highlight.
Gender has a massive but invisible influence on society and social interaction.
That's right. Gender underlies everything we do, yet most of us are totally unaware of it.
How many times in your life have you had an imperfect glimpse of a stranger and wanted to find out whether they were male or female? Despite the fact that it has absolutely no effect on us, we go out of our way to catch another look, just so that we can decide "Oh, that's a man" or "Oh, that's a woman". Funny, isn't it?
Of course, when someone transgendered like me is out on the street, I get these second looks more often than not.
It is only when one has to cross genders, or one is regularly exposed to those who cross genders, then awareness arises. Which is a shame, because if more of society realised the pervasive nature of gender, I believe it would be a healthier and more understanding world.
Furthermore, since gender informs our everyday interaction, there is immense pressure to conform to acknowledged gender roles. When one acts within the gender boundaries of a role, then everything proceeds smoothly. When one acts outside the gender boundaries of a role, it brings confusion and discord. Society starts to fray. Julie Peters mentions one situation where she wore knee high boots to work one day, and elicited a totally unexpected and probably unwarranted response from a colleague.
It just highlights the pervasive nature of gender. As a society, the more we become aware of it, the better for ALL involved, not just for those who cross the boundaries.
The abstract for the article is below, and you can read more in the Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology Review December 2005 edition at the Australian Psychological Society website.
GENDER PRAC: GENDER AS PERFORMANCE, NOT GENDER THEORY
JULIE PETERS
Abstract
Noam Chomsky thought of himself as a working class intellectual and suggested that people who change class get to see class far more clearly than people who have only ever belonged to one class. I have changed gender. But has that helped me see gender more clearly than people who haven't? To change gender I had to become hyper-aware of the range of behaviours allowed for both the masculine and feminine classes. It is these studies in gender practice that have enabled me to find a sub-set of ways of being a woman that work in a variety of situations. For example I know that if I dress too femininely or too sexually at work my leadership role with men breaks down. If I had to name that gender sub-class it would be the ‘nonsexual- elder-sister-as-family-leader’ gender. I have found this ability to fine tune gender performance a very valuable living skill.