Stop Acting So Crazy!

Today, a friend or two on Facebook posted this article on their wall, and I immediately needed to share it. This is an article written by a man explaining how men in our society have been socialized to treat women's normal emotions (anger, frustration, sadness, etc.) as "crazy" and "irrational," you know, because emotions are just so feminine. Since the article is titled "A Message to Women From A Man: You Are Not 'Crazy,' " you can guess where the author's opinions lie.

This article is so refreshing! It's really great to see a man understanding, and speaking out about, the deeply ingrained misogyny in our society (and though I know it happens, I still love seeing a man openly identifying as a feminist). Many men (though I am not saying all), even those who see themselves as progressive and forward-thinking, tend to fall back on this kind of reaction to women's emotions.



Men and women have been socialized to feel and express emotion totally different.** Women are taught to be passive, more in touch with their "feminine" emotions and their expressions (like feeling sad and then crying) while men are taught to "man up" and express as little emotion as possible. So it makes sense that men see women's emotional reactions as abnormal or different (just like when women don't understand men's seeming lack of emotion). Any one man by himself is not at fault for not understanding a woman's emotions at any given time.

The problem really comes in with the way our culture created and reinforces the idea that women's reactions are not just different from men's, but "crazy" and "irrational." How many movies have you seen where a man discusses his "crazy" ex-girlfriend who constantly "freaked" out about nothing? This stereotype associates natural emotion with mental illness, instability, and illogical thinking. It's a terrible way to think about the women of the world (and a terrible stereotype that undermines and ignores the many, many people of the world who have mental illness and can cope and lead stable lives).

I would write more about this, but honestly, the article that inspired this post is written so well, I really suggest you read it in its entirety. However, don't read the comments after; surprise, surprise, they are filled with misogynist reactions attempting to undermine the author's piece.



**I would just like to point out that when I discuss men's emotions and women's emotions as categories, I am talking about two things: 1. the way these gender groups are socialized to feel and express emotions and 2. the way that members of each of these gender groups tend to express emotions. I recognize that every person feels and expresses emotion differently, and many people may not fit solidly into one, or either, of these categories. I am simply using the categories as they are used in society to reinforce these stereotypes.



Update: Just discovered this follow-up to the original article. Here he specifically responds to the misogynistic comments the first post received. I love it!! I think I'm gonna start following this blog.

Socialization and Smiling

I just read a great article on Sadie Magazine's website about the gendered act of smiling. It discusses how women are expected to smile more than men, regardless of how they feel. We are socialized to smile just to be polite, even when we don't feel like it.

I have dealt with this all my life. I used to be asked all the time "what's wrong?" when my face was in a natural, relaxed position. People find me standoffish or even snobbish when I don't smile. I'm a nice person. I'm generally pretty happy most of the time. That doesn't mean my face has to show it (and come on, forced smiles are exhausting!). I have a female coworker who tells me stories all the time and I can see her waiting for me to laugh and smile. I think she's great, her stories are funny sometimes, but they rarely inspire huge grins and loud laughter. Yet I do it, because otherwise I feel I'm being impolite. I've been socialized to feel like I'm being rude when I don't find someone else as funny as others do.

My boyfriend called me out on this. He makes a lot of corny jokes and I would often laugh at them without thinking about whether they were funny or not. He finally asked me why I was fake laughing so often. I hadn't even realized I was doing it! It was so nice, though, to be called out for smiling/laughing too much and nongenuinely instead of being asked to smile more. (By the way, even though my computer is putting an ugly red line underneath it, nongenuinely is a real word. I looked it up. Ingenuinely is not.)

Dolls and McDonald's

I witnessed a sad moment today, sad and far too common. I was (and still am) baby-sitting my half-brother. He's four and a half. I took him to McDonald's for dinner so he could play in the playhouse. He kept running back to the table and then into the playhouse again. One time, he ran out to point out a little boy.
"There's a little boy playing with a doll!" he said.
"I see," I said, wondering where this was going.
"He's not supposed to play with dolls!" he cried.
Shit. I thought. I stopped him and told him that little kids could play with whichever toys they wanted to play with, it didn't matter if they were boys or girls. I don't know if he really heard me, but he at least didn't say anything to the other boy's face.

It can be so discouraging to see how quickly gender socialization becomes ingrained into children. My brother is only four, and, considering that his parents are about 45 and 58, hasn't been around a whole lot of other children. I like to think that my dad and my stepmom would never say to him "little boys can't play with dolls" (after all, I don't think he has a doll but he does have a vacuum cleaner, which could definitely be considered a "girl toy"), but I don't know for sure. I'm sure he's heard those kinds of rules enforced among other children, and possibly other parents. It just broke my heart to see my brother accusing a boy of doing something wrong, when he was clearly having so much fun with his doll.

And I think that's exactly what gender rules do: they label behaviors as wrong, and limit the ways in which people can express and enjoy themselves.

Sex, Gender and The Princess Syndrome

I was just reading an old blog post on Femagination, which I've just discovered tonight. I like this blog and find it really interesting, but something in this particular post bothered me. It was about women making themselves up to be pretty, especially on wedding days (The Princess Syndrome), and the writer's struggle as a feminist to take a stand on this. This is the part that irked me:

"But I think there’s something else at work when a woman does all the womanly things to make herself look attractive. It has to do with a woman’s sense of identity. Wanting to be attractive is part of being female; it is probably hard-wired into us because of biology."

She writes this in an offhand manner, as if it's something that is just accepted. But it's not! "Wanting to be attractive" is not at all hard-wired into women biologically; it is hard-wired into women socially. We are socialized from the time that we are born to learn our gender roles and play the parts well. Women and girls are taught, both subtly and not, that their best asset is their looks. Women are judged, often harshly, if they are not constantly working their hardest to look attractive at all times. There was a court case in 1982, Ann Hopkins vs. Price Waterhouse, which dealt with this issue; Hopkins had the best record of 88 candidates (all others were male) but was not given the promotion because she was not feminine enough. A woman who doesn't follow the social rules of making herself attractive and devoting herself to femininity is seen as a threat to the system, as abnormal, deviant, or even dangerous. Society is putting women into a horribly confined, lose-lose position.

It is absolutely crucial to understand that nothing about gender is biological; gender and behaviors associated with it are socially created, regulated and enforced. Most people find that they do not fit evenly into a 'feminine' or 'masculine' category (and many do not even fit cleanly into male or female). It is important, as feminists, to understand this difference because the assumption that sex defines personality traits, behaviors, or a person's abilities is the assumption that has made female oppression in this country (and the world) possible. Women were considered too weak to go to work because their fragile, female minds and/or bodies couldn't take it. Women were not allowed to vote because they (supposedly) lacked the mental capacity to make political decisions. As long as we continue to believe in sex defining what a person is capable of (or even what a person is like), we continue to oppress all people by confining them to a set of characteristics that they are expected to have. We know that men have emotions, and that they cry (or can cry), but society still tells them that these are wrong, because emotions and tears are feminine. We cannot continue teach people to be half-human, choosing either the 'feminine' or 'masculine' characteristics; we are limiting everyone. 

I have a very different opinion than the Femagination author on today's weddings and Princess Syndrome; I simply don't understand the point in spending all that money on the wedding instead of investing that money (as well as time and energy) into the marriage. Still, I do respect the right of any woman to look how she pleases, whether that look involves make-up and heels or not. However, I think all women should ask themselves why they want (or need) to make themselves pretty, and for whom they are actually doing it.