I want to talk about gender, age, honorifics, and Asian culture for one more post. In the last post, I ended up talking about labels, toxic love, and whatever else was on my mind. Today, I’m going to continue the trend of intending to talk about one topic and ending up talking about anything but.
No, let’s get into it. Life in America is pretty hellish right now. Civil rights being slashed left and right. For all my desire not to think about/talk about gender issues, it’s really hard to escape it in this country of mine. This shitty, shitty country of mine.
While I like the Korean content I watch, I do get uncomfortable around the gender/age honorifics. Divorcing it from a specific culture, I just don’t wantthat emphasis on two things that are not meaningful to me. Also, one of them is painful to me (gender) because it’s something I’ve been fighting against for most of my life. I have talked about how I don’t want to be called something that makes me have to lie about/hide my gender every conversation.
Look. I am tired of talking about/thinking about gender in general. I really wish I didn’t have to, but in this country, it seems that–how do I put this? People are so damn fucked-up about gender. I mean, it’s always been that way, but we were slowly making progress. Then, almost in one fell swoop, we leapt back dozens of years. It’s still upsetting to me that I had more civil liberties when I was my niblings’ age(s) than they have now.
There is a part of me that says, “Just say you’re a woman. What does it matter?” It was the gender assumed for me when I was born, and it would make life infinitely easier just to go along with it. Except. I’m so stubborn. While I don’t mind lying in general, I do mind it in certain situations. And I don’t like being forced to lie. I want it to be my choice, otherwise it’s just…icky.
It’s interesting, though. I used to think I had no morality because i have no issue with lying under certain siuations. I talked about it with Ian (about how I did not have any morelas), and he said I did. It may not be the morals of the world, he said, but I definitely had morals. I thought it over for a bit, and I had to admit that he was right. I am pretty firm in my convictions; they just didn’t always (or ever) line up with the rest of the world’s.
Most of the time, I’m fine with that. I know myself, and I’m fine with being seen as a weirdo and a freak. I simply don’t care because if I tried to ‘fix’ all the things that people think are wrong with me, well I would not have time for anything else. Also, I don’t think most of them are issues at all.
They include: my (lack of) gender; my sexual orientation; my (lack of) religion; and just *gestures at everything*.
I honestly don’t understand the fuss people make over gender or why people care so much about it. Other people’s gender, I mean. I understand why people care about their own gender, but other people’s gender? Not so much. I really don’t understand why it stirs up such rage in people–other people’s gender, I mean. I have tried. Honestly and sincerely. And yet, I just can’t get it.
It’s like someone being color blind from birth. You cannot explain a color to them–not really. You can get close in your description, but you can’t capture the essence of it. For me, it’s the same with gender. I’ve thought about it so much, and I’ve read a lot about it. And I’ve talked to other people about it. Ad nauseam. I know other people feel their genders deeply and are very tieed to them.
I have tried and tried, but I just cannot. I have literally sat very still and reached deep down inside me and felt–nothing. What does it mean to be a woman? I just feel empty. The more I think about it, the more I confuse myself. There are all the stereotypical feminine things, none of which interest me at all. Cooking, sewing, makeup, fashion, or anything of the ilk. I never played with dolls when I was a kid (except to make them have sex), and I never dreamed of my wedding. I didn’t play mother, nor did I ever want to be one. I assumed I would be because that’s what women were supposed to do.
I didn’t want to be/do anything stereotypically feminine, but it’s hard to make people (like my mother) understand that it’s not a conscious decision to be oppositonal. I know my mother thinks I’m a contrarian even if she doesn’t use that specific word. One time, she was telling me this elaborate thing someone did for another person. She was gushing about how romantic it was, and all I could think was, “Wow. I would be livid if someone did that to me.” I didn’t say that, but I did express my displeasure, and my mother said in a hurt and loud voice, “Just because something is a tradition, it doesn’t mean it’s bad!” I immediately shot back without thinking, “Just because something is a tradition, it doesn’t mean it’s good!”
She was not happy that I said that, but I honestly wasn’t trying to be a contrarian. It was how I really felt. I didn’t see any reason to hold onto traditions simply because they had been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. When I was trying to explain to my mother my feelings about how Asian cultures use honorifics that are gender and age based, she ended up saying that I was ‘very unique’. Disregarding the very (something is either unique or it isn’t), I thought that was apt. I didn’t feel the way I did because I was American or post-modern–I thought that way just because I’m me.