In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how I found East Asian culture to be fascinating (if incomprehensible). I was mentioning that I’ve been watching Korean content, and I’ve been mildly obsessed with the tradition of calling people honorifics based on age and gender. I was talking about it with my mother because it’s similar in Taiwanese culture. She is in her eighties and is called ‘big sister’ by everyone younger than she is. She did mention that her nail person (I think? Maybe it was her hair person. I’m pretty sure it was nails) liked to call her professor even though my mother told her she didn’t have to do it. I suggested it was a way for the nail technician to feel important in front of her client, and my mother indicated she agreed.
I would have a hard time in such a culture more so because of the gender-based honorifics than the age-based ones, though I do not like either. If there was a way to be called elder without it being gender-specific, well, I still wouldn’t like it. But I would be less bothered by it than I would be if it had a gender attached to it. In a quick Google search, I can’t find any gender-neutral elder honorifics, sadly. Not that I would ever live in one of those societies, mind.
Look. I am not saying that American society is not rife with sexism and ageism because it certainly fucking is. And it’s getting drastically worse by the day. But. And I’m not saying it’s necessarily a good thing. I can just not talk about it here because it’s not addressed every time you talk to someone. Where I live, we mostly call each other by first names. That’s it. no honorifics and certainly no gender-based honorifics. Yes, I get called “sir” on the phone which tickles me endlessly and “ma’am” when I go into a store, which, fine whatever. But that’s it.
Though, I will say, that the last time I went to get my license renewed (2024), I could have chosen nonbinary as my gender for the first time. If I was twenty years younger, I would have done it. Maybe. But I just don’t vibe with it, unfortunately. It’s how I am with so many labels–they just don’t feel comfortable. I have reluctantly changed ‘agender’ because it’s the least bad of all the labels. That’s how I always choose labels. Here’s how I describe the label of ‘she/her’ as it pertains to me. It’s like an ill-fitting raincoat. Yeah, it’ll keep the rain out–but poorly, and I’ll be relieved to take it off when I get home.
Honestly, I don’t feel that agender fits that much better, but it’s less bad, I guess. I mean, it is because it’s gender neutral, which is what I prefer. And it’s not denying that gender exists–it’s just not important to me. It’s like I chose ‘areligious’ to describe how I feel about religion–I don’t. I don’t particularly care if god exists or not, and I’ve made my peace with it either way.
It’s how I feel about gender as well. I know it exists and that other people care about it a lot, but for me personally, it just does not matter. I like my bits, so it’s not about that. I have no issue with my body (well, not in that aspect, anyway), but I also don’t put any real emphasis on it, either.
I would have a very hard time constantly being called older sister (or younger sister) whenever I talked to someone. It would remind me that I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t or rather that I would be forced to be one of the binary genders. That’s not comfortable for me, and I would chafe at it constantly. I would keep it in as best I could, but I would hate it so much, and at one point, I would explode. It would be at the worst time and with the worst person because that is just how I fucking roll.
I truly don’t understand why that is the focal point of Eastern Asian–no, wait. I do know why; I just don’t agree with it. I have given so much thought to gender over the years, and what I come down to is that it’s not for me. Whether it’s because of my neurodivergent brain or just beacuse I’m a fucking weirdo, the importance of gender just escapes me.
I can understand that it’s important to other people for themselves. Well, at the very least I can accept that it’s important to other people. Just because it’s not important to me doesn’t mean that it can’t be important to other people. In fact, one of the good things about being a weirdo is that I often have to look at things from a very different point of view, so it’s like second nature to me.
While I may not understand why others feel connected to their gender and very passionate about it, I can respect that. Also, I can understand the sexism that women go through because I have dealt with that as well. Just because I don’t identify as a woman, it doesn’t mean that others don’t see me as one. Believe me, they do. With my thigh-length hair, big boobs, and wide hips–I definitely have a female-shaped form. And believe me, I have experienced my share of sexism because of it. So I’m more sympathetic towards women for that reason.
In my ideal world, gender would just not be a thing at all. People could be whatever gender they wanted to be (or none at all), and it would not matter. This is something that I have been thinking of for decades and just cannot wrap my head around it. I have thought and thought about what it meant to be a woman, and I just come up empty. It’s just a concept that is foreign to me, no matter how hard I try to understand it. Why should I treat someone differently based on their gender? Or anything other than how they treated me, really? (And their beliefs, too.)
I have not heard a satisfactory answer, and I really want to let it go. Unfortunately, the world won’t let me.