Cos I have a lot to say about gender, I am writing an entire series on it! OMG! Exciting! So anyway, here’s the first post…

When I was a little tot, I loved “The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler” a childrens novel that hides the main characters sex through out the book. It seems to be a book about a little boy, then in the last page! BANG! You find out that its been a girl all along!
I read it in the 4th grade, and my teacher asked us lots of questions about whether this final revelation changed our opinion of Tyke, or her actions through out the book and so on. She was one of my two truly feminist teachers through out school… I remember my mum disapproving of her, and not working out why.

I also loved Yentl, and told my mother that when I grew up I was going to be a boy like that too! She kindly explained that I wouldn’t have to pretend to be a boy to go to school like in the movie. I already new that… I just wanted to dress like a boy. And I thought that spilling the wine on the bed was such a clever clever move!

When I reached High school, I loved The Song of the Lioness. Alanna disguises herself as a boy to become a knight of the realm. Thrilling fantasy!

I have always been attracted to stories about women that can pull off being men. I am also attracted to stories about really kick arse women. I rarely enjoy stories where the majority of the lead characters are male.
I cannot identify easily with male characters written by men. Often they are shallow, and depthless. I have found that much of the male-centric fantasy which is out there, the story is propelled by the events, not the characters relationships. Also, male written, male centric fantasy tends to be dripping with male-privilege which can be quite hard to take when you haven’t even had access to it.

I’ve been told that its cos I am a girl that I love stories that are about relationships, and complications that come about via the interaction of humanity. I always feel like I’m being told that my taste in literature is inferior because I was born female.

You know, every organisation is made up of people. A good manager/leader is capable of directing and pruning the social interactions within an organisation to achieve optimal results for organisational goals. But leadership and management are not seen as ‘feminine’.

The ‘gender roles’ are so contradictory, it sometimes amazes me that people can honest to goodness, BELIEVE that they are immutable.

No fuck it! Gender roles are constructions! They are not real!

I am not male because I like to play with computers, and read comic books, and to kiss girls.
I am male because I feel like I have an invisible male body overlaying my female body, and like the map in my head, of where all my parts are matches up to the unseen body, not the seen on.
For a year now I have been going on and on about making my outside match my inside. Just by cutting off all my hair I felt I was representing myself more truly. Each step I take towards reclaiming my body, takes me a step closer to feeling like I am not lying and hiding myself, every day.

You know, the reason I hate skirts is not because men shouldn’t or can’t wear skirts…
In many cultures ’skirts’ are the norm for men. In Tamil Nadu they wear the veshti by day, and the loongi by night, in south east asia they have sarongs, in scotland there are kilts, and so on.
Here though, a skirt is seen as a marker that clearly says ‘female’, and I want to mark myself ‘male’. My entire body lies to people, and I can’t help that… but if I wear a skirt, I am lying, because I am displaying what I know will be interpreted as a feminine trait…

(A loongi is a fabulous thing to sleep in… I suggest one try it sometime. In fact, I think that I will invest in some madras cotton, and make myself some loongi’s. I’ll post the pattern here if anyone is interested… its pretty simple, but tying it takes some getting used to)

Comic-type amusement after the jump!

I want to be Hannelore’s mother when I grow up.

<3

I haven’t played SimCity since highschool. I do remember that it was awesome fun though. It seems that the next version, SimCity Societies decided to take on a more realistic bent, particularly in regard to the environment.

Environmental choices early in the game will effect long term outcomes. For example, eco-friendly energy options are more expensive in the short term, but prevent global warming destroying your city and costing massive amounts of money in the long term.

I think that this is fabulous. I am sick of media simply reflecting broken culture. I love it when a movie or a comic book, or a game makes an effort to challenge the staus quo, and use its influence to spread awareness and information. I also love anything that encourages people to use their brains and look at long term consequences instead of sitting in the short term. Hopefully it will lead to more people doing it in real life, not just in a computer game.