Deconstructing Gender: Diversity and Exclusion
Posted October 31, 2008
http://radnichole.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/deconstructing-gender-diversity-and-exclusion/The weekend has arrived, or will at about 1:30 p.m. today. Catherine and I are going to a wedding in Massachusetts. Not our own, the wedding of a very good friend with whom we both once worked. She quit work a few years ago to go to Massachusetts in order to gather a Master's degree and now works on a PhD in Sports Psychology.
A couple of years prior to her stopping work she met the love of her life, a man who enjoys very often the wearing of "women's" clothing. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what that means. The range of human couture and fashion being such that if he wears a pair of slacks and a sweater, what makes it, exactly, a "women's" pair of slacks and sweater. If he wears a scarf, what makes it a "women's" scarf?
Does the notion that the clothes might be bought in a department of Nordstrom that's labelled "women's" make all of the clothing their female? What if he's bought the same items at Old Navy? Unlabelled would the clothes then become "androgynous?"
I think we all have this tendency to "gender" pretty much everything in our world: our bodies, our clothing, our habits of action or inaction, our animals, our trees, flowers, the very ground of Earth and the moon, stars and Sun. I cannot think, just this moment, what gender clouds and watches, necklaces, gourds, wreaths and penicillin happen to be. Perhaps some reader would be kind enough to let me know. A note would be fine, please just try not to show forth your disdain when you inform me. I sometimes have this space in my brain that shows itself when I consider gender and gendering.
