the first of many :)

Hello hell hello! My name is DJ and I am beginning this blog in order to roughly plant some thoughts and ideas that I have while I do my readings for a sociology class, Sex and Gender, dun dun dun, hahaha. A little bit about myself? Well, I am a senior college student, graduating with a degree in Theater and a minor in Music History and Cultures, which I have turned into a music and art history hybrid. I identify myself as a gay male, and a lover of coffee and the occasional cocktail. This blog is meant to be an informal platform where I can just journal my heart out, but I welcome anyone to comment and ask questions and argue with me. I would really love to spark conversations, so don’t be shy. Also, keep in mind that there will most likely be spelling errors galore because I type fast and rarely catch stupid mistakes.

“No one is simply a man or woman.”

This weeks readings really stressed the main idea that gender is a social construct. I mean, you can't argue with that. What is gender? A man or a woman? WRONG. Gender is really just what the general population agrees is masculine or feminine. Sex is what distinguishes male or female, but you could technically be a man, but you could identify yourself as a woman.

As an example, maybe the most socially accepted drag queens out there could be the Hijras in India. Maybe it is wrong of me to write “drag queens” because they do actually undergo sex-change surgery, but they were at one point technically men who lived as women. They are actually quite accepted in India as well. They are thought to have magical powers of healing and good fortune, so they are many times invited to events such as marriages and births.

The editers of the Utne Reader even said that, “gender is performance.” I love that! In short, you are how you act you are. If you live as a woman, act as a woman, live your sex-life as a woman, and therefore declare yourself that you are a woman, you indeed a woman. Regardless of what sex you might have been born as this performance proves your real gender.

Two readings that I did this week really struck a chord in me. The first was Martin Espada’s “The Puerto Rican Dummy and the merciful son.” The story centralizes aroundt he fact that Martin faced a lot of prejudice growing up as a Puerto Rican boy and in turn grew violent. He gave up this violence when he audibly heard the “thunk” on some guys skull when he was beating him up, and it mortified him of his actions. Now he was reflecting on his son and how he should teach him to grow up. He writes:

“Will I urge my son to be a pacifist, thereby gutting one of the foundations of traditional manhood, the pleasure taken in violence and the power derived from in?”

Ok, my question is, does a man need to be violent in some part of his life in order to be considered a man??? It is sick how in this country to be considered a traditional man you have to shoot animals and throw punches and attend football games. You know, those things make me feel less of man in fact. When I attend a football game, I am faced with my utter disgust at men bashing themselves into each other. Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against sports. My father is in the semi-pro football hall of fame and my brother played for his college team. I just am reminded how much I dislike sports when I attend the games, and therefore I am also reminded of what I would rather be doing, which would most likely be characterized as womanly and or homosexual stereotypically. So in essence, that “manly” thing that should make me feel “manly” makes me feel less akin to my innate “manliness.”

I think Martin feels this way to a certain degree. He wants to be able to allow his son to find his own place in the world, but at the same time he wants to protect him from all the bigotry that he faced. He almost feels that he is the person he is today because of the violence he partook in, and by denying his son that experience, that maybe his son will feel incomplete at he gets older.

The other article that we read was Helen Zia’s “From Nothing, A Consciousness.” Helen describes how she had to disobey her father and pursue a college career against his will. Her father, a traditional Chinese man, argued that the “proper place for an unmarried daughter, is at home with her parents.” Regardless of the hazing she encountered she did attend Princeton University, where she was 1 of 16 Asians in the entire university.

Helen mentioned “The Three Obediences” in the Chinese culture, which were sickening. They are, “The daughter obeys the father, the wife obeys the husband, and the widow obeys the son.” What is all this “obey” shit. I mean, come on honestly, like that husband could survive without his wife. What makes me the most upset is the “widow obeys the son.” That son wouldn’t have life if it weren’t for his mother, so why should she somehow act as if she owes him something? The rules in patriarchal society make no sense sometimes.

Further on in the article Helen talks about how she was singled out a lot at school because of how she looked. At the time, the Vietnam War was being fought and because she was among the rare few Asians that the white students saw, she felt as the she became, “the local personification of a war nearly ten thousand miles away.”

This next line is brilliant:

“Since I looked like the enemy, I must be the enemy.”

Now ain’t that the truth. How many of us do this now with Muslim men wearing turbans. They are walking around, doing their own business, and we automatically think that they are on some tirade to bomb us. We are constantly living out of fear, so much that we need to blame people in order to make ourselves feel better.

Marilyn Manson gave an interview once where he talked about Americans and their fears. He claimed that it stems from the media and how they are always telling us things like storms are coming or terrorist attacks or muggings, anything that can plant fear in our bones. Once that fear is there though, we begin to consume. The more we are afraid, the more we consume in order to feel like we can possess some sort of salvation from this inevitable whatever that may be coming our way.

Helen summed up her article by making the statement that it was hard for her to feel like an American when she wasn’t treated like one. However, it was hard for her to feel Asian too, considering that she couldn’t speak Chinese, nor did she even know anyone in China. Native students from China would even say that she was, “Chinese on the outside, but empty on the inside.” Basically, it is easy to see that you can even face hazing and prejudice from within ethnic groups just as much from outsiders.

Those are just some thought on the readings from last week.

Any thoughts would be fantastic.

Sorry that this is so long…I’m just as talkative in real life too.