Gender
Expectations Shape the Impossible
When you meet someone
for the first time, several things register: the overall impression of male or
female sex, specifics like hair, eyes, makeup or lack of it, clothing that
reinforces male or female gender, erect confident posture, or a yielding slouch
that signals submissiveness. This immediate “read” is complicated if all the
elements do not fit. American culture values thin, white, young as the
desirable norm. This unspoken but powerful yardstick discriminates against
Blacks, Asians, Latinos, the elderly and disabled, who are compelled to remake
their body image to fit in. Long hair is usually gendered feminine. However, if
the person with long hair is wearing trousers and work boots and wants to use
the Gents restroom, it provokes harassment.
Dan Frosch writes about Coy Mathis, born a boy but now at the heart of a
challenge to anti-discrimination against transgendered people. He writes, “…gay
and transgender advocates say transgender students…are vulnerable to bullying
and harassment (246)”. Political decisions and institutions cater to the norm
and these forms of “other” have to constantly fight for recognition and
consideration.
Women in American
culture feel pressured to have a larger bosom and some resort to plastic
surgery implants. In Donald Trump’s world, a woman with a small bosom has a
“hard time to be a 10”. This sexist labeling lies behind the insecurity many
women feel that they do not measure up to an unwritten norm. Joan Jacobs
Brumberg, writing in her essay Breast Buds and the ‘Training’ Bra, notes that a
girl’s insecurity begins early. She says, “…in gyms and locker rooms of
post-war junior high schools, girls began to look around to see who did and did
not wear a bra…and this visual information was very powerful (206)”. As mass produced clothing produced a need for
standard bra sizing, it also creates the idea of measuring up to a norm that
had to be reinforced in some way. She writes,
“The old idea that brassieres were frivolous or unnecessary for young girls was
replaced by a national discussion about their medical and psychological
benefits…. An adolescent girl needed a bra to prevent, sagging breasts…which
would create problems in nursing her future children (206)”. The bra also draws attention to the sexual
possibilities of breasts, rather than their biological function of nursing. The result is an obsession for everywoman to
present as a “ten”.
A woman’s hair
represents an inescapable biological connection to gendered expectations.
Thinking of hair as beautiful is culturally graded by sex but can also be
exploited as a way to enforce power. In the white privileged culture in the
United Stated, long fine straight hair is seen as beautiful. Minh-Ha T. Pham,
writing in her essay “If the Clothes Fit: A feminist Take on Fashion”, says,
“Professional women of color …consciously and unconsciously fashion themselves
in ways that diminish their racial difference (247)”. Asian women perm their
hair; Black women straighten their hair. She continues, “If fashion has been
used to introduce new ways of expressing womanhood, it has also been a tether
that keeps women’s social, economic and political opportunities permanently
attached to their appearances (248)”. Women in the daily eye as part of their
job, find that one’s natural styling is discouraged in favor of a treatment
that appeals to a media enforced norm. Rose
Weitz, writing in What We Do for Love, says, “If we ignore cultural
expectations for female appearance we pay a price in lost wages, diminished
marital prospects, lowered status, and so on (119)”.
One last thought: age gives one a different set of values. Seniors Rock.
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