Friday, November 18, 2016

Inscribing Gender on the Body: We Cannot All Be a Ten


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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