Day 36: Is David Wong Single?

Was directed to this Cracked post, which is one of the better explanations of patriarchal indoctrination that I've ever come across. Hot on the heels of the same author's socialist manifesto that I previously posted I began wondering abstractedly what the author looked like. Apparently the name is a pseudonym, so probably not Asian, not that that matters, but it's helpful to form a picture. I kind of went out with (i.e. I mostly stayed in with) a boy with a very similar name, so it's certainly not off-putting.

I posted the link to my Facebook and M posted a very angry, self-righteous response, which made me laugh. I didn't start to explain, as I didn't want to get into a public argument somewhere i couldn't explain myself fully. M is very tolerant, certainly not deliberately oppressive in any respect, but also very heteronormal, and it reminded me once again that the questioning of one's gender, and the nature of gender itself, is something that most people just never have to do.

I've always questioned the presentation of gender in the media, amongst my friends, and society in general, cramming us all into these stereotypes, and it coming so naturally and so often one generally assumes that everyone else does too.But most of you don't, do you? You don't mind being painted with that broad brush, because it is a colour you wear naturally anyway. Previously I just questioned being forced into a single box, now I am happier that switching to this other one fits me far better, but I'm very aware that for many people who are more in the middle it is horribly restrictive.

More culturally androgynous people stuck on each side of the genders like to claim that they have it worst. Men have an internalised fear of being caught out being remotely feminine, being put in physical danger by their own sex and danger of rejection by the opposite sex, whereas women are made to feel constantly never quite feminine enough, forced to strive visually, at least, for an impossible ideal (on which, if you are interested, see this), but at least now allowed to act in a more traditionally masculine way.

I would hesitate to say which is the more oppressive, it is not a simple answer. For naturally masculine men, there is no problem at all, I would just point out, whilst trying to achieve the impossible, and being made to feel like shit for not acieving it, is a problem for all women. As Cindy Crawford once said "I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford".