Question for the masses...gender identification

[rabid1st]

Okay, I'm one of those people who never really could wrap my mind around the issue of external gender indicators. Like...haircuts that make you look like a girl or a guy when you are not. Or how it is feminine to wear certain clothes. I heard a lot of this from my stepfather growing up. My brother looked like a girl with his long hair and pretty clothes and I "acted like a man" with my take charge attitude. To me, this wasn't so much insulting as a sign that my stepfather was an imbecile. But then, I may be slightly more forward thinking on this issue than some. I don't know.

I suppose I can see how a man who dresses up in silk teddies and fishnet hose and high heeled slippers might be having some gender identity issues. But I can also see how he might dress that way for a stage performance or how alternatively he might find the clothing sexually stimulating and yet still identify as male. I don't think the clothes make the man...or woman...is what I'm trying to say.

But this issue came up with a male friend of mine recently. He took great umbrage to someone suggesting that he was carrying a purse in a photo. Now, they didn't particularly tease him about it in a cruel fashion. But they did laugh because he was wearing a sort of hippie outfit, had long hair and this bag slung from one shoulder to the opposite hip on a long strap. It looked like a purse, but was, in fact, a camera bag. The man in the photo got absolutely furious about the suggestion. He said that it was an insult to him and that it was very insensitive of the person to make fun of him in particular related to his gender. To insinuate that he might look slightly effeminate in the photo.

To my mind, it was all about stereotyping of the most superficial sort, but my male friend was very upset that I didn't see how insensitive it was to "paint him as a feminine" just because he had long hair and a camera over his shoulder. I sort of thought his over reacting spoke to either a long battle with his gender issues (like he'd been teased a lot for this or wondered about it himself) or to a deep seated sense that being seen as effeminate made him less of a man, somehow.

I've never minded when I'm told my hair cut...or my jeans or whatever...made me look like a man. Of course, I do not have many masculine characteristics...so maybe if I'd been less curvy and soft, I would have taken greater personal insult. If you are a slight guy with a pretty face...you might have more sensitivities to being called a girl, I suppose. I suppose the question I have is this: Is it insensitive to suggest that a man is "carrying a purse" or looks particularly effeminate in a photo?

On the same general subject is telling a woman she will make someone a good husband some day...meaning you believe she's behaving in a masculine fashion...or has masculine tendencies like...I don't know...protectiveness or bossiness or something...is also insulting even if you actually mean that you find her competent?

Basically, is it inherently insulting to suggest someone has the "traits pr mannerisms" of another gender...no matter how superficial stereotypical those traits might be?

Rae

Comments

[keswindhover.livejournal.com]

I know men who are just as twitchy on this subject. It's a man thing. For example, I had one male friend flat out refuse to borrow a hat of mine, even though it was freezing outside, and it was a harmless, gender neutral, woolly hat - purely because it belonged to me and so was 'a woman's hat'. Whether that makes him insecure I am not sure, but it certainly doesn't make him unusual, in my experience.

The remark about making someone a good husband is a put-down, pure and simple. Don't get too uppity, girl, is the message there.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

But what if it was reversed? What if we refused to wear a "man's hat" or if I said someone would make a good wife? Am I insulting the man by saying that his skill as a cook means he would "make someone a good wife someday?"

I suppose that I could mean that in a belittling fashion, actually. So, yes, maybe it is meant to demean their work or their attributes by suggesting they are not "masculine"...Hmmmm!

Rae

[keswindhover.livejournal.com]

I've heard 'you'd make someone a good wife' used jokingly to a man, and taken happily as joke, usually in the context of cooking. Never heard the reverse 'husband' line used in anything but an aggressive way (oh, except in a gay context, come to think of it).

[onlyoot.livejournal.com]

I think Kes is right, it is usually more of a man thing although I have known women who would shy away from looking anything but completely feminine to the fullest degree. And Ive been (unfortunately) in the company who identify women who display any established masculine 'traits' or who where more masculine clothes, as gay.

I of course dont give a monkeys and have been known to where more 'feminine' articles of clothing. However, because of the way I look, even then I wouldnt be called girly