It is now 1:30 on a Monday afternoon. I'm still in my pjs. Here's a list of the day's activities so far:
Ate breakfast: leftover rolls with jam. Mmmm, nutritious
Worked on my iTunes library...for quite awhile (thanks for the music, Sarah)
Facebooked
Removed my chipped nail polish
Now I'm thinking it's about time for lunch. I did manage, in the course of my iTunes/Facebook activities, to reconnect with a friend I haven't seen since I was 11--when I moved from a tiny town in Southern Utah back to the paradise of Southern California. Now, living in New York City (somewhat less temperate, and far more inhabited than either of the above locales), I don't even know how to approach talking to people I knew in the 5th grade. I have little recollection of what I was like then, but I seem to remember that being my rebellious stage. I don't know that I can really back that up except to say that I swore more at that age than I would like to admit to now, and I routinely rode my bike out past the city limits with a couple of other girls to visit a farm we had no business visiting. I read Stephen King, watched as many R-rated horror movies as I could get my hands on (though, in retrospect, many of the movies I thought were rated R were actually PG-13), and watched MTV at the house of the aforementioned friend. Yeah...I was a pretty bad kid. Luckily my mom never found out.
At the only elementary school in town, with only two classes for each grade, there was some definite social stratification going on, and not finding myself quite at the top, I rooted myself safely in the middle. I can only assume that that's where this friend of mine lived and stayed long after I made my departure. She was pretty, but edgy. I loved her white-blonde hair, and the only inside joke of ours that I can remember now was about trading mine for hers. In my nostalgia, I think of her as the pre-teen version of Claire Danes from My So Called Life. Now, even though I can't remember who was above or below us on that social ladder, it still frames my perceptions of myself and my friends at the time. I recognize that I am a different person, but in my mind, she is just a taller version of her 11-year-old self. Facebook stepped in this morning to tell me that she also has a four-year-old son, but other than that, she must be exactly the same.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
American Misogynism
Aggressive women scare me/make me uncomfortable/just rub me the wrong way. Men not so much. Why is that? My fear of middle aged women in particular has become something of an inside joke (though now I suppose it's kind of out in the open) among my friend, but it really bothers me once in a while, and I can't help but wonder where it comes from.
In college, I felt like all of my favorite professors were men, but looking back, I'm not so sure that's right. I had a female teacher for Postmodern American lit who I quite liked, actually. She's probably one of the biggest reasons I decided to go on to graduate school. I had a female humanities teacher who I didn't mind much. All of my Spanish teachers were female and I found them all unequivocally likable. I really only had one female teacher who I disliked, and I attributed my disliking her to her being female and trying somehow to make up for something that didn't need making up for. I felt like she was overbearing and horrible, in addition to being incredibly disorganized (which is by far my least favorite trait in a teacher), mostly because she felt like she had to be as difficult as the male teachers--prove that her gender had no effect on her teaching style, that the nurturing mother in her would not affect her ability to grade students justly, and so she overcorrected by setting impossibly high expectations, overworking her students, and grading on the harsh side.
In retrospect, those things may have had nothing at all to do with her gender. I recognize that, logically, but I can't really feel it. Are women simply harsher judges of other women than they are on men. Is it just me? Or does American society depict women as overbearing and needy, creating frustration with my own gender when someone actually fits into that mold. What are our expectations of men in modern society? Looking at pop culture, especially sitcoms, would indicate that we expect them to be bumbling buffoons, slow to take things seriously and in serious need of a female influence to balance them out (e.g. Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Friends). As a result (?) I don't expect much at all from men beyond a good sense of humor, which is perhaps why I find them less intimidating than women.
Is society's depiction of gender unfair? or is it really a reflection of gender norms? Is my analysis accurate? or am I really just projecting my own prejudices onto the culture? Food for thought.
In college, I felt like all of my favorite professors were men, but looking back, I'm not so sure that's right. I had a female teacher for Postmodern American lit who I quite liked, actually. She's probably one of the biggest reasons I decided to go on to graduate school. I had a female humanities teacher who I didn't mind much. All of my Spanish teachers were female and I found them all unequivocally likable. I really only had one female teacher who I disliked, and I attributed my disliking her to her being female and trying somehow to make up for something that didn't need making up for. I felt like she was overbearing and horrible, in addition to being incredibly disorganized (which is by far my least favorite trait in a teacher), mostly because she felt like she had to be as difficult as the male teachers--prove that her gender had no effect on her teaching style, that the nurturing mother in her would not affect her ability to grade students justly, and so she overcorrected by setting impossibly high expectations, overworking her students, and grading on the harsh side.
In retrospect, those things may have had nothing at all to do with her gender. I recognize that, logically, but I can't really feel it. Are women simply harsher judges of other women than they are on men. Is it just me? Or does American society depict women as overbearing and needy, creating frustration with my own gender when someone actually fits into that mold. What are our expectations of men in modern society? Looking at pop culture, especially sitcoms, would indicate that we expect them to be bumbling buffoons, slow to take things seriously and in serious need of a female influence to balance them out (e.g. Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Friends). As a result (?) I don't expect much at all from men beyond a good sense of humor, which is perhaps why I find them less intimidating than women.
Is society's depiction of gender unfair? or is it really a reflection of gender norms? Is my analysis accurate? or am I really just projecting my own prejudices onto the culture? Food for thought.
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