Masculine protest
Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 7:58 amI think I may have grumbled in this blog, once or twice, about being a woman — the fact that I’m not really into it and never have been. I don’t actually want to be a man — I’m no Buck Angel — but I can’t pretend that I’m really at home with either the female body or the feminine gender. I think most of my discomfort is socially derived, not something intrinsic that I’d have felt no matter what society I was born in. As a child I really did wish I was a boy. I certainly looked to be accepted by the boys and men I met more than by the girls and women, and was more willing to alter myself to gain male acceptance than female. Now that I know men a little better, I know I don’t want to be one. They have their own problems, and their world doesn’t particularly appeal to me. But my eyes did prick up when I happened across this thing called “masculine protest“, a concept described by pioneering psychologist Alfred Adler, who wrote: “When a girl imagines that she can change into a boy, it is because the feminine role has not been presented to her as the equal of the masculine role. She revolts against what she believes to be a permanent perspective of inferiority for her.” He says that this is what Freudians term the castration complex. I think Adler’s explanation makes more sense than Freud’s.
He writes of tomboys: “We can understand their preference for manliness when we realise that the striving for superiority is more concerned with the meaning we attach to activities than with the activities themselves.” I think you could almost call it a commodity fetishisation of activity: The thought that “I will use this product and therefore become like the incredibly cool, happy, superior people in the advertisements for said product” is related, I think, to the thought that “I will do what the guys are doing and therefore I will become one of them and be entirely accepted into their world.” Of course, what the guys are doing may just be more fun, full stop, or more profitable; but I don’t think that’s the whole story in all cases.
The book in which Adler describes his theory is called Understanding Human Nature. From what I’ve read of it on Amazon, it’s a little dated (it was published in 1927), but I think the points it makes about the female condition are still valid. Let’s not pretend that our culture has started valuing women. It values pretty girls and women who operate efficiently in the male world. It does not value the mother role, which exists outside these categories, and this, to me, is the most blatant sign that it does not value women.
A woman has much the same brain and the same egotistical drives as a man. She, too, wants to be a success. She wants status. If her biological femaleness is an impediment to those things, no one should be surprised if she dislikes it and disdains — even fears — activities associated with femininity (which may, from the commodity fetish angle, “turn her into” a woman if she engages in them.) I think I will have to buy Adler’s book, or at least give it a good going over in Kino.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
> “When a girl imagines that she can change into a boy, it is because the feminine role has not been presented to her as the equal of the masculine role. She revolts against what she believes to be a permanent perspective of inferiority for her.”
Yes. This right here is why I pretended to be a boy for ~2 years.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I wondered if the description would fit.
And the thing is, according to our culture’s set of values, the feminine role is inferior. You could replace “believes” with “knows damn well”.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
That’s bloody fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever actively wanted to be a boy, but I’ve definitely certainly actively and passionately not wanted to be a girl, and that’s ongoing, and entirely because of the set backs that come with being female. In my case, I would love to be a guy if only to make all my late night walking up dark streets alone something that doesn’t automatically put me on my guard. I’d like to assume that, just for once, I am not a potential easy target.
There’s more than that (I have my period right now, and I could very well live without that, not to mention if having a penis means coming every single time, OH YES), but that is always at the top of my head. One sex has a long history of doing nasty things to the other sex.
I’ve gone so long trying not to be a girly girl I occasionally forget that I’m allowed to be feminine.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
*pops some popcorn to give this one a think*
My own gender issues have annoyed me for years. I can’t say that I’m uncomfortable being a woman, because (as my husband and friends have pointed out and made me vastly irritated) I’m very comfortable in my female skin and with being feminine. Why then, do I always imagine myself as a man? Why am I always a man in my dreams? I can’t even log into Second Life as a girl, but have to don a male shape and clothes before I feel normal. Or maybe just to feel equal.
It took me some time to realize that I don’t really want to be a man; I want to be a young and beautiful man. Forever. Growing into an old man appeals to me about as much as growing into a potato or a dung beetle. Who wants to be an old man? Not I. Conversely, I’m looking forward to growing into an old woman. I will dress all in black and never cut my hair. I will have cats and hang pentagrams from my front door, and I’ll put up the best Halloween scarecrows in the neighborhood. I’ll buy a silver-headed cane to hobble with, and I will frighten children off my lawn just by appearing in the window. I will cultivate a cackle. I will be a crone: sexless and mysterious and suspected, and it will be very cool. Ha! Now my popcorn tastes like revenge…
August 8th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Well at least you never used the words penis envy.
I have never had any kind of gender issues, but I think that’s because I had other things to deal with then say “I wish i was a pretty little girl” but if there was a magic gender switch that could be flicked I would give that a go.
But i do find this interesting.
but i know why the females wish to be male, and it has nothing to do with penis envy or the fact we do not suffer the effects of red tide.
It’s because we only feel the 4 perfect emotions.
Cold, Hungry, Itchy and Where are the girls?
August 8th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Tessa - Yes: the wanting to be a boy ended when I was fairly young, but the not wanting to be a girl remained. I’ve always lived in places where I don’t have to worry about physical danger, but the constant, obvious objectification, even when it doesn’t involve danger, is a drag. (And there’s often the sense that if you weren’t in this busy, civilised place, it might well involve danger.) It’s too often too hard to get a man to see you as a person.
As far as sexual pleasure goes, though, I wouldn’t swap my girl parts for boy parts. Oral sex always works for me (sorry if TMI), but maybe I’m just lucky. (Off on a tangent, I don’t get the “sex doesn’t have end in orgasm” brigade. I can’t seriously believe they’re happy to get halfway there and then…cuddle.)
Kirby - with you on the old woman thing! I have quite a few grey hairs now and I feel loathe to dye them. When I do, maybe it’ll be purple. Some of the freest spirits I’ve met are old women.
When I hit puberty my alter egos switched from female to male, and have been male ever since. I find it very hard to analyse why, but if I were going to take a stab at it I’d say that once my gender was “chosen” for me, all the other stuff that I wanted to be and now definitely couldn’t be had to become alter-ego. But maybe it’s also about wanting to not only have a tailor-made lover but to be him, too. Some ridiculously complex thing like that.
Colin - Well, I had other things to deal with, too. I daresay most people do. But for a girl, becoming something other than a girl may look like a solution to one’s problems — and probably would solve some of them.
It would certainly be neat to be able to switch genders casually.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
My thought processes went along the lines of ‘boys get to climb trees and girls don’t and I wanna climb trees!’ I wasn’t aware of things like women getting paid less on average, I was too young to be objectified; but I did get assumptions about what girls and boys did and I loathed the idea that because I was a girl I wasn’t naturally interested in some things. If I ever have children, I intend to expose them to all sorts of things; they can make their own choices about their interests, of course, but I won’t say to them ‘you can’t do this because you’ve got boy-bits or girl-bits.’ I think it’s unspeakably stupid to do so.
Now, though, I’m happy as a woman. I’m comfortable in my body. I don’t let people tell me what I can and cannot do. I call people out when they make dumb assumptions about my interests. I would rather not have to, though.
Possibly interesting data point: When given the opportunity to fancy dress, I don’t feel restricted to being a woman. I went to a 1920s gangster party as a gangster, rather than in a dress. I was the only woman at the entire event who did that. And if I ever cosplay, I have both female and male characters in mind.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
if the gender switch did exist where do you think the switch might be?
As for being a guy and getting sexual satisfaction when we engaue in intercrouse I can say it is a lie. When you spend and hour and not get any where near the mark you do feel the need to get up waljk away and do something else.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Alankria - do you think the time you spent as a boy actually made it easier for you to be comfortable as a woman later on?
I’m more comfortable in my own skin now than I was in my teens and twenties. I’m a little less “cute”, and that helps, because I’ve never had an image of myself as cute. As I get older I seem to be getting closer physically to something that fits how I feel inside. (I’m sure that will change when I turn 40 and my arse drops.)
Colin - dude, if you’re at it for an hour I imagine whoever you’re with must be feeling that need to go walkies too — and will be walking like John Wayne for quite a while. Good exercise, though…
August 8th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I don’t tend to think of myself as specifically feminine or masculine, nor let gender play too much of a role in my interactions with other people. As a result, I’m surprised every time I encounter someone who treats me as a female, specifically, instead of treating me like a person. It’s nigh offensive coming from people who I think have known me long enough to get past that, especially considering I’m just not the woman they’re trying to treat me as.
And I don’t entirely believe in the existence of non-orgasm sex pushers. ’cause…’cause. Like you, oral sex usually does it for me (although it’s been long enough now that might be a lie), and generally if that isn’t coming, the accumulated tension keeps me awake for hours, and the frustration just means someone will get jumped again until an explosion is made to happen.
I’m also really looking forward to be an old woman. I only have the one white hair, but I’m working on the second one right now. Being a young woman is just…most of the problem, really.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I do know that it may it very clear to me that gender wasn’t a restriction on activities, that if I wanted to do something I should just go and do it. And as I got older, I got more confident in my ability to “be a tomboy who grows her hair long and sometimes wears dresses” as I phrased it to my parents when I was about 10. So I suppose it did make it easier for me to what I wanted to do as a woman. It made me determined not to accept any shit about separating girl-activities and boy-activities.
August 9th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Tessa - yup, I know that surprise factor. Less of it now that I’m slouching towards 40. Keep up that stress and worry — more silver hairs will come! When I’m all grey I’m going to wear velvet ribbons like Karl Lagerfeld (and possibly pigtails like Geoffrey Rush in Quills). Not sure what to do with the post-menopause moustache, but might dye it in dashing colours with mole hairs groen long and dyed to match.
Alankria - that makes sense. After I left school I went through a stage of being very blokey, hanging out with guys and playing guitar in garage bands. When I realised the blokey thing didn’t really suit me, it was easy to give up — it was a choice rather than an imposition. Since my ideal of masculinity is a kind of “effeminate” 18th century one, I feel boyish when I wear a ponytail and blingy slippers, but no doubt look girlish. Which is just…confused. But a harmless sort of confusion, I guess.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:34 am
You should know that this has inspired fiction. I’m not sure exactly where this story is going to go, other than explore pretending to be a man, but with an opening like this I imagine I’ll have a good time finding out:
She wears a top hat and tails like a regular young gentleman: broad-shouldered, sure in stance, and with a curve on those narrows lips that speak of orbital paths and the chemistry of lizards.
“I think it an imaginative kind of nonsense to suppose the sun is a dragon,” she says to an amply bearded man, “or the planets pulled by black serpents.”
August 13th, 2008 at 5:27 am
That is a great opening! I look forward to finding out where you take it, too. She’s vivid from the get-go — I’m sure she has quite a story to tell. Now and then I go searching for women in the past who lived as men, either their whole lives or for a time, and always seem to find another one.
August 16th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Ooh, I don’t think I’ve ever read about women doing that in history. Do you remember any of their names?
August 16th, 2008 at 5:38 am
Dr James Barry is one of the better known cases.
Here’s a list of a few more.
The Chevalier d’Eon
Female soldiers in the American civil War.
There was a woman in 19th century America — New York, I think it was — who lived very successfully as a businessman; unfortunately I can’t find her again. Let me know if you chance across her?
August 19th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Thanks for the list! I will certainly let you know if I find her or any more.