![\"File:Justus](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/4\/4b\/Justus_van_Egmont_-_King_Louis_XIV_of_France.jpg\")
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I was raised on the kind of feminism that was about rejecting false stereotypes. \u00a0Your hobbies, your tastes, your talents \u2014 none of these are what defines you as \u201cmale\u201d or \u201cfemale.\u201d \u00a0You can be a girl who likes sports (curiously, both my grandmothers played high school sports in the 1930\u2019s \u2014 but that was Catholic schools, so it was different than normal, I guess) and woodworking and car repair, and that doesn\u2019t make you less of a girl.<\/p>\n
Boys were likewise accorded the complementary rights, though admittedly there was a little more hesitation in that regard. \u00a0A female engineer was just an \u201cengineer\u201d long before men got to shed the title \u201cmale nurse.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was the dogma I grew up with, and yes, people got carried away trying to pass on the dogma. In a desperate attempt to prove the point, girls were shunted into \u201cboy\u201d things just-because, and sometimes there was a scent of disappointment at girls who were perfectly happy with the traditional \u201cgirl\u201d things. \u00a0It was an imperfect process, and often tainted by other terribly mistaken notions, but at its heart it was a good one. \u00a0I reached adulthood fully confident I could pursue whatever interests\u00a0I liked, with no threat to my femininity perceived or feared.<\/p>\n
I thus had to give serious thought to my reflection on the word \u201cwomen\u201d in the Word by Word Hail Mary<\/a>, because I knew that so many of the typecasts assigned to femininity rang hollow. \u00a0 There are indeed general, average, differences between men and women concerning size and strength and the distribution of this or that talent, but none of the exceptions to those \u201crules\u201d are\u00a0non-men or non-women.<\/p>\n Being a man or a woman simply is not about<\/strong> how well you stack up to a particular gender \u201cideal.\u201d \u00a0It\u2019s not even about how well your anatomical parts function \u2014 you can be infertile, impotent, or missing whole components of your genitalia altogether, and your femininity or masculinity is in no way compromised. \u00a0Devastating illness or injury can take away a part of your body you loved dearly, but it can\u2019t take away the reality that you are a man or a woman.<\/p>\n These are facts. \u00a0This ideal I grew up with, however imperfectly transmitted, is a true ideal.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The current craze for gender-switching<\/a> is a rejection of that ideal. \u00a0The reason is simple: It depends entirely on perpetuating the stereotypes we were supposedly trying to eliminate.<\/p>\n When a man claims to be a \u201cwoman,\u201d the only way he can make that case is to don as many outer symbols of \u201cwomanhood\u201d as he can. \u00a0Get himself some high heels and some fake breasts, slather on the lipstick, and try to convince people to buy the veneer. \u00a0The trouble is that pretty shoes and a nice figure and good make-up aren\u2019t what make you a woman. \u00a0You can be utterly frumpy in every detail, and if you\u2019re a woman, you\u2019re still a woman.<\/p>\n When a woman claims to be a \u201cman,\u201d the only way she can float\u00a0that claim is to try to downplay any outward sign of her femininity and adopt as many \u201cmasculine\u201d habits as she can. \u00a0 It creates a mockery of men \u2014 who are much more than flannel-clad testicle-bearers gathered around a football game.<\/p>\n Gender stereotypes are essential to the transgender effort because without them, you just have a regular person. \u00a0People might wonder on first acquaintance, if you have a sufficiently ambiguous outward appearance, whether you are a man or a woman. But, having established my credentials as a bona fide woman, it doesn\u2019t matter how un-feminine I look, I still get to use the ladies\u2019 room.<\/p>\n The OB-GYN will still drop a postcard in the mail reminding me to come in for the annual pap smear. \u00a0I don\u2019t have to dress up special to persuade the nurse I\u2019m not what I seem to be. \u00a0If people mistake me for a man because of my haircut and my work boots and my penchant for dockers, I even get the right to take offense: How dare you doubt my femininity just because I don\u2019t look the way you think I should!<\/p>\n Pop culture is in a bind; we\u00a0want our truth and our impossibilities too. \u00a0It\u2019s no wonder Glamour<\/em> magazine has chosen a man for its \u201cwoman\u201d of the year. \u00a0The publication exists to sell the idea that your femininity isn\u2019t a birthright at all, but something that can only be purchased by following the latest fads in the magazine. \u00a0When you\u2019re in the stereotype business, your ideal spokesman is someone who wears nothing other than your product.<\/p>\n \n<\/p> Artwork:<\/em><\/p>\n Whenever you\u2019re feeling caught up in gender stereotypes, search Wikimedia on \u201cKing Louis.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was raised on the kind of feminism that was about rejecting false stereotypes. \u00a0Your hobbies, your tastes, your talents \u2014 none of these are what defines you as \u201cmale\u201d or \u201cfemale.\u201d \u00a0You can be a girl who likes sports (curiously, both my grandmothers played high school sports in the 1930\u2019s \u2014 but that was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,418,162],"tags":[450,451,449,447,448],"class_list":["post-4383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chastity","category-facepalm","category-human-rights","tag-bruce-jenner","tag-caitlyn-jenner","tag-cross-dressing","tag-glamour","tag-transgender"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"File:Fran\u00e7ois](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/d\/d3\/Fran%C3%A7ois_Le_Moyne_%28French_-_Head_of_King_Louis_XV_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg\/444px-Fran%C3%A7ois_Le_Moyne_%28French_-_Head_of_King_Louis_XV_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg\")
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