Was I oppressed?
Jul. 21st, 2016 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerBinge-reading Assigned Male is very good for focusing on transy stuff...
Was I oppressed by cisnormativity when I was a kid? No, I don't think so. Neither my parents nor I had the slightest idea that anything was amiss. I had good days and bad days. I didn't even have the vocabulary to frame the concepts I would have needed to recognise oppression. I didn't have unquenchable longings to wear my mum's dresses (well, our colour senses were totally different...). When my height got me the lead role in "Santa Claus Gets Busy" at primary school, I don't remember an overwhelming sadness at not being able to play a fairy instead (though I do remember liking their costumes).
I do know that you don't have to be aware of oppression to be oppressed...but I also feel that for there to be active oppression there must be an active oppressor. Passive oppression is just like this weather; nobody is doing it, nobody is willing it, quite possibly nobody is even aware it's happening. There were no villains in my young life, no sneering patriarchs wielding the whip. The kyriarchy was there, as it had been for thousands of years, and it was actively oppressing people outside my awareness, in other places, but me, no. Which, of course, is also a measure of my privilege.
I think there's been a sea-change since then. I think that now it's no longer easy for anyone to pretend that the kyriarchy doesn't exist. I think that now there is a lot more active oppression than there was back in the fifties, because a, people everywhere are more aware of their own marginalisation and that they have a choice as to how they deal with it, and b, people who have not suffered under the kyriarchy, or have even benefited from it, are feeling defensive and threatened as awareness spreads, and a natural human response in that situation is to double down and defend the unfairness on whatever grounds suggest themselves. I escape active oppression now because I'm only out online and only my friends know or care, but sooner or later, I think, that restriction's going to start to chafe just the way my boy name did, and then I'll have some choices to make. But that's down the line.
So...what about the parents I know, all of whom as far as I'm aware have allowed their children to be assigned genders at birth? No, they're not oppressing either. It's not oppression to make a best guess at or before the moment of birth, while the brain is still booting up and finding out what all the levers and buttons do. "WAAAAAAA" is not helpful as a guide to orientation. A new child needs something to hang an identity on; there have to be certainties at that point, solid facts, even if later on they turn out to be less than solid. I know that if any of their children starts to find their assigned gender problematic, the parents I know will be understanding, gentle, and absolutely open to whatever path the child wishes to follow. Because I have the very best friends, that's how I know.
Was I oppressed by cisnormativity when I was a kid? No, I don't think so. Neither my parents nor I had the slightest idea that anything was amiss. I had good days and bad days. I didn't even have the vocabulary to frame the concepts I would have needed to recognise oppression. I didn't have unquenchable longings to wear my mum's dresses (well, our colour senses were totally different...). When my height got me the lead role in "Santa Claus Gets Busy" at primary school, I don't remember an overwhelming sadness at not being able to play a fairy instead (though I do remember liking their costumes).
I do know that you don't have to be aware of oppression to be oppressed...but I also feel that for there to be active oppression there must be an active oppressor. Passive oppression is just like this weather; nobody is doing it, nobody is willing it, quite possibly nobody is even aware it's happening. There were no villains in my young life, no sneering patriarchs wielding the whip. The kyriarchy was there, as it had been for thousands of years, and it was actively oppressing people outside my awareness, in other places, but me, no. Which, of course, is also a measure of my privilege.
I think there's been a sea-change since then. I think that now it's no longer easy for anyone to pretend that the kyriarchy doesn't exist. I think that now there is a lot more active oppression than there was back in the fifties, because a, people everywhere are more aware of their own marginalisation and that they have a choice as to how they deal with it, and b, people who have not suffered under the kyriarchy, or have even benefited from it, are feeling defensive and threatened as awareness spreads, and a natural human response in that situation is to double down and defend the unfairness on whatever grounds suggest themselves. I escape active oppression now because I'm only out online and only my friends know or care, but sooner or later, I think, that restriction's going to start to chafe just the way my boy name did, and then I'll have some choices to make. But that's down the line.
So...what about the parents I know, all of whom as far as I'm aware have allowed their children to be assigned genders at birth? No, they're not oppressing either. It's not oppression to make a best guess at or before the moment of birth, while the brain is still booting up and finding out what all the levers and buttons do. "WAAAAAAA" is not helpful as a guide to orientation. A new child needs something to hang an identity on; there have to be certainties at that point, solid facts, even if later on they turn out to be less than solid. I know that if any of their children starts to find their assigned gender problematic, the parents I know will be understanding, gentle, and absolutely open to whatever path the child wishes to follow. Because I have the very best friends, that's how I know.
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no subject
Date: 2016-07-21 05:11 pm (UTC)Most of the times in my adult life when I wished I were a woman were very down times and also there was crap in the news which made me feel ashamed to be male (rapes, wars, stuff like that). But the older I got, the more comfortable I was in my skin, although I still fight gender role stereotypes. I think I like "non-binary" as a choice.
no subject
Date: 2016-07-21 08:04 pm (UTC)"Cissed." :) Cissified? Or rather, not? ;)
no subject
Date: 2016-07-21 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-07-21 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-07-21 10:44 pm (UTC)