The Gender Issue

Eva — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 11:17:10 +0000

When I set up this blog, I contemplated using initials only and leaving my gender unspecified. I decided against this approach because in discussing my interactions with the outside world, my being female would soon be revealed. My gender is part of my personality and shapes my interactions probably as much as my introversion does. As a terribly shy person, I find that men are more likely to make an effort to engage me in conversation than women. That does not mean that they necessarily see me as a potential target of any kind, I think it just means that they are conditioned to speak to women in a certain way (straight men, anyway). Women are far less likely to put the kind of effort required to break through a painfully shy person’s barriers into their interactions with other women. I remember reading an article once on the topic of how shy people tend to get surrounded by assholes because “normal” people tend not to push themselves onto those of us who set up fairly strict personal boundaries (I wish I could find that article so I could include the link here, but alas … ). As a female shy person, I find that there is a dispropportionate number of men in my social circle (such as it is) much like the disproportionate number of obnoxious people that attempt to interact with me, oblivious to my boundaries which are generally respected by nice people. So, considering that my interactions with the outside world are the topic at hand, gender is a signifant factor and it will not be hidden.

As to why I would prefer my gender to be ambiguous … I am writing these words in public and would prefer to be read as a person rather than as a woman. I consider myself feminist but even in my mind the words “female writer” conjure up images of books that have cute drawings of shoes on the cover, along with a flowery dress and a cocktail glass (for some bizarre reason). Obviously I am well aware that amazing female authors exist and that fluffy, stereotypical writing can be found on both sides of the gender divide. However, if even I have this picture in my mind, the “female writing = fluffy nonsense” idea must be firmly entrenched in western culture. Furthermore, writing on the internet is not at all like writing books. Approximately half of the people reading and writing any kind of online content are presumably female yet there appears to be this very doublesided attitude of both a sort of outdated “boys club” mentality as well as a “yea, yea, you’re female, big deal” attitude in a lot of online communities. (Incidentally, I found this cracked.com article on “the biggest mistakes women make on the internet” to be quite amusing). So, while I believe that gender should be irrelevant, I don’t think it actually is and apparently I care about what people think. I am female and I even quite like shoes, but I don’t want to be lumped with those yellow book covers you see at Barnes & Noble all the time, or with the Stephenie Meyers of the world … Not that I have any Great Ideas or valuable insights to share with the world, I just want to be an individual, I guess.

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The Gender Issue