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This was a Facebook post of my commentary on a link that I shared to some other FB post that someone made. That post is now unavailable so I have no idea what the original post says that sparked my commentary. But, fortunately in this case, my own commentary tends to be long enough and complete enough to be its own post.
I had an ex who has some unexamined assumptions about gender and he shied away from the discussion every time it came up. This was one example.
He wore a kilt in someone's wedding once, and I don't remember if this was this exact same day or some other time, or even if it was two separate conversations, but he did remark once that it wasn't fair that women could wear dresses because of the comfort and "built in air conditioning".
So I shrugged and suggested that he just wear a dress. I'll even go shopping with him to help him pick something out. He immediately switched sides and blustered incoherently about why he couldn't wear a dress - not things like "I would get bullied" or "but I don't actually want to wear dresses I'm just remarking on the social double standard" (that last one being my own excuse - I actually don't like dresses and don't feel comfortable in them but I think people should be able to wear them if they want to) - but something something men don't wear dresses something.
I said that he could wear one around the house. He could go to any of the places that *I* go where men wearing dresses was acceptable. But no, he himself supported the very system that makes it difficult for men to wear dresses.
Another time, in a totally unrelated conversation, he remarked about disliking when gay men "advertise their politics", meaning that they moved in a "feminine" manner so that you could "tell" they were gay. Like, they couldn't just be blokes who happened to like dick, they had to be *flamboyant*. Somehow that was displaying their politics?
We had a very long conversation about that one, where I thought I had gotten through to him about how a person's mannerisms don't necessarily indicate their orientation, how merely existing isn't "advertising politics", and how masculinity was not a blank default but similarly "advertising one's politics" to the exact same degree.
Like, wearing a wedding band tells me as much about your monogamous sexual behaviour in private as my infinity-heart necklace, or you having a picture of your hetero spouse on the desk is "displaying your sexuality in public" to the same degree that having a picture of one's same-sex spouse does.
I don't particularly want to think of my coworkers having sex with their spouses, but telling me that they *have* a spouse comes with a bunch of implications including that they have PIV sex (and if you try to say that I shouldn't apply those assumptions to the statement, try telling a hetero man that him having a wife doesn't imply to you that he has sex and see how defensive he gets at the thought that you think he's celibate).
It's not just a blank slate, it comes with a bunch of assumptions that society just happens to think are appropriate assumptions to have. This is why they make the same assumptions about people in different relationships. When they meet a hetero married couple, they assume they have sex together. So when they meet a gay couple, they similarly assume they have sex together, and because they're freaked out by gay sex, this assumptions bothers them, so suddenly the gay couple is "rubbing my nose in their private gay sex life".
So his heteromasculinity - his way of moving his body through space - is not "blank". It is not devoid of his "politics", making someone who is more "flamboyant" deliberately displaying his own pro-gay-rights politics, or whatever.
The idea that whatever white straight cismen do is "blank" and "default" and anything other than what they do must therefore be some kind of "statement" pisses me right the fuck off.
I would constantly think that I got through to him on things like this, only to have other conversations like the dress one, where he'd seem to be supportive of breaking down gender roles by wishing men could wear skirts only to then support those roles when I suggested that he just go ahead and do it.
Unexamined privilege and unexamined biases. Your statements about what other people do usually reflect more about you than about the other people.
I had an ex who has some unexamined assumptions about gender and he shied away from the discussion every time it came up. This was one example.
He wore a kilt in someone's wedding once, and I don't remember if this was this exact same day or some other time, or even if it was two separate conversations, but he did remark once that it wasn't fair that women could wear dresses because of the comfort and "built in air conditioning".
So I shrugged and suggested that he just wear a dress. I'll even go shopping with him to help him pick something out. He immediately switched sides and blustered incoherently about why he couldn't wear a dress - not things like "I would get bullied" or "but I don't actually want to wear dresses I'm just remarking on the social double standard" (that last one being my own excuse - I actually don't like dresses and don't feel comfortable in them but I think people should be able to wear them if they want to) - but something something men don't wear dresses something.
I said that he could wear one around the house. He could go to any of the places that *I* go where men wearing dresses was acceptable. But no, he himself supported the very system that makes it difficult for men to wear dresses.
Another time, in a totally unrelated conversation, he remarked about disliking when gay men "advertise their politics", meaning that they moved in a "feminine" manner so that you could "tell" they were gay. Like, they couldn't just be blokes who happened to like dick, they had to be *flamboyant*. Somehow that was displaying their politics?
We had a very long conversation about that one, where I thought I had gotten through to him about how a person's mannerisms don't necessarily indicate their orientation, how merely existing isn't "advertising politics", and how masculinity was not a blank default but similarly "advertising one's politics" to the exact same degree.
Like, wearing a wedding band tells me as much about your monogamous sexual behaviour in private as my infinity-heart necklace, or you having a picture of your hetero spouse on the desk is "displaying your sexuality in public" to the same degree that having a picture of one's same-sex spouse does.
I don't particularly want to think of my coworkers having sex with their spouses, but telling me that they *have* a spouse comes with a bunch of implications including that they have PIV sex (and if you try to say that I shouldn't apply those assumptions to the statement, try telling a hetero man that him having a wife doesn't imply to you that he has sex and see how defensive he gets at the thought that you think he's celibate).
It's not just a blank slate, it comes with a bunch of assumptions that society just happens to think are appropriate assumptions to have. This is why they make the same assumptions about people in different relationships. When they meet a hetero married couple, they assume they have sex together. So when they meet a gay couple, they similarly assume they have sex together, and because they're freaked out by gay sex, this assumptions bothers them, so suddenly the gay couple is "rubbing my nose in their private gay sex life".
So his heteromasculinity - his way of moving his body through space - is not "blank". It is not devoid of his "politics", making someone who is more "flamboyant" deliberately displaying his own pro-gay-rights politics, or whatever.
The idea that whatever white straight cismen do is "blank" and "default" and anything other than what they do must therefore be some kind of "statement" pisses me right the fuck off.
I would constantly think that I got through to him on things like this, only to have other conversations like the dress one, where he'd seem to be supportive of breaking down gender roles by wishing men could wear skirts only to then support those roles when I suggested that he just go ahead and do it.
Unexamined privilege and unexamined biases. Your statements about what other people do usually reflect more about you than about the other people.
