WARNING! Unsupported statements, rampant generalization, stigmatizing language, and hints of what might just be misandry follow. If you find this disturbing, try some nice Dave Barry columns. WARNING!
Seriously. Ow. Owowow. The ringing.
And in the great gay marriage debate, I keep coming back to this feeling that in the end this whole clusterfuck national debate on my humanity is really a secret, subconscious referendum on whether women can ever be adults, can ever be unescorted, can ever look like something that wasn't designed for the male gaze, can ever possess their own desire. It is also, it seems for many people, a referendum on whether masculinity can exist without the perpetual female child present to confirm its existence.
...
Prop 8 and its ilk are not referenda on me as a gay person or as a woman, although they are the first overtly and the second covertly.
These votes and discussions and debates and decisions are referenda on what we deem an adult human to be or not be.
It really is that simple.
When I was younger, women were not supposed to go anywhere alone. The reasons for this were never specified; it was just an unquestioned social requirement. (Sort of the way dating is never presented as gateway mating ritual, but as something that everyone does and what's wrong with you?) To a certain extent, this still obtains today. I hear young women say that they can't get anyone to go [somewhere, to do something] with them, so they're not going. It makes me want to scream.
(If I did, and then shrieked, "Just go!" I'd get incredulous looks, or, worse, explanations. That stuff is rammed deep.)
Really, you'd get the impression that single women are scary.
"Masculinity" is a fairly narrow suite of traits and behaviors ("machismo" being a subset with added stupidity) usually in this society ascribed to men, with some effort made to exclude exceptions (in much the same way that, say, black musicians who play rock and are not Jimi Hendrix have been disappeared or recategorized). To use the jargon, masculinity is the "unmarked state." That is, if I have a character Lee, who is described as tall, handsome, dark, tough, strong, deep-voiced, and salty of language, you would not without effort cast a woman there, although Bea Arthur would have been perfect.
(I love the name Lee, by the way. It's a name anyone can have.)
"Masculinity" is phobic (that is the word) about "femininity." Really. That's the behavior pattern across the ages. To restrict what women can do, where women can go, what women can wear (you don't for one minute believe "modest dress" has anything to do with $Deity, do you?). To limit women. At the same time, to police the boundaries of "manliness." Because "womanliness" is apparently a thing of terror and a force capable of destroying the planet if not kept controlled. You know, like the atom. In this scheme, gay men are traitors and fifth-columnists who want to turn everyone into women (it never occurs to people who believe this sort of thing that that would defeat the purpose). (Do not get me started on conservative gay men. Really.)
"Femininity" is not nearly as phobic about "masculinity." Just deeply mistrustful, which may be a mistake. It means that women have accepted the limitations and try to police the "womanliness" boundaries, and every so often territory changes hands. There's a lot of inertia involved in the gender role thing, or Camille Paglia and Phyllis Schlafly wouldn't exist.
What we call Western Civilization has ameliorated some of this, but not nearly enough.
Let me be realistic here for a second: Women (and anyone perceived as woman-like) are not much of a threat to men. "Femininity" is not much of a threat to "masculinity." "Womanliness" is not a threat to "manliness." The threat aspect is in reverse. (Collective action does change things, but many people won't do collective action for anything short of alien invasion.) Hence the tendency to buddy up that I noted above.
But more women are standing on their own feet. That means more women are adult humans, at least to themselves. Maybe we need a Howard Beale moment; maybe we should rear back and yell "I'm an adult human, and I'm not gonna take that anymore!" the next time we have to deal with an infantilizer.
Yeah, right.
(No, I didn't get to the male gaze or the desires question. That wants research. But the male gaze thing lessens as one ages. The male gaze can't see gray hair.)
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