She/He/They/Me

by Robyn Ryle

  SEPARATE SPHERES DOCTRINE

  n. /ˈse-p(ə-)rət ˈsfirs ˈdäk-trən/

  The idea that men belong at work, and a woman’s place is in the home.

  The idea of a family wage is another way in which work is shaped by gender. The family wage is the basic idea that an employee should be paid enough to support a family. That might not seem to have anything to do with gender, until you think about who’s generally expected to be the person supporting a family—men. The idea that men need an income large enough to support a family contributes in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to the gender pay gap. Employers generally don’t assume that a woman needs to be paid enough to support a family, even though 42 percent of households with children in the United States are headed by women. In the past, employers would explicitly refuse to hire or promote women, because they believed that this would mean taking jobs away from men and the families who needed their support.

  Partly because of this belief in men as breadwinners, having children will help you in your career in ways that it won’t help women. Your female counterparts will experience a “motherhood penalty”—they’ll make less money over the course of their careers if they have children. But there’s no fatherhood penalty for you. In fact, men with children make more money than men without children. This is due in part to the assumption, conscious or not, that men are the breadwinners for their family. Men need to be paid enough to support a family while women do not.

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  130

  You were born a biological woman but are living as a man. Transgender people like you experience discrimination, harassment, and violence in a wide variety of settings. Trans men may be fired outright from their jobs. Or your employer or fellow employees may act in subtler ways that make your workplace hostile and uncomfortable until you quit. If, for example, as a woman, you worked in the front end of a business, interacting with customers, your employer may move you to the back during or after your transition. Federal laws about discrimination in the workplace don’t explicitly cover transgender individuals like you, so the options available to you for fighting this kind of treatment are limited.

  Under certain circumstances in the workplace, however, you might be accepted as “just one of the guys” and find yourself able to take advantage of some of the privileges that come with masculinity. Some trans men report that after their transition from women to men, they have access to more authority; are seen as more competent; receive more respect and recognition; and find more economic opportunities available to them. In other words, as a trans man, you might be able to cash in on the patriarchal dividend, or the unearned benefits that come with conforming to masculinity. This will be even more likely if you’re stealthy, meaning that you don’t reveal your transgender identity to your coworkers. You’ll be most likely to benefit from the patriarchal dividend if you fit prescribed notions of masculinity—if you’re tall, white, and successfully able to pass as a man.

  If you remain employed at the same company throughout your transition, you might find that clients or coworkers who are unaware of your transition might actually point out how much better you are relative to your former, feminine self. In one example of this dynamic, a woman named Susan worked as an attorney at the same law firm throughout her transition to living as a man named Thomas. Before the transition, a male colleague had recommended that Susan be fired for being “incompetent.” After the transition, that same colleague was pleased to find that Susan had been replaced by a new guy, Thomas, who he praised as “just delightful”—never realizing that Susan and Thomas were the same person. So as a trans man, you might go from being incompetent to delightful when all you’ve changed is your gender.

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  131

  Gender and sexuality aren’t connected in your culture. That means that the ways of making sense of sexuality have to do with something besides who has what genitalia or who acts more feminine or masculine. How could that possibly work?

  What if instead of choosing our sexual partners based on gender, which doesn’t always result in the best sexual compatibility, we all wore colored bracelets that expressed our particular set of likes and dislikes? A yellow bracelet on your left wrist might indicate that you really like performing oral sex, while a yellow bracelet on your right wrist would mean that you like receiving oral sex. A green bracelet would mean you’re really into feet, while a purple bracelet might mean you like superhero role-playing. That’s one way potential way of organizing sexuality that has nothing to do with gender.

  In ancient Greek culture, people might not have worn sex bracelets, but sex was about more than just gender. Among the ancient Greeks, men regularly had sex with other men. But it wouldn’t make sense to call this behavior homosexuality, partly because that word didn’t exist back then. It also wouldn’t make sense to call it homosexuality because for the ancient Greeks, same-gender sexual behaviors didn’t have the same meaning. The word homosexuality carries with it all the particular beliefs that are assumed in contemporary Anglo-European culture. For example, we believe that you have to be either homosexual or heterosexual—you can’t be both at the same time. And we assume that being homosexual is an essential part of your identity, tied to your biology or your psychology.

  The ancient Greeks didn’t associate any of these things with same-gender sexual behavior, so they weren’t really talking about homosexuality at all. In ancient Greece, what was most important was that sex maintain the established social hierarchy, or the ranking of different groups. That meant that it was perfectly okay for men who were Greek citizens to have sex with their male slaves, as long as they were the dominant partner. It was also okay for male Greek citizens to have sex with women as the dominant partner. It wouldn’t be okay for a male slave to be the dominant partner with a male Greek citizen. In this particular way of viewing sexual behavior, gender wasn’t the most important factor for determining what was considered “right” and “wrong” or “normal” and “abnormal.” Correct sexual behavior was behavior that followed the lines of power, which didn’t necessarily overlap with gender.

  Power is one alternative way of organizing sexuality, but it’s just one among many other possibilities.

  To explore a different gender path, TURN BACK TO 2.

  132

  You’re an African American man, and there are many ways in which being African American intersects with your masculinity. For example, from a young age, the behavior of white boys is often justified with phrases like “boys will be boys.” This understanding of masculinity excuses the behavior of white boys and men as something both essential to their identity and beyond their control. It can be used to explain boys being rowdy, but also boys being violent or aggressive toward each other or toward girls.

  Research tells us that in schools, teachers often don’t apply this kind of explanation to the behavior of African American boys. Their behaviors are not seen as excusable, but as a sign of their violent or aggressive nature. In this way, the behavior of African American boys is seen as both more dangerous and more adult. In part, this helps explain why so many African American boys and men become the victims of unjust police violence. Your actions as an African American boy are understood through a much different lens than those of boys of different racial backgrounds. Your race intersects with your gender to shape your experiences in important ways.

  In the workplace, you won’t share in many of the privileges that white men have due to their race and gender. For example, research tells us that in female-dominated occupations, white men experience a glass escalator. If you’re the only white male librarian, you’re likely to get pushed toward administrative positions with more authority and better pay. This isn’t true of African American men in predominantly female occupations. Unlike your white male counterparts, your coworkers, both male and female, will not embrace you and encourage you in ways that make the glass escalator a reality.

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  133

  Y
ou’re an African American woman, and your race, gender, and sexual identity all intersect in important ways. An intersectional approach helps us see how gender and sexuality are often used to construct the boundaries between different racial and ethnic groups. One way to argue that a certain racial or ethnic group is inferior is to point to how their ideas about gender or sexuality are different and, usually, somehow worse than your own. Often this means suggesting that a racial or ethnic group is more sexual than yours.

  From the very beginning of encounters between Europeans and African peoples, sexuality was used to draw distinctions. Early depictions of African women exaggerated the size of their breasts and genitalia and almost always depicted them naked, in order to encourage the view of African women as hypersexual. This hypersexuality was then contrasted with the purity of white, European women and used as evidence in support of arguments about the inferiority of African peoples. Depictions equating dark-skinned women with animals were also common. You can still see this in advertising images today, where many African American women are depicted wearing animal prints or in exotic, “primitive” settings.

  INTERSECTIONAL

  adj. /ˌin-tər-ˈsek-shnəl/

  Relating to the complex way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination—such as racism, sexism, and classism—combine, especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.

  This imagery has real effects on how you’ll be treated as an African American woman. Research shows that the behaviors of African American girls in school are more likely to be seen as sexualized relative to girls of other racial backgrounds. As an African American girl, you’re also more likely to be seen as overly aggressive, domineering, and unfeminine.

  When you do stand up for what you believe in as an African American woman, your voice is likely to go unheard. Women like you have often been at the forefront of important social movements like feminism and the civil rights movement, but your role is often downplayed or ignored. Most recently, the Black Lives Matter movement was started by three African American women. From the first wave of the women’s movement into the twenty-first century, you have to work extra hard as an African American woman to make sure your viewpoint is included.

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  134

  You’re a Latinx woman and that can mean a lot of things. The experiences of Latinx people are as diverse as the experiences of people in any racial and ethnic group. But when you’re a woman of color, much of that diversity of experience gets erased by stereotypes. Stereotypes of Latinx people as illegal immigrants might affect how people interact with you, even if your family has been in the United States for generations or since the very beginning. Especially in today’s atmosphere of increasing hostility toward immigrants, you might face violence, intimidation, and discrimination.

  Other stereotypes will focus on your sexuality. Research tells us that in some sex education classes in high schools, Latinx girls are assumed to already be sexually knowledgeable and sexually active in a way that is not true of their white counterparts. Teachers might assume that, as a Latinx girl, you have a higher risk of teen pregnancy and attribute this risk to aspects of Latinx culture. Your race intersects with your gender to shape your experiences in important ways.

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  135

  You’re a Latinx man. Like African American boys, your behaviors as a child in school are less likely to be excused as just “boys being boys” than they would be if you were a white boy. As a Latinx boy, your rowdy or physical behaviors are not seen as excusable, but as a reflection of machismo, or an emphasis on men and male power that is supposed to be part of Latinx culture. In this way, your behavior as a Latinx boy is seen as both beyond your control and a natural result of your cultural background.

  This idea of machismo may be reinforced by the way men like you are depicted in the media. Latinx men in TV and film are most likely to be portrayed as drug dealers, gang members, or other types of criminals. Even if Latinx men aren’t depicted as out-and-out criminals, they’re likely to be characterized as illegal immigrants. This might mean that even if your family has been in the United States for generations, people will still think of you as a new arrival. In an increasingly xenophobic atmosphere (a culture characterized by hostility toward outsiders), you may find yourself the victim of violence, intimidation, and discrimination. Your actions as a Latinx man are understood through a much different lens than those of men of different racial backgrounds. Your race intersects with your gender to shape your experiences in important ways.

  XENOPHOBIA

  n. /ˌze-nə-ˈfō-bē-ə, ˌzē-/

  Fear and hatred of strangers, outsiders, or people foreign to the aggressor’s culture.

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  136

  As an Asian American man, you’re likely to be subjected to the model minority myth. That is, people will be likely to believe that you’re smart, especially when it comes to subjects like math. When you’re in school, they might ask you for help with homework and not believe you if you tell them that you don’t know the answers. People will hold you and other Asian Americans up as an example to other racial groups as a model of success. They might ask, “Why can’t African American people do was well as Asian Americans?” Because many people believe that Asian Americans have achieved success in the United States, they’re likely to ignore or discount the experiences of more recent Asian American immigrants, who continue to face discrimination and blocked access to economic opportunities.

  Compared to men of other racial and ethnic groups, you might be seen as less masculine. The images of Asian American men that you see in the media often portray you as nerdy and asexual, although this is a shift from the past. During World War II, you would have been perceived as part of the “yellow menace” or “yellow peril” especially if you were Japanese American, but also if you were Chinese American or Korean American. Propaganda from this period depicted Japanese men as animal-like potential rapists, waiting to attack white women. If you were Japanese American during this period, you were likely to be interred in camps and seen as the enemy. The contemporary legacy of this long history of discrimination is that you might be treated as not quite fully American.

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  137

  You’re an Asian American woman. Research suggests that you’re more likely than women of other races and ethnicities to be seen as passive, weak, excessively submissive, and sexually exotic. The images you see of yourself in the media will likely reinforce these ideas. Asian American women are often depicted as prostitutes or victims of sex trafficking. Like your male counterparts, people might also expect you to be smarter and more successful, as part of the model minority myth.

  If you’re an Asian American mother, you might be subjected to a newer stereotype—that of the tiger mother. This stereotype depicts Asian American mothers as strict and demanding, ruthlessly pushing their children toward academic success and often veering into potentially abusive behavior. The tiger mother can be seen as a variation of another stereotype of Asian American women: the dragon lady. The dragon lady is aggressive and opportunistic, usually using sexuality to get what she wants. Both of these stereotypes use gender to draw a boundary between Asian Americans and other groups by portraying Asian American women as aggressive and domineering—a reversal of how gender roles are supposed to be and therefore a sign of your inferiority as a group.

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  138

  You’re an Arab American man. In part because of the way that Arab American men are portrayed in the media, you’ll have to deal with the stereotype of Arab American men as terrorists. In the United States, you may be subject to violence and harassment because of your racial and ethnic background. You’ll find it difficult to travel in and out of the country, getting pulled aside when you go through airport security even when you’re an American citizen.

  As far as gender goes, people might believe that you’re sexist or oppressive toward women, ba
sed on their incorrect assumptions about gender relations in Arab countries. This stereotype is a way in which gender is used to draw distinctions between different groups: those seeking to establish the inferiority of Arab Americans as a group will use this stereotype as evidence for their argument.

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  139

  You’re an Arab American woman. In today’s world, you’re likely to encounter discrimination and suspicion based on your racial and ethnic background and the incorrect belief that Arab Americans are terrorists. This will be true even though many more people in the United States have died at the hands of white men than have been killed by Arab people.

  If you’re also Muslim (not all Arab Americans are Muslim and not all Muslims are Arab American) and you wear a hijab, people might believe that you’re being oppressed by the men in your culture. Whatever form your hijab takes—a head scarf or a more extensive burka that covers your face too—you might face discrimination and hostility due to your style of dress. The meaning that hijab holds for you will probably be very different from the meaning that is assumed by other people. You may wear hijab as a sign of your deep faith or to demonstrate connection to your family, community, and country. You may feel that, rather than being a sign of your oppression as a woman, hijab is a symbol of your empowerment. In hijab, you can escape the objectification that comes from men looking at your body. You feel that hijab allows you to interact with men based on who you are, rather than what you look like. You might point out that other women are the ones who are truly oppressed by their need to appear beautiful and attractive all the time. These issues related to hijab are just one possible way in which your gender might interact with your identity as an Arab American woman.