We are all, men and women, living in societies that impose upon us norms
of appearances (men and women are equally victim of the false expectation –
in terms of desires, appearance, skills and so on) imposed on us all by
sexual stereotipycak identities (I remember when I was a child very kin
about roller-skatinga nd racing , my antie strongly compaining to my father
that he was bringing me up as a boy with unrestricted freedom, so in that
case it was not my father imposing on me a female normative but a
reactionary female member of the family who did not wish me to differ from
the expected behaviour; this antie also complained that, yes, I made could
skate but that I could not thread a needle and saw a dress: a thing that
actually I managed to learn, after my father , not my mother, showed me how
to do it).
Of course you perceive your partner as different, and this because one is
taught that one must pose one’s sentimental interests and sexual drives
into a subject that is dissimilar from one’s own (this is imposed at an
early stage in life by unsubtle heterosexual normatives that leave no guilt-
free space into our notions of what constitute gender differences and what
we must/are expected to be). Such impositions are placed on us since the
first moment we were imposed names since our nakedness was accordingly
categorized when we were first dressed up after we were born.
These separations occur already in the hospital nest-rooms where the new
born girls and the new born boys are set either in different rows or under
differing blankets (blue and pink) or dressed up in different colours (blue
and pink, again) or branded by bracelets displaying name and sex. And then,
in the short space of a few years, the taboos towards one’s parents
different sexes are already established. Beyond that, what do we really
know about gender? At the age of three four the damage and the partition
is already consolidated and whatever differs from those categories is
gained through a painful process of recognition, implying guilt and
inability at communicating one’s feelings.
It is true that one tends to look for something unproblematic in the choice
of one’s partner , and stereotypes are unproblematic in the sense that they
do not require the effort of re-investigate our stiffed notions. More and
more men, I hope, are looking into their partners for a real companion who,
although different in principle, might want to assimilate one’s mind into
the other and understand and share one’s partners tastes and sentiments and
attitudes. It is nothing to do with changing sex, it is a matter of
understanding the other sex and go towards him/her, crossing the boundaries.
In a way, we are all segregated into these stereotypes which prevent
intercultural exchanges (women’s and the men’s cultures scattered into
those of the different races, ages, and vocations), it is like living all
our lives into cells, so we lead the lives of the recluse.
But nobody as intervened as yet to explain if in their own couples they
have the ability to be “compassionate” and therefore trans-sexual (in the
sense of going beyond all the divisions spoken about by feminist thinkers
and political groups). But this is not only a gender issue, it is a social
and anthropological one, as we all know and it will take a few more
centuries to really develop into something else (not necessarily better, I
fear).
Erminia
On Mon, 17 Dec 2001 01:35:38 -0000, mindfight <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Isn't, the
>> mum, but a chain of your own continuum?
>
>~~ in an ideal case, yes.... but i drink the milk of nestlé, my mother died
>while giving birth and i was born with defects due to her severe heroin
>abuse...well not really,, i agree with your point, but i still think that
>the woman i share my life with is different to me and i am different to
>her - it would be terrible if we we're indifferent to each other, wouldn't
>it?
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Erminia Passannanti" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2001 12:37 AM
>Subject: Re: Is this real. . .(your Madonna)
>
>
>> On Sat, 15 Dec 2001 16:31:22 -0800, passermin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> >--- mindfight <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >> I feel you are being
>> >> fucked up by nationalist states - you men
>> >>
>> >> ~~~but brought up by women??
>> >
>>
>>
>> Isn't, the mum, your Madonna, the one that first would bend in reverence
>> towards your small lying naked body to kiss in adoration your wounded
>> navel, you scar?
>> Isn't, the mum, the one that was feeding your from her
>> warm blistered nipple, the one that would pose her
>> lips one you small heads, while you were sucking from
>> her breast your first vitality, her milk?
>> Isn't the mum the one that you will have to care of
>> in the same way when she will get old and in need to
>> be fed and washed and assisted in walking, the one
>> that will need you to became her mother, her father
>> and help her through the process of death? Isn't, the
>> mum, but a chain of your own continuum?
>>
>> erminia
>> >
>>
>>
|