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Poznate slaven citat Simone de Beauvoir, da se ženska ne rodi kot ženska, ampak to šele postane? Dobivam občutek, da je del družbe že prerastel to mišljenje, sploh tisti, ki je obseden z über-PC (politically correct) govorico (in zaradi katerega se številnim izmed nas pogostokrat obrača). Vse odkar je Bruce Jenner postal(a) Caitlyn Jenner in še Applova Siri opozarja, da je Caitlyn ženskega spola pa se je svetu sploh zmešalo.
Omenjena tranzicija se ni dotaknila le neenakosti med spoloma, temveč je zastavila pomembno vprašanje: kaj v današnjem času pomeni biti ženska? Kakorkoli jo namreč opredelimo, se ne moremo izogniti temu, da nekoga užalimo. Če žensko opredelimo po zunanjem izgledu glede na nek standard, ki ga sezonsko vsiljujejo mediji, smo seksisti; če se ženska ne brije pod pazduho in ne skrbi za zunanjo podobo, se vede ‘neženstveno’ in velja za možačo. Če jo definiramo kot osebo, ki lahko rodi potomce, izključimo tiste ženske, ki ne morejo zanositi ali pa se odločijo za posvojitev. Včasih ženske obsojamo, če kažejo preveč čustev ali pa jih označujemo kot brezčutne, če jih kažejo premalo. Zgražamo se nad tistimi, ki se odločijo biti gospodinje (češ, za to se pa sufražetke že niso borile!) niti ne razumemo tistih redkih, samozadostnih žensk, ki kariero postavljajo pred tradicionalno vlogo varuhinje domačega ognjišča.
Ob diskutiranju teh poant je moj fant pripomnil, da tudi moškega ne moremo definirati po bioloških, kulturnih, idr. kriterijih. Dam mu povsem prav. Moški so v isti meri (ali še celo bolj) podvrženi stereotipom. Če nič drugega, ima trikrat več moških kot žensk operacijo prilagodbe spola (gender reassignment surgery), to pa zagotovo ne zato, ker se ženskam godi tako dobro. Še vedno je bolj sprejemljivo, da ženske oponašajo moško vedenje in karakteristike kot pa obratno. Kot pravi Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie v enem boljših govorov na TED-u:
We define masculinity in a very narrow way, masculinity becomes this hard, small cage and we put boys inside the cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear (…), of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves. (…) What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity with money? What if the attitude was not ‘the boy has to pay’ but rather ‘whoever has more should pay’? (…) The more ‘hard-man’ the man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.
Podobno velja za ženske, ki jih vzgajamo za polarno nasprotje moškega. Vendar pa žensk ne pomanjšuje in kategorizira samo družba, temveč to počnemo same od sebe in še posebej medsebojno. Resnično – če smo se razvili kot družba in se je položaj žensk izboljšal v zadnjih nekaj desetletjih, se naši koncepti o spolu zagotovo niso.
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise, you will threaten the man.’ If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, you have to pretend that you’re not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him. (…) We teach females that in relationships, compromise is what women do. We raise girls to see each other as competitors (…) for the attention of men.
Eden bolj vročih odzivov na zgoraj omenjeno transseksualno sago zavzema pozicijo, da transseksualnci ne smejo imeti pravice definirati, kaj pomeni biti ženska:
People who haven’t lived their whole lives as women, whether Ms. Jenner or Mr. Summers, shouldn’t get to define us. That’s something men have been doing for much too long. And as much as I recognize and endorse the right of men to throw off the mantle of maleness, they cannot stake their claim to dignity as transgender people by trampling on mine as a woman.
Their truth is not my truth. Their female identities are not my female identity. They haven’t traveled through the world as women and been shaped by all that this entails. They haven’t suffered through business meetings with men talking to their breasts or woken up after sex terrified they’d forgotten to take their birth control pills the day before. They haven’t had to cope with the onset of their periods in the middle of a crowded subway, the humiliation of discovering that their male work partners’ checks were far larger than theirs, or the fear of being too weak to ward off rapists. (…)
The “I was born in the wrong body” rhetoric favored by other trans people doesn’t work any better and is just as offensive, reducing us to our collective breasts and vaginas. Imagine the reaction if a young white man suddenly declared that he was trapped in the wrong body and, after using chemicals to change his skin pigmentation and crocheting his hair into twists, expected to be embraced by the black community.
… kar pa spet zveni kot poveličevanje (večinoma neprijetnih) izkušenj žensk. Menim, da ne bi smeli pristati na opredeljevanje spolov glede na neprijetne izkušnje, ki se tipično pojavljajo pri predstavnikih ene ali druge skupine.
Po vsem tem sem prišla do naslednjega zaključka: vse dokler nam je ob rojstvu določen spol, bodo neobhodno obstajale velike osebne stiske glede spola, žal pa jim ne bo prizanešeno niti z idiotskimi komentarji. Podobno kot ima (oziroma naj bi imel) vsakdo pravico do svobodne izbire poklica, veroizpovedi, partnerja, načina smrti in reprodukcije (vse so vsaj za moje pojme neločljivo povezane z nedotakljivostjo človekove zasebnosti in življenja), je povsem stvar posameznika, ali se opredeli kot moški ali ženska. In, seveda, da si ustrezno prikroji družbene definicije moški/ženska.
Sep 15, 2015