Let's talk about gender (stereotypes)

I have not worn a dress or a skirt in 5 years. I occasionally wear high heels because I like them and I keep my hair medium-long and dyed. I remember countless moments where people tried to push me into the gender "mould" mostly during childhood. It worked for a while because shame is stronger than will.

Bea being pushed into the mould - part 1

I was at home and an acquaintance came to visit. I was wearing a dress and, as a child, I was playing around the house careless of my dress. The acquaintance tells me that my "bird" is showing. What bird? Do we have a bird in the house? What? I was so confused. My mother told me to just arrange my dress and later she explained what the acquaintance meant. My mother never told me to cover up. She understood I was a child playing at home. The acquaintance told me to cover up. That episode haunts me to this day.

My mother made the whole concept of genitalia sound like such a normal part of my body that I really couldn't grasp what the problem was. I say 10/10 for her because she wasn't ashamed nor scared to talk about that when it was the right time to.

Gender stereotypes were so NOT a part of my education. I didn't play with dolls, nor with cars. I played with stuffed animals. I wore pink because most girl's clothes were pink, but I also had clothes in many other colours. My favourite outfit was an orange T-Shirt and a ‘trouser-skirt’.

Bea being pushed into the mould - part 2

As a child, my mother decided that it's better for me to have short hair. I don't have to go through untangling and it's easier to manage. I didn't really care. I didn't have earrings either so no sign of "girlhood". That's how I went to kindergarten. The first question from the other kids was "are you a little boy or a little girl?". Excuse me, but why did it matter? I went home very sad and told my mother that I want to grow my hair and wear earrings. Kids are so mean. Now I like my hair medium - not too short, not too long, but I don't wear earrings anymore.

In the summer between the 5th and 6th grade, I started transitioning from a child to a preteen and finally joined my family's musical taste (more or less). I discovered Joan Jett who is the most badass woman on this entire planet for me. At some point, I found out that she never ever wore dresses. That was THE REVELATION. She's such a strong woman, a "manly" woman (to use a stereotype), and she can be so feminine in so many ways. That was it. Right then and there I decided to never wear a dress again.

Bea being pushed into the mould - part 3

I did not even think about wearing a dress since "the revelation" until the 8th grade. My French teacher was in the mood to chit chat instead of teaching and she decided to pick on me. "I hope that at least at the end of the school party [kind of a prom] I'll see you in a dress. You're a woman, you need to show off your body." She kept that talk going on other occasions too, adding that she hopes it's not going to be a black dress. She hated black and only wore extremely bright colours. I was so annoyed, I wore a brown/brick-red dress. So uncomfortable. I will only wear one more dress in this lifetime and it will be a wedding dress. At my end of the high-school prom, I wore some beautiful overalls that helped me "show off my body" much better than a dress ever could and I also had pockets. Never again am I wearing fancy dresses.

There are countless gender stereotypes for men too. They shouldn't colour their hair, wear any kind of make-up (not even concealer) and most importantly they should never ever show their emotions. They must be tough and mean. Bullshit.

The problem is that gender stereotypes are so well anchored into our culture. In folk stories and fairy tales, there's always a princess who needs to be saved and a prince that saves her. Women are often the prize for the young man who saves the day. The man is the big hero, no pressure. These stories are absolutely creepy (I’ll tell you more about this in another article). I never liked fairy tales and honestly don't think they should be read to very small children. My mother preferred to tell me about her childhood and youth or read to me from child's magazines. Later in life, I read some fairy tales and, really, they're not for kids. They used to be centuries ago when we didn't know any better, but now there are so many other stories for children that fairy tales should simply become case studies.

The past also created the right ground for these stereotypes to root and grow. Women had to be kept safe. They were the only hope for Sapiens to procreate. Predators and dangerous diseases were everywhere. Children needed their mother for sustenance. This was not misogynistic at all, I'd say. Actually it was pretty much a matriarchy. However, after some time people started to believe that men were superior to women and so we drifted onto patriarchy. In the late 1700s, women started making their voices heard and that's how we got feminism. A very nice movement aiming to show that women are not inferior to men, but we just have a different set of qualities and a different biological build. Women and men are complementary. But before we could get to that conclusion we collected a huge set of stereotypes.

Fighting these stereotypes is not easy. Most of them are planted into our brains in childhood when we can't really filter them in any way. It takes years for us to identify them and start working on the effects they had on how we think and act. If we ever identify them. Then, after we've healed the past, we need to learn how to deal with the present and future. Some people can only see men and women through the stereotypical mould. If you don't fit, something's wrong with you, so they start criticising and calling names because they don't know how else to react. These people don't know what acceptance means and the effect is definitely painful. We can't fix them either, the same way they can't fix us. We can only explain some things to them and go on. If we were all to get stuck on everyone that insults us, we would never go forward. I think there is not much we can do for people who already have the stereotypical seeds in them (although we might make some of them change their minds and that's an awesome feeling). Instead, we need to be careful with the next generations. We need to teach kindness and inclusion, not stereotypes and hate.

Our identity is who we are. Our sex, gender, sexual orientation, colour, religion, political belief, nationality etc are all parts of our identity. There's no predefined set of characteristics that makes you - you and me - me. Each of us is a puzzle of all the different characteristics that we have. Women are not the same as men, straight and LGBTQ+ people are not the same, white and BAME communities are not the same, Catholics and Buddhists are not the same, Democrats and Republicans are not the same, Romanians and British people are not the same. And it's the best thing that could happen to us. Everyone has a different background. Everyone is a puzzle of many different cultures. We are different and that means we have something to learn from each and every person around us. Oh, you're a man and you played with dolls and sew them clothes - tell me, how did you learn to sew? Oh you're a woman and you like cars - tell me, what is the history of cars?

My opinion is that we should start learning the clear distinction between sex and gender. Our sex is a set of biological factors like hormones, organs etc. Our gender is a set of social and cultural factors. A doctor prescribing you medicine needs to know your sex, while no one should be concerned about your gender.

I couldn’t think of an ending that’s powerful enough so I will leave you with some lyrics:

And she don't need

Advice that they send to her

She's happy with the way she looks

She's happy with her gender

And they love each other so

Androgynous

Closer than you know

Love each other so

Androgynous