Books, their covers and the consequences

Hugo's got a post up about blogging and photos, the gist of which is that since women are so often judged more on physical appearances, how does this affect female bloggers who do --and don't-- post photos of themselves on their blogs?  But I'll leave that question to his blog, and take off on another tangent inspired by this commentator that physical appearance does affect our life experience and how others react to us, I'll say a few things about us books and our covers.  And the consequences.  And why I've made the cover choices I've made.

I have to start with an admission.  I look pretty conventional. I'll even go a step further.  I can look pretty conventionally "sweet" and "girlish".  I can look other ways, if I try.  As an undergrad I cut my hair short and looked like a 12 year old boy, which I also liked, but generally the past few years I've been going for the feminine.  My parents, Ozzie and Harriet, love this.  They were quite uncomfortable with the boy-look and during those years our relationship was strained.  My mother called me "a f--ing dyke".  It didn't help that I also came out as bi about the same time. 

The truth is I honestly enjoy and feel comfortable with both looks and, at heart, I don't really understand why society doesn't as well. (It's like when I was little; I had Barbies and I loved My Little Ponies but I also liked my brother's Matchbox cars and playing with He-man (and his tiger) with the boys at school.  I didn't think I should have to choose.)  But each "look" has baggage.  It either opens doors or closes them.  This is probably going to really upset some of my feminist friends but here goes: As important as I think the cause is, feminism and/or gender bending isn't the main one I chose to fight in this lifetime. I chose international politics, war, peace, imperialism and the like. I like a little gender-bending on the side but it's not my main dish.

When I went to Colombia, gender bending was the last thing on my mind.  Not that it would've been so foreign, especially in certain circles within the big cities, but out in the rural countryside, dealing with armed groups composed essentially of kids whose respective worlds are just as small to them as any redneck's from rural north Florida, I felt I needed all the sway and credibility I could get in order to do my job right.  That included looking conventionally feminine and yes, it even including doing a little flirting at times when convenient (because their other targets would be 13 year old girls, for example, and how is she supposed to say no to a horny teenage boy with an assault rifle?) Conventional looks and behavior lended security to me and subsequently to those I accompanied in that situation.  I do not doubt I made the right choice.  You may disagree.

That said, I think gender-bending is important and even when doing my feminine look I still try to work a bit of it in there.  I rarely wear bras and I haven't shaved for ten years.  I have lots of hair under my arms and some on my legs.  I still show off my legs and I'd never give up tank tops.  I think it's both normal and feminine and I would never be with anyone, male or female, who didn't agree. (GIL is adamant about this and thinks its sexy).  Still, it's easier for me to do this here (in a progressive college town) or even in rural Colombia (where its actually not that uncommon for women not to shave) as opposed to in, say, Miami, for example (where I briefly gave in to the pressure, got razor burn, cursed myself for being a wimp and immediately gave it up again).

But even here in the US, I use the feminine (albeit braless and hairy) look to my advantage, but in a different way.  Here I sit in my rather conservative political science classrooms in my very conventionally male-dominated field (International Relations) and I have a lot of things to balance.  I was one of only three incoming women in my program.  I'm already going to be dismissed as a dreamy idealist because I'm not in the military or going to work for the State department and I talk openly about "human rights advocacy" and "NGOs" (non-governmental organizations).  Most of my professors' ideas of feminist IR centers around a book called Faking It, which is too theoretically complex to be a good introduction to the field for my fellow (mostly male) students and therefore is easily dismissed as "fluff" leaving them thinking that feminist IR is entertaining but not to be taken too seriously and me angry and bitter that it went so completely over their heads.  Then I have to deal with the perception that feminism is Madeleine Albright (no essential changes to an oppressive system just replace "male" with "female" and voila).  All these things are going on before I ever even open my mouth.

I want to be heard. 

I have a lot to say.  I know that by flying under the radar I can get in closer to my opponent.  I like to catch people off guard. Everything about how I look says status quo conventionality.  But what I actually say is another story.  I want the focus to be on my words, not on how I look.  I can't always control that but I do what I can.

This technique works for me in some situations.  In Colombia.  In grad school.  I know how to play the game.  I have to.  Like the bumper sticker says "I speak fluent patriarchy".  Does that mean I'm a sellout?  Maybe.  But I think it means I'm more effective.  I'm not saying everyone should use this tactic.  In fact, I think it would do the cause harm if everyone did.  We need a variety of tactics in our repertoire to use in the slow dismantling of patriarchy.  This one is the one I choose.

FeministCarnival6

NOTE: For a funny version along the same lines as this, check out Sarah Vowell's monologue on last week's This American Life.  It's great.

Comments

[amy]

I think you're onto something here. I've only read the beginning of a fairly recent book, "Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture," in which these two authors have already attacked this notion of being either/or. They wonder by chapter two (maybe three) why no one promotes the idea of temperance, of a balance, of coming at the issues from something of a middle ground since the counter is either dismissed or absorbed. Though these are abstract notions, I recognize these ideas in my own life, and the middle road, the tempered "safer" one affords me many more opportunities than the extreme ever has.

The extreme "counter" or radical road is more ego-charged and may be funner in moments, but it's less productive. In grad school, I presented myself as the extreme dyke artist type, who only sought fringe culture and scoffed at those who weren't extreme enough. I missed many opportunities this way. Now, I'm a milder, more worldly version of that woman, and I frequent circles I would not have been invited into before. There, my ideas are at least listened to and considered.

It's one thing to stand outside of an institution and wave a sign; it's another to be within and not embrace it wholly, but tweak and turn the knobs therein. The effects of the latter efforts are far more lasting, in my opinion. "Sellout" is only one side of a very limited dualistic lens that America seems to be squeezing itself into. The middle-of-the-road folks, the ones who don't shackle themselves to either side, are going to shatter that lens, because in actually (& perhaps ironically after all), we are the ones who ultimately don't fit and may finally bring attention to the complexities of a world glossed far too simply.

[barb]

Thanks for the book tip. I'm looking to see if my library has it. I still want to back up from saying this is the best way to fight the fight, however, for a coupla reasons. One is because I have a good friend who uses the opposite approach, in a way. He doesn't do it with looks, though, he's an older white male. He does it with his arguments. He uses these really radical arguments that he knows no one's gonna agree with (at least no one on the city commission he's making his case to) with the theory that you ask for a mile and they give you an inch. He comes off looking like a clown a lot of the time (which is his intent; he's a funny guy) but he does admit sometimes it becomes an ego-trip.

The other reason, though, is because I think it's useful to keep pushing the horizon of possibilities. I think the more we keep that horizon open and visible, we familiarize it, even to those who are very much centered within the current culture. I don't know if that explains what I mean very well or not. I just mean that things that seem very far away and radical to dominant society at one point in time, eventually come closer and almost imperceptibly shift from the horizon to the center. Like women's sufferage, for example. People thought that was really crazy at one point.

I wouldn't want to be the old lady in the movie Iron Jawed Angels, who argued for example, that the sufferagists should restrain their calls for votes for women because they'd be dismissed as radicals too easily.

I don't know if there's a hard and fast rule about it one way or another... but it's something to think about.

Thanks for the comment!

[Hugo]

Great post, Barb -- I'm linking to it.

[kate.d.]

hey there - found you through hugo - nice post. i think you underestimate how brave it is for a woman (and thus for you!) to refuse to shave. i mean, i know i can't do it! so good on you for thumbing your nose at that preposterous gender rule.