[Senior Thesis] The Valkyries

[kouject]

Hello gracious members of the internet!

Serey's in her final year of college as a studio art major. Serey wants to graduate with honors, very much. Help Serey out with her thesis please? :D;;;

My project is a series of dressforms that address gender identity and how we as people view ourselves in relation to gender. Do you see your gender stereotypes as a constant burden? Or do you overcome those somehow? Does your gender add to your identity, subtract from it, or is it just neutral? You don't have to answer these questions specifically. Just write whatever comes to mind. Use this as catharsis if necessary, or a personal exercise. BUT BE WARNED, IF THINGS HEAD IN A DIRECTION I DO NOT LIKE (i.e.: arguments that are derogatory towards another person's opinion, things that are just hurtful and not constructive), I WILL LOCK THE THREAD AND TURN ON SCREENED COMMENTS. DO NOT THINK I WON'T. That being said, if there is something you'd like to tell me, but don't feel comfortable posting it, please let me know and I can give you a place to email your piece. :3

Well, I'm not exactly looking for ranting per se, but more how you view yourself in relation to gender. :3 Like if you feel more empowered by being female/not being feminine/acting feminine or masculine/etc. These are just some ideas I thought up just now. XD; But that doesn't mean that negative things are undesirable! This is just supposed to be more scholarly and (to be honest) positive.

I was ranting to a friend the other day about how I was sick and tired of seeing negative contemporary art, screaming about how the world sucks. I'm tired of hearing the world sucks. I want to find something good somewhere and show people that through a subject that most consider ugly (gender separation, prejudice, gender bias, gender expectations), something bold and beautiful can come through by just expressing yourself and saying, 'hey world, this is me! Screw you if you don't like it, because I'm cool with it! ♥'

...that's the mission statement, at least. ._.;; Idealistic? Of course. Who do you think I am? XDDD

And that's that! With the theme and general outline in mind, go crazy! Post with your journal, RP journal, Anonymously, whatever! I'm really excited to see what you guys have to say!

Comments

[daoutlaw.livejournal.com]

First, I think.

I don't see being a guy being burden. Granted there are times that being a guy does cause double standards to come out and such but overall it doesn't feel that bad. I guess in terms of overcoming 'burdens' as you put it I try to balance out. On one hand I am a die hard sports fan *GO CHARGERS* who likes snowboarding and simply put, a fucking idiot. On the other hand, I can sew and appreciate art among other things that may seem out of place for being a male. As it comes to identifying myself, it's mostly neutral. It's what I do as a human being that creates my identity, not my penis.

I hope that answered your questions. Anymore questions, lemme know in any form.

[daoutlaw.livejournal.com]

by 'burden' I mean sterotype, to settle a confusion and the fact that my LJ lacks EDIT function.

[stopcounting.livejournal.com]

Being a girl catches me off guard sometimes. I'll be sitting around, minding my own business and maybe playing some Halo or doing some math homework, and all of a sudden, bam! Ovaries! Totally blindsided me!

Seriously, though, that's pretty much what it's like. I don't think of myself as any gender but I don't not think of myself as any gender...it doesn't enter my thoughts much at all until my attention is drawn to it, which unfortunately happens quite a bit.

Usually it's not anything directly critical that reminds me I'm a girl, but there's an element of exclusion to studying predominantly male fields. People either think I'm bad at math and science because I'm a girl, or, more frequently, think I must be REALLY SUPER good at it to have stuck with it despite being a girl. Either way, there's kind of an unspoken "how did she get here? SHIT hide the porn!!" that sometimes makes me feel a bit unwelcome.

I should point out that I'm talking from the perspective of an Asian girl, so I get a different set of "what you're supposed to be"s than I would if I were a different race. I find that being Asian's often used as an excuse to make up for my nerdly traits (and I make light of it myself to defuse uncomfortable situations, though I know I shouldn't and I chastise myself afterwards). "What the hell!? You're a girl! You're not supposed to be good at this!" "I'm Asian." "Ohh, right." etc etc etc.

[roseargent.livejournal.com]

3 weeks out of four, I love being female. I love having curves. I love playing with clothes and makeup and my hair.

But, the clothes and styles of makeup I love are probably not what most people would consider traditionally feminine--I love punk fashion, and goth fashion. Buckles! Extraneous zippers! I love wearing my hair up so the shaved sides of my head show. ♥ I have a lot of tattoos, I curse like a sailor, I wear big stompy boots with ballgowns.

It's not a rebellion against being feminine, though, it's just the way I express my femininity--a mix of pretty and tough. Same reason I chose "Rose" for my net-name all those years ago--the juxtaposition of beauty and danger (petals and thorns) has always been fascinating and appealing to me.

There's nothing super-recent in my LJ gallery, I think the most recent is a year or so old, but there's lots of pics of me and my take on fashion in there, nonetheless. ^^ Just make sure you're logged in to an account I have friended, and 'ware the partial female nudity. ^^;

[i-am-confusion.livejournal.com]

I have always been very much female, not necesarilly in my dress, but certainly in my thought patterns. I buy in to some of the stereotypes. Not so much the academic ones, but I'm the girl that will ask random guys to help her carry things.

[blindcreator.livejournal.com]

I totally just talked about gender in the other lj post. lol Totally didn't catch this one.

When it comes to my personal experience I consciously view my gender as male. I have only been mistaken as female once. I don't remember the situation or what I looked like that day. Who knows why.

I don't feel that I have a feminine side and since I'm not female I don't have those obligations to prove my gender through 'proper' dress or grooming. I let my facial hair grow for a few days, I don't need to shave any other part of my body. I don't feel that my haircut identifies my gender either way. I almost exclusively wear t-shirts and pants. Neither being extremely fitted or manufactured to 'not' fit. (I know of the problems females have with clothes and waist-hip measurements.)

I admire (maybe envy a little) those who feel free enough to mess with gender. Crossdressers, Drag Kings/Queens, Genderfuckers, Crossplayers, etc. (I just hit a brick wall. *goes to sleep* Maybe I'll come back to this later.)

Toooooo long

[aqua-karen.livejournal.com]

I tend to think of myself as fairly gender-neutral, although I'm female. I'm married to another woman, and she used to call me her "husband" or "hubby" before I realized something about it slightly bothered me, and we compromised on "wibby" as a nickname, wife/hubby. In some ways, I do tend to be masculine, moreso than she is.

I occasionally wear foundation makeup and powder to cover skin problems, but otherwise I probably wear makeup 4 or 5 times in a year. I recently had my hair colored and done up, and it was actually pretty fun, but my favorite hairdo has been when I've had it shaved close to the head (an inch or less) and I haven't returned to that because of comments from others, assumptions people have made (true or not), and some worry that it appears 'unprofessional' for someone my age.

I love painting my fingernails and toenails but fail to upkeep them, so they wind up chipped within a day and the color is taken off then. I usually wear sandals, jeans and a t-shirt for casual wear.

There's a quote from an indie comic that really resonated with me a long time ago about the ladies' aisles at a grocery store, the main character screaming at the products "I'm not fucking deformed!" While the language was a little strong, I did feel the tone reflected my view. I felt a certain pressure that as a woman, I had to change myself in ways men didn't have to (although they could, and then be labeled 'metrosexual') or else be considered gross and inappropriate, even though many of these changes are modern constructs and 100 years ago it was something else that absolutely had to be done or a woman was hideous. It's odd, like the reverse of nature, where males usually are the decorated ones. Even now, despite what I'm most comfortable with, I feel I have to dress in feminine styles and wear clothing that doesn't suit me quite as well for work, interiews, etc.

I do 'woman' pretty well, and I have enough aspects of 'man' that I sometimes think I could pass as that if it weren't for the giant breasts and girly face. I am kind of delicate sometimes, and I'm rather emotionally sensitive. I've done the infamous female "If you knew me, you'd know why I'm mad" thing. But I'm also usually the first one charging into a tense or dangerous situation IRL, and something in the back of my head registers as my being responsible for things, I guess something I interpret culturally as a "male" responsibility. (Mostly health situations here, also a car accident, and once a physical confrontation that didn't escalate too far.)

I guess, to put a long thing short, I feel like I'm both but at different times, and I wish I could express my male self a little more publically. I admire grace and beauty, but I don't connect those ideals with myself (aside from pretty icons and the like.) I feel lucky to live in a time when I can express myself as I do, and I hope that as time proceeds, maybe I can get that haircut again (although after a certain age it becomes professional again for some reason, I don't know.)

A friend of mine recently began gender reorientation from male to female. Since it's her story, I can't talk about it much, but I know how many years she's struggled with the line between her public identity and herself, and I'm so happy for her to be making this change, even if the hormones she's on are apparently miserable business for now. I find it's easy for me to change my thoughts of her from years of 'him' in part because I knew she had a female inner self for these years, but in part because her behaviors are a bit like mine, sort of a blend. A tiny part of me is jealous, but enough of me is a girl that I wouldn't want surgery or hormone treatments to express the male half more clearly. I still like being a girl sometimes.

I wish we all had dials and could switch back and forth at will. That would be the best thing ever.

Re: Toooooo long

[humancyclopedia.livejournal.com]

Soooo... I've been through 3 days of "diversity training, part II" the last 3 days for my job at ORL, and if you want to give me a call, I can give you all sorts of theories, buzzwords, identity questions, and other crap that they passed out. Really, it is a whole binder's worth of stuff, and you are quite welcome to it. Trust me, between this year and last year, it will be like reading a book for research. Anyways if you want stuff, shoot me an email at dogman911@gmail.com

[jaysummers.livejournal.com]

So...odd question. YOu talk about dressforms and being female/not being feminine etc. What about being male/not being masculine, like with myself?

I'll happily talk about it, but I don't wanna clutter this entry with stuff that won't help your thesis. :P

[little-serenity.livejournal.com]

Sure! Anything helps if it has to do with gender identity! <333

[jaysummers.livejournal.com]

Haha, alrighty. Well, I'm sleepy, but let's see how this goes...

I really don't define myself as "feminine" or "masculine." Not really. I know I have quite a bit of both, really, but due to the way society views the boundaries between men and women, I'm often seen as more feminine than anything else. It's a little funny, women are starting to be accepted when they display masculine traits or characteristics in dress...they can wear pants, wear their hair short, and women are making more of a presence in the world of competitive sports. Women hold jobs and can even be the primary breadwinner for a family, and none of this is looked at as odd. But a man who enjoys theater, who cleans and cooks, who is more in touch with his emotions and tends to be a little extra-sensitive, who would rather spend his life raising his children than working...there's still something seen in him that's not quite right, and to express such classically feminine traits is to be looked down on by society in general.

So with that in mind, I find that while I do enjoy a good romance novel, or sing along to Rent, or squee over fangirlish things in Anime, and don't like football, I also don't like to cook or clean (though I will if pressed), I like porn and going to strip clubs, and feel very awkward around babies. I see myself as a man, but as I like to say to others, I'm the "gayest straight man in the world."

As another amusing thought...I always think it's odd that dresses are seen as "feminine," and that any man wearing a dress would be seem as a little off, when the kilt is perfectly acceptable in scotland.

So I guess it's an issue of this: the traits that define us, gender wise, are a local thing, and what is seen as masculine to us may be feminine to another society, or vice versa. So yeah...I identify as a man, but I have the sinking suspicion that I'll in part take up the role of the "woman" in any relationship I enter just as they take the role of the "man."

anyways, I'm sleepy, so hopefully that made sense.

[neldluva.livejournal.com]

Well, I quite like being a girl, in general. There are some things that aren't as nice, like cramps or bad hair days or getting makeup to work or people who think you should act a certain way just because you have ovaries, but overall it's pretty fun! I've read an article or two on the differences between the way men and women think, mostly related to social networking, and that's what I like about being female. The downside of social networking/forming groups is the formation of cliques or people you just plain don't like but can't seem to get rid of, but the group forming itself is fun. I see it as kind of forming a clan of sisterhood, and that's really cool. And so far, I haven't bumped into many people who are like, "OMG why are you doing that you're a girl!!1one!!" I just kind of do my own thing, and it happens to be feminine, whatever my definition of feminine is.

PS: I totally love your Valkyrie idea. Just thought you should know.

[wigglykittens.livejournal.com]

Well. I do think of myself as very much female, so it fucks me up when people ascribe either things that are "female" but not me to me and then decide I'm less female, or vice versa. Although I don't always want my "femaleness" to enter into my interactions with people, or at least not femaleness as it often gets translated in this culture, especially as "thing which represents teh sex" or even worse "fragile innocent." I get the latter a lot at first glance because I'm short, quite thin, blonde, and very fair of skin. Several people, all guys, interestingly, have compared me to a fairy of some kind. So when I meet someone new, especially a guy (simply because they seem more likely to judge, in my experience) I spend a lot of time initially fucking with that impression. Which includes changing the way I dress and talk. Then after I feel like they get that, I balance out more, mostly dressing unobtrusively, with an occasional foray into costumage when I need a confidence boost and/or feel really happy/comfortable with myself and my environment. But I really hate having to do that initial phase and "breaking in" my friends. I hate that I have to fight for space to exist as my whole self in their heads because of their constructs of femaleness. I don't want to be a poster girl for "short thin girls can swear and fuck and think too, really," just like I don't want to be a poster girl for bi-ness or poly-ness, (and sometimes the ways people interpret that in relation to gender role are just fucking gross, like when they hear bi and think "omg hot threesomes/girl-on-girl action" or poly and think "slut.") But at the same time, I do want people to validate my gender identity and if I AM doing costuming to notice that too, which sends out mixed messages to those people whom I later have to educate, I feel like. I can't find any style that avoids these problems and would still reflect myself, probably because the problems are in other people and not me, but I wish I could, just so I could go through life in peace when I don't want to play teacher. (Granted I want to BE a teacher, so this isn't terribly often. And fyi, wardrobe is generally jeans/t-shirt, with forays into goth-loli, no make-up, plain wash and wear hair, although I have colored it unnatural colors in the past.)