I like your comment. It’s interesting to consider how the construction of gender varies not only across cultures (e.g. what is expected of womanhood in Canada versus in Japan today), but also across different cultures perception of each other.
In my country, women who are indigenous looking (physically speaking) are considered less elegant or classy than their white/whiter counterparts by these white/whiter people. These people see their femininity as not wide enough because a mix of classism and racism/colorism makes them believe that an indigenous-looking woman can only put a costume, an imitation of a high class woman, because they cannot really be one (as they think money comes only from European descent, and so being classy belongs to them) and that they don’t fit those things due to their physical appearance anyways.
That’s a widespread belief turned into an aesthetic perception. Show people who believe and now feel this way an indigenous woman in a gala attire and they’ll feel something’s wrong.
I wouldn’t say this is a non-binary experience, though. I’d say this is the plurality of understandings about what is a woman and who is ‘more woman’ than who. It’s not possible to establish what a woman is simply because it is an ever changing matter. Gender, in itself, is fluid. We expect different things from it at different times, often influenced by external factors (as seen in wars, for example). I wouldn’t say this makes the people living these experiences non-binary, trans, etc. They’re imposed a rule-set by their sex at birth, by their physical characteristics, just like everyone else. “You shouldn’t behave this way”, “you should not wear this”, “do this instead”, etc.
You can only say it’s non-binary if you judge that the dominant ways are the standard. That is, that a woman of European descent with Western ways of life is the way women are, and that a deviation from that is non-binary. That’s only true in countries like mine, like the U.S., like Argentina or the Philippines, and only for the white/whiter population. Thinking that everyone else is measuring against this standard is an ignorant and inflated vision of themselves. Sure, this standard is influential, but people have their own cultures and ideas of gender aside from possible cultural interference and influence from Western values. I’m sure an indigenous woman of my country finds the way she is criticized and scrutinized for wearing different clothes obnoxious, but that’s not her whole experience as to say she lives non-binarily. She still has traditions, beliefs, and ideas of gender within her community in which she might be the epitome of womanhood. She’s only living non-binarily according to white/whiter people. These people shouldn’t be the ones from which names are given. It reminds me of the dichotomy of “white - POC”. Why are people in the entire world categorized as “of European descent - any other” as if Europe should be the center and the defining criteria in human populations? While these divisions are common within groups (“Jews - gentiles”, “Christians - heathens”), they shouldn’t be used outside limited contexts and definitely not in science or any serious analysis. But that’s Western egos, especially U.S.-American egos, I guess…
Consensus reality is a social construct, and nowhere is this clearer than in gender. Whoever has the social power to enforce their beliefs on others decides reality. This will continue as long as we have powerful groups, and/or the construct of reality
Yes, and I agreed with you except in two things. We shouldn’t take it as the whole reality because there are other paradigms/frames living at the same time, and we shouldn’t name things after this dominance in academia or academia-like discourse because knowledge is supposed to strive for the maximum impartiality possible.
I like your comment. It’s interesting to consider how the construction of gender varies not only across cultures (e.g. what is expected of womanhood in Canada versus in Japan today), but also across different cultures perception of each other.
In my country, women who are indigenous looking (physically speaking) are considered less elegant or classy than their white/whiter counterparts by these white/whiter people. These people see their femininity as not wide enough because a mix of classism and racism/colorism makes them believe that an indigenous-looking woman can only put a costume, an imitation of a high class woman, because they cannot really be one (as they think money comes only from European descent, and so being classy belongs to them) and that they don’t fit those things due to their physical appearance anyways.
That’s a widespread belief turned into an aesthetic perception. Show people who believe and now feel this way an indigenous woman in a gala attire and they’ll feel something’s wrong.
I wouldn’t say this is a non-binary experience, though. I’d say this is the plurality of understandings about what is a woman and who is ‘more woman’ than who. It’s not possible to establish what a woman is simply because it is an ever changing matter. Gender, in itself, is fluid. We expect different things from it at different times, often influenced by external factors (as seen in wars, for example). I wouldn’t say this makes the people living these experiences non-binary, trans, etc. They’re imposed a rule-set by their sex at birth, by their physical characteristics, just like everyone else. “You shouldn’t behave this way”, “you should not wear this”, “do this instead”, etc.
You can only say it’s non-binary if you judge that the dominant ways are the standard. That is, that a woman of European descent with Western ways of life is the way women are, and that a deviation from that is non-binary. That’s only true in countries like mine, like the U.S., like Argentina or the Philippines, and only for the white/whiter population. Thinking that everyone else is measuring against this standard is an ignorant and inflated vision of themselves. Sure, this standard is influential, but people have their own cultures and ideas of gender aside from possible cultural interference and influence from Western values. I’m sure an indigenous woman of my country finds the way she is criticized and scrutinized for wearing different clothes obnoxious, but that’s not her whole experience as to say she lives non-binarily. She still has traditions, beliefs, and ideas of gender within her community in which she might be the epitome of womanhood. She’s only living non-binarily according to white/whiter people. These people shouldn’t be the ones from which names are given. It reminds me of the dichotomy of “white - POC”. Why are people in the entire world categorized as “of European descent - any other” as if Europe should be the center and the defining criteria in human populations? While these divisions are common within groups (“Jews - gentiles”, “Christians - heathens”), they shouldn’t be used outside limited contexts and definitely not in science or any serious analysis. But that’s Western egos, especially U.S.-American egos, I guess…
Consensus reality is a social construct, and nowhere is this clearer than in gender. Whoever has the social power to enforce their beliefs on others decides reality. This will continue as long as we have powerful groups, and/or the construct of reality
Yes, and I agreed with you except in two things. We shouldn’t take it as the whole reality because there are other paradigms/frames living at the same time, and we shouldn’t name things after this dominance in academia or academia-like discourse because knowledge is supposed to strive for the maximum impartiality possible.