The Social costruction of Gender; Purple please

The Social Construction of Gender caused me to feel lost and in between two worlds and I could not live fully in either place and be safe.   The binary system of gender the patriarchal institutions created to maintain control demanded I be a female, submissive, quiet, a lady. I was suppose to want  to be A home coming queen, a mother, a lady, a housewife, a heterosexual being. The world taught me this first by dressing me in pink, with tights and a bow in my curly long hair and kept me there by utilizing everything from parental control to terrorism.   

In my world I lived in a place where being a male meant survival, meant independency, meant being free of sexual abuse and terrorism. In the world that surrounded me, being male meant being free. This forced me into spaces where both sexes discounted and discredited me. I was different, to masculine to be accepted by other girls and women, to female to be accepted by men. Being strong, fast, and aggressive and utilizing my intelligences, really meant survival for me. Being to feminine was dangerous.   I had to live in a different type of border lands than that described by Sandoval but in the essences of her world is there was a commonality. . In those spaces, in my negotiating from one world to another allowed me to find others like me in some ways, some commonalities brought us together. People like Naomi Bucan and Kris Lowe and the professors at MSU.  I also found women far more feminine then me, by definition but the abuse of men brought us together in places like Take Back the Night, or at the women shelter I lived.  I learned to live in the spaces and find people I could come together with in differential consciousness, to fight the oppression piled upon me.   

Momma gave me a dolly and daddy gave the boys the guns and the bow and arrows, so I stole them when no one was looking and in the spaces I created a female archer who could shot the squirrel in the tree. I created a space which meant I was not female not in the terms society wanted out of me. I learned to shot guns and became as good if not better then some of my own brothers,  My need for social acceptance and need for safety remained opposite of each other. Girls disliked me boys ran from me when I wanted to play. Few if any girls accepted me in my early years. I was too rough to mean, I beat up the boys that they pretended were the princes on the white horse.  

·         The space I settled in included things like deer hunting, fixing cars, and become strong and too masculine according to my mom. But this redefining of me allowed me to be safe. Yet still I wanted what the pink would bring, I wanted a boyfriend, I wanted some boys to notice me so I began to start wearing blue jeans and pink t-shirts, long hair in pigtails but no make up. I learned to pretend to be a girl, and practiced at being a boy.

·         Daddy taught me how to climb a tree, because I was his tomboy, mommy wanted me to make the cookies. Dad took me along the construction sights, and had I run the line to level the block and carry the nails. Later I would set the block and lay the grout in. Coming home in blue jeans and work boots.  . Mom only gave me one doll and I became a brownie, but never made it into the green uniform of a girl scout I was not a little lady.

·         I meet Naomi, who liked me wore the jeans and worked on the farm caring for horses and breaking them to ride. Naomi was not accepted by the other girls because of her poverty and she was sent to the Special Ed classes due to a learning disability. We would spend our days fixing fences and riding horse when we had leisure time. I replaced the girls who would not allow me in their world by spending my time writing poetry and pros about the sadness, and the pain. I excelled in creative things. I also found my space with boys who respected me for being a little rough.  Usually the males were far older then I that wanted to date me. Naomi and I talked about talked going to prom, getting married and having babies and what we would name them. I think we understood in our world there was little room for us if we did not accept the female identity.  

By the age of 15 I worked as hard and did the same work as my brothers on the farm I also swung a hammer, carried sheets of ply wood and two by fours without the assistance of a man.  No one ever offered to help the girl. Physically I was as muscular as most men, few if any boys ever challenged me after I became a teenager. I also had the figure of a woman by the time the 5^th grade began, standing 5 feet 8 with 34-22-36 measurements, the kids starting calling me swivel hips and the older men began to make passes at me thinking I was older.   Driving a pick up, according to mom I sure was no lady.  Hoping someday I would grow up and want to stay in the house and cook and clean. Yet every once in awhile I saw her smile when I went out the door to change a tire, or fix my car when it had an oil leak.  Maybe underneath she kind of liked my independence but she never said a word to me. Instead she went to work turning me into a lady.

·         I lived in the spaces In high school I was sent to Home Economics and the boys were sent to Shop class, Mom signed me up to run for homecoming queen and I was sent to a lady who sold makeup and she  taught how to apply it not to much just enough to make me cute. Dad laughed a lot and told my mom I would never be a lady, I was too independent and too intelligent to settle for anything like that.  Mom went on a shopping spree and bought me a baby blue dress, nylons and high heeled shoes and for the first time I went to have my hair cut and styled in a more feminine fashion.   I wanted to hate the transformation but underneath maybe I knew I would never be good enough at being a lady to fit into her world. The fact that the girls in my class would never let me in them disliked me anyway.  So that day I sat across the street as the other girls practiced waves and smiles and I just smoked a cigarette to see what the judges would do.  Mom was mad because I lost and the neighbor girl became the queen, besides the fact I had embarrassed her so I was grounded to my room.  I thought I won the battle and had fought hard enough mom would leave me alone , just like the boys had done when I got strong enough to kick the crap out of them. Yet the underneath of me really wanted to learn to be a lady

·           But in the end on graduation day, Dad turned on me too, and took away my masculinity he  had signed me up for secretarial classes at the local vocational school cause after all; I would marry and have children so employment was only secondary to me becoming a lady. David my brother had gone on to college, he works at IBM in the development department.  Drove nice cars, married and had 3 children. I was supposed to learn how to type and answer phones until I married, then my husband would support me.

·         The space I settled in was working at the State hospital with the handicap, and quitting vocational school within three weeks.  I excelled and became a supervisor within 3 years but had married and became a mother by the time I was 19. My income was secondary, my home and family came first you see. I worked at work and worked at home. I had learned to negotiate being female, cooking and cleaning, raising babies and talked to other mothers who did the same. I would wear a dress now and then and dressed my daughter in pink. Giving her dolls and girly things. Fearlessly protecting her from boys. Wanting her to fit into the places in femininity I never could.

·         My husband left me after 6 months of marriage and I became a divorcee, pregnant with a second child a slut according to the men who came to my door, thinking I was lonely and no longer a lady. According to society I was suppose to be a lady and stay married.  The divorcee label instantly gave me another place intersected with the dichotomy of gender.  

·          I found a space with Kris a woman who did not care what others said about her.  She fixed her house; she drove heavy equipment on a road construction crew, she was divorced, and repaired her home and other women’s homes that lived alone. She took me to bars without a man, the beer not poured in the glass but drank straight from the bottle. Being a female and sexuality was talked about freely and I could ask her anything. It was the first time I heard the words “lesbian and it not be something bad. And the sexual double standard did not have a name yet we talked about how men we knew would sleep with whomever he chose and still be considered a man, proud of his accomplishments. We talked about how women had to hide behind her hand if she talked about being sexual and having more then one partner. How we became a slut and bad and they became a better man.   

·          According to those in my small agricultural community I was supposed to wait patiently for husband to walk in the door and hand him that martini. I was not suppose to walk into a bar ( unless my husband brought me ) or, a mechanics shop,  (unless a man sent me) The hardware store to buy a hammer, nails or 2 by 4s ( unless I was carrying  a list a man had written for me)) I wasn’t suppose to understand what a male and female coupling was ( not sex , but for my household plumbing job)  I was  suppose to laugh at the jokes the salesman told to me about how the male slips into the female piece and would I like to go for a drink on his dinner break. Then be called a bitch when I did not laugh with him.  

·         I found a space married to a man who enjoyed my ability to milk the cows , fix the fence, clean the house, cook the meals, go to the hardware store without a list, fix the tractor as well as the car. I found a place but I was still living with “Susie learn to be a lady” By Twenty two I knew how to negotiate the spaces in between. Changing cloths from dresses to jeans, changing language from soft and gentle to strong and loud. Changing from submissive to domineering (but only in certain places) I still belonged to places only men allowed me to be.

My second husband left me when alcoholism over took him. Alone with 4 little children I married a man who believed in traditional values. He wanted his wife to be a lady so around the age of 27 I decided to become a lady and left behind the masculine part of me. I took the kids to school and cleaned out the toilet stool.  I took the kids to church and taught Sunday school. I worked at the hospital and came home and took care of my mother-in-law who was coming to the end of her life. I embroidered, and sewed. I never swore and I never fixed a pick up again.  I gave him my paycheck and he gave me black and blue bruises.  Everything I did was trying to fit in. It lasted for a little while but masculinity kicked in. I left him in the middle of the night and began to search for reasons I was never good enough. After three husbands I began to believe I would never be good enough. . Dr’s called me mentally ill and filled me full of pills, I found solace in alcohol and wild mean in the bars. I lived in places no one should ever be.  12 years later, I tossed the pills down the toilet along with the booze and fears of never fitting in.

·          I found a space in college classes, wanting something more maybe wanting to name the place I had lived that kept me so unhappy. .  I found other women who had similar experiences or different ones, but each of us in some ways paid a price  all caused from the world of Blue and Pink.  . . Gender, oppression, double bind, became words I spoke easily when I talked about my life. And in the space I finally found and came to understand the spaces and the intersections were all a part of me and the locations that I lived. Created by the isms that patriarchal meant. In those intersections I meet oppression and privilege in many different ways. Some of them that held the whiteness of my skin, my femaleness, my financial status and many different things. But always there was the violence of oppression even in the privileges someone gave to me. And many privileges I would never have because of the social binary system of gender that meant that someone was on the top.   I lived in the spaces because I did not fit into the created female- ness I was supposed to be. I began to hear, and speak a language that so long was hidden from me.  I began to dream.

·         The space I would love to be is not outside the blues and pinks where I have to live right now, but the entire world made purple Combining of the two that happens in the spaces between the pinks and blues. I wonder, if this world was not described in binary system of gender, would I have found a space that did not require me to negotiate the intersections so carefully just to survive. All those spaces including those which held oppression and gave me privileges in the same breath like white women, heterosexual, and middle class. If the entire world were purple, would I instead be free to live inside the circle, instead of spaces in-between negotiating between the two worlds so opposite of each other.  Would then there be a place of freedoms that did not live inequality.  If the binary system of gender was not divided into good/bad, strong/weak, independent/dependent, authority/submissive. Would I have had to fight back just to survive? If Pink and Blue did not represent what I was to be, would I have been able to live in my purples without hiding the blue from her so she would accept me as a friend and the pink from him to stop him hurting me and would the purples that I seek allow for  the fathers from oppressing me.      

Sandoval said it best In the Article Mestizaje as Method  when she stated that  “And in this place new forms  of identity, theory, practice, and community have become imaginable.” (359)

maybe then

  Maybe Then

Maybe if I changed

Maybe then he would not leave

Maybe if I wore a pretty bow

Maybe then I would not hear the slamming of the door  

I do not know what I must have done

For him to leave so easily

I’ll change; I’ll do what ever just to please

Can’t he love me?

I do know I’ll beg and plead

Maybe then he would not leave

I did before you know

I learned to make love like them

Like the other ones who come before

I changed so he would stay

He said I was good you know

He wanted me to speak

Dirty little things

Like fuck me, hurt me, if you please

Really I was just a slut he had to tell me so

Maybe if I changed, maybe then he would not go 

All this talk makes me horny

Get down bitch and make me proud

And shut those damn kids up

I am your man, aint I better then anyone

To tell the truth he has to know

I would do anything, anything to go

But the children need a man

So maybe now he will not go 

Women like me we don’t need

As long as the children are feed and clothed

My house stays clean,

Maybe now he will not go 

Maybe if and maybe then

Maybe when the children grow

Maybe then I can say

I beg for just a moments strength

To walk out that damned ole door

But today maybe if I wore a pretty bow

Maybe then he would not go

poverty

What I have learned and what I have yet to learn in my fifty years of life is often in question as to what truth is and what is not. What are mythical, unsubstantiated beliefs that I had thought were facts which I practice as I travel in this life?  This often leads me to confusion and more questions. I know as women our personal life and physical body is often up for debate on the political level. We are governed by laws, social mores, and norms, values and institutional structured behaviors I live by without question. All of these social constraints we live by are based on generation after generation of value laden laws supposedly made to keep us safe. In 50 years I have seen more and  laws  and, more and more people become criminals eventually bringing us where we are today poverty has become a crime, my reproductive rights belong to the government, to be fought over at the highest courts in the country   Although we proudly say we do not make poverty a crime and we tell everyone we are free people, it is a lie. I am not free to chose whether I have a child or not, I only have that right if the court says so or if I am financially capable of traveling miles.If I chose to not have children I can easily become a criminal in many places, due to my gender and my economic level.  bringing the ball right back around to poverty is a crime.

   I contend that poverty in our country has and always will be a crime. I believe that we need to stop making laws that constrain who is and who is not welcome in our society. We need to stop punishing those who only possess their labor as a resource used to survive. Unless we stop doing what we are doing we will continue to build more and more prisons and jails, hire more and more law enforcement officials and spend less and less on social programs that will help our citizens. I contend that instead of spending our extra resources on electing politicians to vote for our laws, and spend just a little of it helping one person out of poverty , by giving them a home, a job , a way out we will become a country of criminals. I wonder if each one of us stopped on the street and took woman under our wings and helped her just a little if our entire country would be a better, safer and more valuable society.  A while back I did start practicing this. I gave a homeless man all the money I had in my purse, I took a women into my home that has now been able to secure a home of her own and a job.  My husband brought home a friend who had lost his home in the flood he stayed with us on and off for months. It did not hurt us we have not had our belongings stolen. Everything we have done has given us more than the little bit of money that we used to help support someone else.  My dream is that if one person reads this and decides to put away their prejudice and fear, that this world just might have a chance.  And I have meet my goal as a feminist and human being.

Today I read this


on Facebook ,So I set a moment and decided to respond to it and this is what I said
think these needs to be reworded a bit. First I am a female and i do not need to be reassured all of the time, I just need you to stand by me whether I make the right decision or wrong one. (It would be nice if when I am doing something that is wrong that you let me know it may not work out so I may need to rethink it. I do not need to be told I love you everyday although it is nice, I would rather you pick up your half of the work and do it without saying it is women's work. No I don’t get jealous and second guess his her every move; for me it is a waste of time, if you are doing someone or something you are not suppose to be then just close the door when you leave. I certainly do not want to wreck my day worrying about what my significant other is doing. If my judgment of the type of person I have entered a relationship with is so bad that I have to second guess, worry, and fear what that person is doing, then I am the real problem in the relationship, because either I have really poor judgment or am a stalker and in either case if that is the truth I am not ready for a real relationship. So I just assume my significant other is doing right thing and remains faithful and honest. As long as that person is next to me they will always have my trust. Yes there are beautiful women out there and I know that. There are also a lot of intelligent women out there, and we don't piss around with over thinking, jealousy or trying to second guess a person’s action. it is too much work. You do not need to prove your love, you do that every day when you work, play, make decisions, laugh and cry with me, work to make our children and our home a nice place to be , and give me your undivided attention when everyone is gone and we are home sound asleep ( what can I say I am older) Sleep ranks right up there with the other S word. and yes it is nice to know that when we decided to stay in a relationship that you have decided that our relationship come hell and high water is one you continue to want to be in, and that is what real girls, women, or any gender are, people who trust themselves enough to know that it is just to damn much work to sit and worry all day. 

Parenting a parent chapter 2

Father passed away January 19, 2013. My husband and i left to go home on the 17th planning on coming back on the 19th, but a phone call from my family on the 18th changed our timing. Father was having a difficult time and my brother had not slept all night. The nurses were able to get him settled back down but we felt that we should be there so Jerry could go get some rest. The minute my husband and I walked in the room and told dad we were back his breathing became difficult. Tom went to bed and I stayed up, going in and out of his room giving him medication and kissing his forehead a hundred times telling him how much i loved him and it was okay to go home. The last moments with dad, he opened his eyes smiled at me and i told him i was going to rest. Tom walked in the room and at 5 30 he took his last breath. His last wish that his children not be there as tom promised him that he would be there so his children did not see him suffer.
my father ended his life the same way he was in his entire life. no matter what goal he set he would see it throught, no matter what puzzel he had to solve he would lay awake and work on it until he had an answer.
Tears fell as we set mom down and told her dad had gone. She said " oOh thank god he did not suffer then she ask me " Is he still warm can i go kiss him goodbye" and tears fell as i walked momma to dad's bed and she leaned over and held him .
I did not know it would be so hard , I did not know it would be so beautiful to see mamma kissing daddy goodbye . 64 years they had spent together , and each day they worked together to keep their family together. Through the last weeks i have said I am okay, and Dad was able to get his last wish to stay home and not be subject to rest homes. People come up and thank me and tell me that they understood how much work it was to spend taking care of your ill parent. and I shake my head, yes i was tired yes there were days on end that i did not sleep. but no it was not work, it was hugs and kisses and fried eggs sometimes at four in the morning when dad would yell " doesn't anyone know how to cook eggs in this house. and my husband would get up and say father you might not want to piss off the cook " and they would laugh and tom would fix him a bowl of cereal unit the cook got up to fry the eggs. .or the time when i went to town to get water and came home to mom asking dad what he was doing as he set on his bed soaking wet , I took a shower i can do that. his underpants were wet and his hat was on his head. I just said come on dad guess we need to get some dry clothes on. " See I can pull up my big boy pants all by myself OH lord there were days when i could resist his pout when he wanted to eat fried eggs the entire day and i would make them and ask if he was full , well i could be if only i had some fried eggs they are really good, i would not mind some you know. Dad you have already eaten 4 , well one more would not hurt would it. Tom said dad what are you trying to do get enough food in you to climb Jacobs ladder and he would say " how high do you suppose that ladder is guess another fried egg would give me enough strength to get up there.
God i miss daddy, i was his only daughter and i was spoiled rotten and i am so thankful that i got a chance to spoil him rotten too'

Chapter one parenting the parent) unedited.

In May of 2012, my brother who was my parents’ caretaker was unable to continue to do so; his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer: a particularly aggressive kind and she has been in treatment since. I received the call the day after my classes ended at Minnesota State Mankato. I had ever intention of taking the summer off to garden, spend time with my husband (who had not really seen me in 5 months) and my children and grandchildren. But my parents needed help and over the years whenever a child, adult, family or friend needed anything they were there. There never was a thought of saying no I cannot come, my husband never even blinked when he began to pack his bag. It just was what it was and we left.

"Sis, can you come right away we need someone to care for mom and dad."   Tom and I packed our bags, closed up our home and left within an hour after receiving the call. Not realizing it would not be a two or even four week trip. Before the weekend we knew however that our lives had changed in a matter of minutes. We were now officially the main caretakers and would only be going home three weekends a month when my other brothers could take time off to stay with mom and dad while we took a break.

Mom, who at 82 could still takes care of herself completely (except for help bathing.).  Spends her time reading and writing letters. Writing letters to family and friends has been something she has done her entire adult life. She has several girlfriends she has been in touch with since she was 14 years old when she moved to Rochester to go to high school. She roomed with a few of these women. Her loyalty to family and friends is seen in her spending the time to talk about each and every one of her girlfriends trials as if they were her own. I have never heard a bad word out of my mother and even if someone she is anger at or who has taken advantage of her comes walking in the door, she will welcome them, forgive them, and hand them a cup of coffee and a lit Lunch (this is a whole other story) Her physical health is good for her age, she suffers some dementia, a sever hearing loss, congestive heart failure (But with the diet she shows no signs of it)

 Father has a multitude of issues and in November the family brought hospice into our home to assist in his care. He has either Dementia or Alzheimer (we are unsure) which cause him to say and do some unbelievable things. . He  often believes  he was in the service and fought in Norway ( this is where his family is from) He also believes other strange little things , including such things as that when my mother was in the hospital and then nursing home due to a fall that broke her back. He first believed she had died even though we took him often to see her. He would also later believe that mom was having affairs on him and also having babies (he thinks two Spanish babies and two African babies and they are with my brother Jerry and he is hiding it from dad) When he believed that she had died he never said a word until I brought her home to visit in-between the stay at the hospital and transfer to the nursing home. So that the day she came home to visit in between the hospital stay and the rest home he initially believed he was seeing an angle, until mom talked to him and told him no he began to cry. Stating “I thought you were dead." Then he and mom both began to cry.

The strangeness of dad's mental health comes and goes, he always knows everyone who walks in the door and can talk to them as if nothing is wrong.  His metal issue not the least bit of a problem in that area. His physical health just as tough to handle as his mental illness, as he as has end stage congestive heart failure, and is in A fib (heart) all of the time, some days he is strong enough and stubborn enough to use the bathroom and get in and out of bed, some days the complexity of his illness keeps him completely out of it and unable to handle even sitting up. At those times I fear the worst and panic creeps in as I try to get a response.  We all know at some point in the close future he will not respond or ever respond again and even though I want my father to fall asleep and not suffer like he does at times, losing him will tear me apart. Mom understands this and she also gets fear in her voice and wont sleep for days when dad falls into sleep that we are unable to wake him from.

 Being a caretaker of my father comes with a need to be able to finis and compromise, laugh, and cry. My husband and I know that we must keep an ear out almost 24 hours a day when caring for my father because he still has the ability to be mobile. Meaning there is many times when dad can get into trouble quick. One time it was eating a whole box of cream cheese and got extremely sick, at other times his catheter hurts and he will pull on it to fix it, at that point we are on the phone calling nurses to help put it back in or fix it. If he wants a shower he will crawl in it take half his clothes off and turn on the shower, attempting to take it before anyone finds him in there. Those are the days we have to laugh. One bright morning dad was doing well and we ran out of something I needed, I decided I could take a 5 minute trip into the store to pick it up; mom would watch him, I came home to mom saying “Dad what did you do!,” He was sitting on his bed in a wet diaper and cowboy hat and nothing else, " I decided to take a shower then a nap" he said as if it was not problem at all. “Dam it I am not a child. “ I told mom it’s okay no harm no foul , changed dads clothes and  the wet bedding, put  his oxygen back on,  give him medicine,  and put him to bed until he can catch his breath. Just like last night when my husband ask if he could help him to bed. Dad decided he could do it himself.  Dad said “no I can put my own big boy pants on all by myself and I want to stay up”.  Hubby just said “okay dad “and came into our bedroom and closed the door. The minute he did dad headed to bed and attempted to get into it and could not; I came in the room and without a word helped him. “Thank you sis “he said and went to sleep.

My parent’s relationship has its own unique and interesting twists. Mom shadows dad at times, afraid I suppose:  and will often tell him not to do things, then the war is on  and he will get mad and do them anyway in spite I suppose. When he is mad at mom he will turn her high school picture around and their wedding picture to face them against the wall and then he will tell us kids the story of how she went to the rest home and had an affair on him. (One day I got so frustrated I told dad the man had died. Now he thinks god got the man back for taking his wife away.) Oh well we cannot win for losing some days. Mom just shakes her head, I put her picture back up and the next day he will be carrying it around and telling everyone what a beautiful wife he has. The most beautiful day I had was the day he took it with him, the day mom got to come home. I took dad along when we went to pick her up at the rest home. But on the same breath that is the day all hell broke loose because that is the day he showed the picture to a man and said “have you seen my beautiful wife”.  And the man said “please don’t take her home she always has a smile for everyone and we would miss her. That is the day dad thought she was running around on him. God bless my father and mother. And thank god that when dad said you work too hard to take care of us , I knew in my heart I do not work hard enough, and when he said   “I am such a burden “ My husband reminded him of all the times he took care of us. That day I told dad the story of how when I was a child and he stayed up all night because I had the measles and I was never a burden to neither him nor him a burden to me. But when I said measles he said ya and rubella too.”  Reminding me that I had numerous childhood illness  that kept my parents up all night and I never heard one complaint from them as they lowered my fever and tucked me back in.  No it is not a burden in the sense that I have ever regretted stepping up to the plate to keep mom and dad in their home. But man there are days I am glad my husband or a nurse shows up so I can shut the door to the bedroom and let out a swear word or two then play a game or write for a bit.