Gender Interviews: Blaine Dzwonczyk

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Blaine Dzwonczyk

What are your definitions of "man" and "woman?"

I define a woman as anyone who identifies as a woman, and a man as anyone who identifies as a man. Whenever a person feels more connected to one of these gender roles, they embody that gender.

Are there any specific gender roles that you think should be there? Are there any you wish did not exist?

No, I think almost all gender roles are inherently harmful to society, and especially harmful to women. There are many gender roles I wish did not exist, but I'm very concerned about about roles that limit women to only being of value as objects for sexual gratification, bodies for bearing children, or tools for taking care of men. I also wish that roles of sexual aggression and violence were not seen as positive demonstrations of "masculinity" in our society.

Do you conform to the society's gender expectations? Is there anything you do that is not usually associated with your gender? If you do conform, is it more because society expects you to or because you identify with the expectations?

In many ways, I conform to society's typical gender expectations for a teenage girl. I am bubbly, outgoing, friendly, polite, creative, unathletic; I love wearing dresses, make up, and heels, and I definitely participate in the selfie culture and even alleged catty gossip of high school girls. I also fluctuate wildly between extreme self-doubt and vanity, another irony of teen girlhood. On the other hand, I revel in the parts of myself that somewhat (very slightly) contradict societal gender expectations; by most standards, I shouldn't be intelligent, or interested in bucking the systems under which we live, or just as interested in sexuality as teenage boys are (the fact that I hesitated in including the last part at all is a perfect example of the double standards we deal with every day). But all of these things ARE part of me. And it's interesting that these things, the few parts of my otherwise very "normal" personality that are a little bit radical in terms of gender norms, are the ones that gain me the most backlash; my relatively tame version of feminism––how dare a sweet little teenage girl stand up for herself and other women!––is constantly undermined and even ridiculed. Likewise, my intelligence has always been something I've felt I needed to hide, and the fact that I even THINK about sex and sexuality––whether that means enjoying Rocky Horror or analyzing sex positive feminism online––is something I always keep strictly under wraps.

The question of expectations is a very important one. Because, as I've said, I definitely conform quite a bit to societal norms, it feels like the gender binary works for me; but it's hard to know how much I work for the gender binary, the other way around. I think that while I definitely work hard to comply with how a woman should look, act, think, talk, etc, societal gender norms probably just exacerbate my natural tendencies rather than determining them. But again, because we don't live in vacuum, that's very hard to tell.

Note: The rest of the interview is coming soon.

Check This Out

Below are some things I looked at that are related to gender roles, gender identity, discriminations, etc. that might be interesting.

Defining/Understanding gender:

I included the following sources to give the audience an overview of what gender is. It's important to have an idea of what we're talking about before actually discussing it. This information relates directly to my first question (defining "man" and "woman"), as well as the last question, which is about making the world a more welcoming place for gender nonconforming people. Although I never mentioned anything about trans* issues in my questions, one of the things I was looking for when I asked these two questions was the extent to which the interviewee is aware of trans* issues. Below are some sources that relate to gender, mostly from a trans* point of view.

Gender Spectrum's article "Understanding Gender" provides an overview of the basic concept of sex versus gender and some basic terminology related to gender
Planned Parenthood has a FAQ page about gender identity, which also provides an overview of gender. Another source worth looking at is their FAQ page about trans* issues.
TransWhat.org is a very helpful website for people who are willing to learn about trans* issues and to be allies to trans* people. In particular, their Allyship: first steps page is a great list of things to do/be aware of around trans* people. This source relates to my last question.
Finally, the Genderbread Person is a great infographic that explains sex, gender, presentation, and attraction is an easy-to-follow manner.

Gender roles, Masclinity and Femininity, and Sexism:

I guess these issues are really the bulk of my project. I brought up gender roles in almost all of my questions one way or another. I also briefly mentioned sexism in the question about the value of femininity and masculinity, although that question is mostly getting at a double standard that exists when it comes to breaking the "gender rules/roles/laws/stereotypes." Here are several specific examples that I looked at:

In this Huffington Post article, Jackie Morgan uses the example of her daughter who plays football to point out that society has a double standard when it comes to approving or dissapproving gender atypical behavoir in children. This article is an axample of how gender roles hurt men and boys.
In this article on scientopia.org, which is a place for people to write about science, scicurious writes about her experience in academia. Specifically, she talks about how men in academia can pull off a very casual outfit and they would still be treated like scientists and professionals, but women are expected to dress nicely (as she puts it, clothes that are considered casual for men are a lot more casual than clothes that are considered casual for women). Her concern is that if she dresses as casually as the men, she is not going to be taken seriously.
This study shows that there is sexism and gender-based discrimination in scientific fields. In the study, 127 professors in biology, chemistry, and physics (men and women) were split into two groups and asked to evaluate several [fake] student applications for a lab manager position. Both groups of scientists received the same applications, but each application was submitted under a male name to one group and under a female name to the other. Both male and female scientists evaluated the "female applicants" lower in competence than the "male applicants" and also suggested a lower salary for the "female applicants."
This is a blog entry in which a female writer reveals that she was forced to use the pen name James in order to provide for her family. According to James Chartrand, which is how she prefers to be called, she got a higher pay and more praise under the pen name than under her real name, which is the reason why she only writes as James. This story is yet another proof that gender-based discrimination in the workplace is real.
Moving on to a less serious and more controversial topic, here is the FAQ page from the Topfree Equal Rights Association, whose goal is to ensure that women in the US and Canada are not penalized for being topfree/topless wherever men can be topfree/topless without legal consequences. Here, they counter some of the arguments made against equality when it comes to topfreedom (the right to be topless).
Building off of the topfree/topless discussion, I looked at this episode of The Stream, where they interview Inna Shevchenko, leader of women's rights the activist group Femen that uses topless protests to bring attention to women's rights issues. In the episode, there is a great discussion of what feminism is and isn't for different people. This source is relevant and important because it explores feminism. I define feminism as the advocacy of equal rights for all genders. This definition is very much relevant to all of my questions dealing with equality, the double standard, and acceptance.

Acknoledgements

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Sunday, May 19, 2013

Blaine Dzwonczyk