Gender Interviews: Pat Phillips

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Pat Phillips

Sasha Sobol: What are your definitions of "man" and "woman?"

Pat Phillips: My definitions: One of the big aspects of the difference between a man and a woman is she is able to bear a child.

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

PP: Well maybe the fact that a woman is supposed to be kind of soft and sweet and seems willing to take on a burden at times.

SS: 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?

PP: Yes. Well, I do not do anything that's unusual for my gender. And if I did, I do not think I would care what other people might think.

SS: A lot of the time when it's socially acceptable for a man to expose his chest, a woman has to cover hers. Yet when it is socially acceptable for a woman to show her legs, arms, and cleavage (think dresses), the same is not acceptable for a man. What are your thoughts about these two situations?

PP: [talking about the second situation] I think it's a man's point of view and it would make him too feminine, quite artificial.

[talking about the first question] I don't know of any situations where I have ever been in where this was a concern, so I have a different opinion.

SS: In many cases, women and girls are encouraged to embrace their masculine side, while feminine men and boys are looked down upon by society. What do you think about this? Why do you think femininity is seen as less than masculinity? How does this relate to discrimination in the workplace?

PP: I don't believe there's that much discrimination in the workplace, unless you happened to walk into an unusual group of people. I don't agree that women are encouraged to be masculine. I think the majority of women love being feminine. I guess the fact that I don't know too many masculine women puts me on a difficult situation because I don't agree with the premise.

SS: Is it important to make the world a more welcoming place for gender nonconforming people? If so, how can this be done?

PP: I don't think it's important to go around changing people. And I think we're all happy just the way we are and I think a feminine man is just as happy.

SS: Is there anything else you would like to add?

PP: Actually, no except it's been fun talking to you.

Note: This was my first ever in-person interview. I randomly asked this lady to do my interview and have absolutely no idea who she is. As it usually happens when you do something for the first time, I made a mistake. Actually, two mistakes. First, instead of recording the interview and transcribing it later, I frantically typed what she said. The other mistake was that I was only writing down her answers to the questions and nothing else that made the interview a conversations instead of it just being a bunch of questions and answers without any record of interaction.

This interview was done in person.

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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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Pat Phillips