Rehearsing Masculinity: Gender Fuck in a Bow Tie

Earrings and tights: Reitmans; Boots: Ecco; Dress clips, skirt, blazer, clutch, and top: vintage; Solitaire ring: heirloom; Right hand ring: Birks; Stackable rings: Etsy; Faux eternity band: boutique

As you may recall, from time to time I like to wear outfits inspired by man-tailoring and masculinity.

As I've said before, I actually feel that, for someone as femme as I am, such outfits only serve to highlight my femininity.

Kind of like standing beside Beau does. Though Beau's not really the "manliest" of men and could even be called a tad "fey," I feel much more womanly in my body and feminine in my mannerisms when I'm with him. 

That's neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It's just a thing, a juxtaposition thing.

So on this day, masquerading just a little bit as a man, I headed downtown with Beau and did my little posey posey thing while we waited for my appointment with my hairdresser. 

My city's alleys, if not exactly famous, are frequent stars of cheap television programs and movies pretending to be shot in New York City. You may never have been to my city. You may never have even heard of it. But I can guarantee that you've seen it masquerading as New York on the silver screen.

It is true that we do have some New Yorkish details and elements here.

But I've actually lived in NYC and I can assure you that this ain't it. Not even close. 

For one thing, it's too clean. For another, it's never too crowded, even in our rapid transit system during rush hour. Mostly, it has way too much open space to be anything like New York. There are no canyons formed by the high, closely set, steep cliffs of architecture like there are in New York. I can actually breathe here, easily. I like that.

Not to mention our extraordinary ocean and mountain views around every corner.
 
I pay attention to nuances, details, and distinctions like that -- from the macro of architecture...

... to micro of jewelry design.

It is in such details that one can find a few shots that can pass for New York.

And it is in such details that an ostensibly feminine outfit of a skirt and a tight shirt that one can find a few things that can pass for masculine: note the tweed skirt, the tailored blazer, and the herringbone weave of these tights. 

Though I am generally perceived as very feminine, I like to mix and mingle the masculine and feminine, in my appearance and, even more, in my attitudes and beliefs.

I don't believe that women are always naturally feminine, or that men are always naturally masculine. Instead, I think girls are raised and pressured to be feminine, and boys are raised and pressured to be masculine. I think such pressures are unnecessary and restrictive at best, and harmful and cruel at worst.

So I like to mess with people's notions of gender. I like to mix it up. I make a "conscious effort to mock or 'fuck with' traditional notions of gender identity, gender roles, and gender presentation which assume that one's identity, role and orientation is determined by one's" (wikipedia) biological sex. 

My hope is that I'll mess with people's heads just enough that they'll start asking themselves important questions about whether or not gender really is natural after all.

Excuse my language, but the official term for that is "genderfuck," or, if you prefer, "gender bending." I'm a gender bender and I always have been, since I was a small child.

These distinctions between masculine and feminine, male and female, can be so important to people, it becomes almost comical. We have become so obsessed, we feel we must constantly enforce this false line between masculine/male and feminine/female. You know what I mean: it's the pink aisle in toy store; it's the pink and blue toothbrushes; it's the pink razor for the woman's legs and the blue razor for the man's face; it's the assertion that a marriage must only be between a man and a woman.

It's all contrary to actual human nature, which is just not that rigid.

I mean, really, what man ever actually poses like the guys in these ads? But they're ideal, urban and urbane men. They model an identity that many men feel they must strive to achieve.

 

Everywhere we turn -- in the cradle, in the family, at school, at work, in the media -- men and women are taught how to behave differently from one another. We're taught how to walk, how to hold our limbs, how to hold the very muscles of our faces.

We get pretty anxious about it all. What man hasn't felt anxious at some point that he's not measuring up as a man? What woman hasn't at some point felt anxious that she's not feminine enough? 

As we try to get it "right," we end up practising in front of mirrors, carefully choosing our clothes, modulating the pitch of our voices, faking our interests... all as a kind of constant rehearsal or performance of masculinity or femininity. We all fail, at least some of the time.

People get very hung up on maintaining their femininity...

... or their masculinity.

Pose like this if you're a boy.

Pose like this if you're a girl.

Enough!

It's absurd!

In academia, we call all this "rehearsing masculinity." If gender (masculine or feminine) really were naturally associated with biological sex (male or female), would we have to work so hard to get it right? Would culture have to condemn gender rebels so much? Would parents have to "correct" their children's behaviour so much?

If it's so natural, why do have to practise, rehearse, and perform it?

This is my pain face. I think of it as the authentic me. Funny how others see me as sunny and positive.

It's not natural. That's the fact of the matter.

It's too stressful to get all hung up on gender. So screw it. Fuck with gender!

 
Let's all stop being anxious, lighten up, and play with gender instead.

As for me, I'm buying Beau an engagement ring! Who says I can't?

So be whoever you really are.

A little bit butch.

 

And a little bit femme.

And a whole lot of exactly who you really are -- whoever that may be.

(I'm joining the dress-up fun at Modish Matrons, and Visible Mondays at Not Dead Yet.)

Wartime fashion: allusively

Dress: Reitmans; Boots; Ecco; Barrettes and sequined bobby bins: Stylize; Hair comb, dress clip, earrings, purse, and bracelet: vintage; Diamond solitaire: heirloom; Diamond right hand ring: Birks; Bands and brooch: boutique; Raincoat: London Fog

(I've noticed that this post is getting read a lot lately. If you like it, you'll probably like this post even more: Remembering I'm Jewish: 40s Fashion and Remembrance Day.)

I've always loved the late 30s, early 40s feel of this dress. It doesn't feel costumey, but rather alludes to the 40s, making it appropriate as a contemporary dress but still giving it a whiff of the "old-fashioned" that those not into fashion history can feel and see but pinpoint.

This is the way I like to dress: I can pass for modern but somehow always seem a little old-fashioned at the same time. I think I like to look like I belong to many eras at once. It's in keeping with the way I feel; I've read so much older literature that I feel I always exist in the past and present at the same time. It's a nice feeling.

Of course, unlike those who tell me I seem "old-fashioned" but can't explain why, I am a dedicated follower of fashion history so I can pinpoint why my dress has a wartime feel to it. The skirt of the dress is a-line, and, if I weren't so short, would be just the length popular in the late 30s and early 40s. Though you can't see it clearly in these night time photos, the waist of my dress has a wide panel like the ones above. It flatters the figure, yet is modest and practical, perfect for rolling up one's sleeves and pitching in during wartime.

Wearing one's hair in all kinds of crazy rolls was all the rage during World War II. The theory is that, as cloth was rationed and opulent clothes and hats were hard to come by, and even seen as unpatriotic, the hair styles got more and more opulent instead.

As with my dress, I wanted my hair style merely to allude to the 40s, not ape it, so I rolled my hair in a more understated way. This hair style has actually become a "go to" style for me as it gets my curls in check and, I think, makes me look classy and, dare I say it? Sophisticated.

It's easy: just part your hair in the middle; roll a section back on either side of the part, catching up more hair as you go; secure the rolled sides; then twist the back hair into a quick bun and secure however you please (or even leave it down). This time, I used the great, decorative hair comb that I found for 50 cents at a garage sale. 

More and more, I'm coming to love hair combs. They are the key to 40s rolls, and work wonderfully on curly hair for many styles, though I suspect they wouldn't work as well on straight hair. They're not that easy to find, though, and, when I do, they're usually flimsy pieces of junk that break after one or two uses. That's why I was so excited to find my fancy one at the garage sale. I also recently found the above Goody hair combs and plan to buy many more before they disappear off the market.

How lucky was I find both this bracelet and this achingly perfect purse at second hand stores on the very day I wore this dress? The bracelet was five dollars. The purse was fourteen dollars. I did some research and find that it was made no later than about 1942. I have a similar one in brown, but I really love the geometry of this one. It just screams Art Deco.

Details are important, don't you think? Now that I find I can endure clip-on earrings, I have a vast array of vintage earrings available to me, including these little ones I got for... I don't remember, but less than five dollars.

This brooch is new. I got it at a little boutique that was, unfortunately, going out of business. I knew that this much sparkle, with just its hint of colour, would brighten the dark, rainy, winter days ahead. 

Can you spot the snail on it? I first moved to Canada, specifically Canada's "rain coast", when I was six. I was immediately charmed by all the snails and slugs that thrive here and collected them as pets. 

Yes, I was a tomboy. A tomboy and a total femme, collecting slugs in ditches one minute, and wearing pink ribbons the next.

The ring, of course, was my grandmother's, with her name and my grandfather's and the year 1936 inscribed on the inside. The diamond eternity band? Totally fake! But it fooled you, right, for a minute anyway?

That hair clip is black, I swear, and goes with the dress. I don't know why it looks purple in photos.

That's it. Aren't you glad I didn't write about child abuse or chronic pain this time? Everything in its time and place, I say. This time, the place was second hand stores, and the time was the late 30s and early 40s.

(For once, my style blog post is actually about style, so I'm hooking up with all the other stylish dames at Not Dead Yet's Visible Mondays.)

Schoolmarm Skirt: End of Term Blues -- in Red

Hat: boutique; Shirt and Earrings: informal clothing exchange in my apartment building; Skirt: Man za na; Boots: Ecco; Brown ring: thrift.

To date, my most popular post is the one about rocking my schoolmarm shoes. It ranks highly in Google image searches. Go figure. When I look up "schoolmarm shoes," I feel almost famous.

This is my schoolmarm skirt. Do you suppose it too will be popular?

The fact is, I actually am a schoolmarm. I'm the type of schoolmarm most often stereotyped as prim, proper, and prudish, the type assumed to have no life, and to be strict beyond all reason.

I am a college English teacher!

The weird irony is that I find that English teachers tend to be far more liberal then their own students. Literature, if read with any attention, broadens the mind to the huge range of human experience, culture, and emotion. It's almost impossible to read widely and remain conservative.

Yet the demeaning stereotypes persist. I'm really not sure where they began but I can promise you that they are not based in fact.

My role model for the day was Mrs. Sherwood, the high school English teacher in the 80s television show, Fame. 

I would love to have her skirt! I've been looking for one like this forever. Until I find it, the one I wore this day will have to do. Midi skirts like hers are back, and not a moment too soon.

 

Mrs. Sherwood was, to mix my metaphors, the square peg in the cool, performance arts school in New York City. She too struggled with students who were interested in anything but English -- yet were required to take her courses. Like me, she had to deal with students who who saw no value in the material she held so dear, and saw no connection between their own passions and hers.

Their disinterest was and is rooted in a lack of knowledge about what literature really is, but, once a student's mind is made up, it's hard to get her to change it. Try getting a kid to try a food that she's decided she will hate, and you get an idea of the uphill battle I face.

In my opinion, literature is unquestionably art so belonged in a school like that in Fame. It's art just as a great painting or a wonderful dance is, but I know that convincing some people of that fact is virtually impossible. 

That paper in my hand is a copy of the short story, Stones, by Timothy Findley. It's a harrowing story of a young boy's confusion and heart break when his previously gentle and loving father returns from World War II a broken and violent man, destroyed by PTSD. 

Is it art? Yes! Just read the passage about the "celebration" upon the men's return and you'll be convinced.

I may be physically disabled. I may not be able to dance like the kids in Fame, and it may be very hard for me to attend cultural events. But I can read and I can write so I too can create and enjoy art.

So, yes, I feel a fun kind of kinship with Mrs. Sherwood. Heck, we're even wearing the same shirt!

Like her, I know that being a teacher is not a bed of roses. It's not always about opening young minds, keen to learn and grow through the wonders of literature. Sometimes it's more like leading a horse to water and watching it refuse to drink.

Sometimes, it's just about marking, marking, marking, till my eyes spin and my heart sinks. Did they even listen in class? Did they even study grammar in high school? Did they even read the materials? 

Is it time for a martini yet?

There is, I think, a universal expression on the face of an English teacher burned out on marking essays. You see it, on Mrs. Sherwood's face? You see it on mine?

But nothing, not even a class of indifferent or hostile students, will rob me of my belief in the power and importance of the written word. And there are times, in every course I teach, when I can feel a genuine spark of interest and excitement from some of my students. Not all of them, but some. 

They are what it's all about.

(I'm a stealth proselytizer about the joys of reading so I'm hooking this to Visible Mondays on the style blog, Not Dead Yet.)