Thoughts on Gender

Accounts of prison rape, for example, provide independent confirmation of...assertions about gender, power [and], rape...One of the most descriptive of these accounts appears in Haywood Patterson's autobiographical Scottsboro Boy..."I learned that men were having men," Patterson wrote shortly after he arrived at Atmore prison. "Old guys, they called them wolves." Patterson's description of the process that defined and distinguished who was a "wolf" and who was not dramatically reveals our underlying assumptions of gender.

"Soon after I got [to Atmore] I saw how a wolf would trick a young boy. They all worked the same way. First the wolf, he gave the new guy some money and bought him what he wanted from the commissary. He told him that he was a friend. He would protect him from the tough guys. He would fight for him. He didn't tell him right off what he was leading to. After he spent
four or five dollars on the boy, he propositioned him."

In the end, however, this courtship inevitably failed to win the young prisoner over, and matters were resolved violently: "The old wolf beat him up unmerciful," initiating the boy into a new identity. "The other prisoners just looked on," writes Patterson. "They knew a young girl was being born."
-- From Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale,
by Catherine Orenstein.


...most of the dominant mainstreams of our world will only admit to one construction on gender-an inseparable conflation of "penis=male=masculine" and breasts/vagina=female=feminine." Those mainstreams insist that you like "woman (feminine)" or "male (masculine)." A few of them allow for the possibility of liking both, though they cast it as a suspect state of affairs best avoided or outgrown.
--From Genderquerulous, by Nalo Hopkinson


So I'm...involved, lets say, with a transsexual. At first, I did it for the novelty factor. I mean, come on! How many times have I wished I could sleep with a hermaphrodite? I'm attracted to gender-queer. Get over it.
Anyhow, since he is a genuinely sweet, cheerful, kind person who loves animals, nature, cooking, gardening, and is totally willing to sneak me into bars, I actually really like the guy. Which I wasn't exactly counting on. So the scene I'm building up to looks like this: the two of us are in the smoking room of a bar in the Castro. And I've gotta say, he dresses up well (cool leather shoes, nice pants, crisp shirt). But then, so do I (button down shirt that matches my teal glasses, straight jeans, strappy heels). We're waiting for his friend to bring us our drinks (whiskey sour/gin and tonic), chatting, lounging, smoking. We're talking about my height (he's short and I'm in heels), his upcoming trip to LA, where his friend was with the drinks, my friends in Miami, and suddenly "what do you see me as?" And I froze. "I see what you show me," I managed to spit out. Oh how diplomatic you idiot, I shrieked in my head. But how can I see anything else? How can I say anything else? And how could I? That's such an odd question. The energy, the person that I talk with, enjoy the company of, that presence is male. But the body? It's now neither male nor female. How can I say that I see a man, when that's what I feel, not see? But I don't see a woman either. It begs the question of why we have such rigid gender roles. Why do we have to be one or the other? Why is it only one or the other? Why aren't there three, four, five genders? And why is genitalia synonymous with gender?

It's that last question that interests me the most these days. Fourteen hours after we met, as we settled into a warm, happy, tipsy, awkward, post-sex cuddle, that question occurred to me. Resting my head on his chest, I traced his mastectomy scars (now isn't that an odd sentence!). "You seem so, I dunno, calm," I muttered. "How? I mean, why?" He made a quizzical face. "I mean," I continued, "I think I'd be angry, you know? I guess I have no idea how I'd feel, really. I just get the impression that I'd be a lot angrier about being all jumbled up. You know?" He kind of laughed and then tried to explain that the body's genitalia shouldn't determine gender. And I'm lying there going "Whaaaat? Come again?" I didn't understand that night, or even the next few. All I could think was that I was talking to a guy, and sleeping with a girl. But the more time we spend together, the more I've begun to understand. We do tend to define gender by genitalia. It's easy to do. Can you define what a woman is, or what a man is without those markers? It's so very hard to describe what makes a man a man, or a woman a woman. But its becoming increasingly obvious that it shouldn't be based on what body you live in. It just so happens that most men have a pair of testes and a penis. Just as most women have breasts, vaginae and birth babies. Getting to know this boy I've had to realize that he is a boy. Not a boi, not simply butch, but Male.

Google Meme

Go see this video. These people are pretty awesome. Anyhow, the video contains instructions on how to compile this odd list....

Hannah needs some alone time.
Hannah looks like a train wreck.
Hannah says "Leave the sharks alone."
Hannah wants to give up acting.
Hannah does a sexy strip tease! (O_o)
Hannah hates when I do this, which is mostly why I'm foraging on.
Hannah asks a question. (?!)
Hannah likes lemons.
Hannah eats the world!
Hannah wears vintage. Eco-vintage!
Hannah was arrested for the brutal slaying of her step-grandfather, a California Supreme Court justice.
Hannah loves playing in the park.

*I did modify my search so that nothing related to Hannah Montana would show up. Is that cheating?

Just a few more.

Here I Am!

Just a random sampling of images from a shoot I participated in a few weeks ago. Most of the others are unedited (which I will work on), or will never be posted due to content (this is, after all, a public blog). But if you are a photographer, or one of my very special friends, drop me a comment and I'll send you more.

On Work

Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.

And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is the become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always have you been told that work is a curse and labour a misfourtune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of the earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, the I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is in vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often I have heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine.
And if you sing as though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

--Kahlil Gibran

And even more pictures!

Detail of a piece I'm working on now

The full piece.

Another piece I'm working on.

This necklace is a rope of pearls hung with things I've been saving for years. Beads, pendants, etc. Things that I haven't put in other pieces, because I want to keep them.

Old buttons, coral, clay beads, freshwater pearls, tiger's eye, and more I'm sure.

Old old piece. I don't even remember what kind of stone those beads are.

Lots of sparkly found objects.

This piece is on sale at Underground Treasures in Oakland.

For your viewing pleasure...

So, I took some photos today. Finally, right? This is a crazy mish-mash of things I said I would photograph, and then promptly forgot about. Enjoy.


Ignore my expression in this picture, please. I think I was squinting against the flash. Concentrate on my pretty hat! (Abby, this is the yarn you gave me)

This is my other favorite hat.
And again...

So, I've been fixing up the dungeon room. Cushions and lamps! Every bit of this is salvaged and found materials.
Table-top shrine in the dungeon.
And the other table.
This room was such a dump when I moved in. I'm really pleased with how it's shaping up.
I finally got around to painting in my main room. Pretty color, isn't it?

My wall of pictures. Send me something new for it!
Found objects necklace
Another
And another
And yet another found objects necklace. Much thanks and love to my housemate Isel for wearing them for me. All four of those pieces are currently on sale at FAVOR (shopatfavor.com) in San Francisco. AND, I found another store that may be interested in carrying my work.

Alright then. Peace.