A random thought (playing with gender again)

[kiya]

A couple of folks I know have made comments over the past while about the value of same-gendered religious or ritual practices for them, or in general.

And I'm chewing a bit on how much of my lack of personal interest in such comes down to the whole "Deborah Tannen thinks that I'm a man" thing. My sense of alienation when encountering common/mainstream concepts of gender is so immense that I'm likely to presume that a gender-specific ritual space is going to leave me feeling shut out, an example of The Other, and otherwise the green monkey. (Which is much how I feel about gender-specific groupings in general . . .)

But now I'm wondering if a genderqueer women's ritual space would throw me the same way. (Or whether it would throw me in entirely different ways. Gods know.)

Of course, that goes off into whole new rounds of definition-baiting . . .

Comments

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

But now I'm wondering if a genderqueer women's ritual space would throw me the same way. (Or whether it would throw me in entirely different ways. Gods know.)

I'd be very intrigued to see something like that just for the sake of seeing the energy.

I've never felt the need to do a one-gender circle either...but I do think it would be neat to see one that was geared for genderqueerness and watch the different aspects play off one another and all that.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm someone who can appriciate men-only spiritual practices sometimes.

And, weirdly, I think that I would feel more or less comfortable with you, or jehanna, in those spaces, if you felt like "being male" (I have no idea what that means, but well, handwave verb adjective) for the duration of the ritual. Or whatever.

I mean, if I set up a mechitzah and you felt like being on the male side of it, that would be comfortable for me. I have no idea why.

[montrealais.livejournal.com]

As you know, I attempted a Mabon circle this past year that was genderqueer in focus.

If I can ask, who is Deborah Tannen and why does s/he think you're a man?

[kiya]

She wrote some very interesting books about cultural influences on conversational behaviour -- some word choice, some posture, interaction with others, and so on. The first book was dealing with a bunch of factors -- ethnicities and gender were two of the things she studied, that I can recall -- but everyone who interviewed her wanted to talk about the male/female differences, so she wrote a second book on the narrower subject.

Of the traits that she discusses, I tend (my modes of interaction with people are really variable) to fit the "male conversation pattern" better than the "female conversation pattern".

She's actually very clear that she's speaking in generalities, and talking about tendencies within adjecctives rather than things intrinsically linked to the adjectives themselves, but "Deborah Tannen thinks that I'm a man" is much more efficient and amusing than "Deborah Tannen's nuance-deficient black-and-white thinking fanthings think that tendencies are essential traits of gender".

[wickedwit.livejournal.com]

I don't think she knows what she's talking about. I *totally* pegged you as a female from the first time I read anything you wrote.

[elf]

I think you should spend some time hanging out with Radical Faeries. Most of 'em are fairly oblivious to gender roles (except those involving physical anatomy), and their perspective on gender identity is, umm, interesting.

I tend to dislike gender-segregated rituals. The "wymyn" rituals tend to be either too tolerant of man-hating or too schmoozy-huggy-kissy for my taste, and the men-only ones I've heard about are either testosterone proving grounds (geez, guys, just because none of you were any good at sports as kids doesn't mean you need to take up mock-knife-fighting at the age of 35) or resemble those weird men-get-cuddly "sensitivity awareness seminars" from the 80's.

I have mixed thoughts on the whole "genderqueer" concept. I haven't decided if it's a glorious mindfuck to inflict on the clueless sheep, or an inability to separate physical shape from social expectations, such that a denial of one insists on a denial of both.

(My guess is that a genderqueer women's ritual would throw you in different ways. Genderqueer is a weird game of its own.)

[kiya]

At least a couple of the specifically genderqueer people I know strike me as looking for a different grid to get the chaos in that part of reality arranged in a way that works better for them.

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

I think whether a mainstream gendered single-gender ritual would leave you shut out depends a lot on the group. I've been in mostly women-only spiritual space for most of my adult life-- I tend to feel extremely frustrated and inhibited in mixed-gender space. Not inhibited in terms of talking, but I wouldn't in a million years dream of dancing in a mixed group, or anything else that would generally make me uncomfortable. The beauty of women-only space, IMO, is that it supports personal expression and creative effort and that it spends much less time preening and competing and other bits of non-ritual things that just take up time and space that should be reserved for religion.

In that time I've seen the things elfwreck mentions (the majority-lesbian group was the worst on the man-hating, and as one might expect, the one to port sexual energy into the space-- and you know how I feel about that, it's why I dislike mixed groups), I've been in a completely straight women's circle that spent all of its time discussing giving oral sex to their spouses (didn't last long with that one), and I've been in women's groups that didn't dwell on gender beyond prohibiting one at the door. In the first one I led, gender came up a fair lot in terms of "how we relate to spirituality and life *as women*, but I don't see a lot of that in my current group at all. I tend to like gender-segregated groups to the extent that they're useful, I suppose that's the same for anyone else-- if mixed groups give you what you need, there's little need to seek outside them.

(I've no idea about genderqueerness. Like your comments about being "geek gendered", it's completely out of my knowledge and comfort range. I think I'm the most mainstream-gendered of any of my friends, actually, which is an oddness all its own.)

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I think I'm the most mainstream-gendered of any of my friends, actually, which is an oddness all its own

Yeah, I find that.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

My sense of alienation when encountering common/mainstream concepts of gender . . .

I have that same sense of alienation. When people pronounce that "men this and women that," I'm at least as likely to be this as that.

[boojum.livejournal.com]

I get a lot of (implicit and explicit both) "Yes, but you're weird. As I was saying, men this and women that...." Also a lot of "Well, you and [husband] are reversed." Argh.