Gender Bending
The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER | Thu, 03/19/2009 5:06 PM |
My best friend wrote recently to tell me her latest boyfriend had broken up with her.
“I hate men,” she declared, the way she always does after a relationship has soured.
I did not know much about their long-distance relationship, but after reading their email correspondence she forwarded to me, it seemed he merely agreed to her suggestion that they split up after they grew emotionally apart.
I suggested she take the breakup in stride and write him an honest, courteous but close-ended email, then bid him farewell. This way they can avoid prolonged ruminating over what happened, which never fails to trigger more resentment and always ends up pissing off both parties involved.
Time and space will allow for contemplation about what went wrong, and if it is meant to be, someday they will be together again in different circumstances.
So they had their “amicable” parting of the ways, though, of course, it did little to console her broken heart.
I often feel conflicted when my female friends consult me about their relationship problems as I lack the knack of telling people what they want to hear. I am loyal and supportive, but I don’t buy into gender chauvinism – the belief that one sex is better or more morally upright than the other.
There are always two sides to a story, and more often than not, both people share the blame when a relationship fails. So I am probably not the best person to seek a “girls-rule-guys-suck” pep talk.
Maybe this springs from my own refusal to allow my gender to define me, because there is nothing I hate more than being judged based on my sex. Throughout my life, I have worked hard to ignore the unwritten but pervasive gender limitations and, unfortunately, my sticking to this gets a little obsessive at times.
Blame it on my parents. When I was young, I wanted to become a badminton player like my brother and begged Mom to enroll me at a training center for athletes. She sent me to dance school instead.
Her rationale, explained later: “Boys are more likely to succeed at sports than girls.”
Although I grew to love dancing, my dream to become an athlete was crushed. It was my first major disappointment in life, and my first lesson that we cannot always get what we want.
In hindsight, it was probably a good move on Mom’s part, as I likely had no chance of excelling in the sport.
Still, it left a mark on me. My life since has seemed to revolve around this effort to prove her, and all the others who think like that, wrong.
I often find myself getting a little competitive with male counterparts, including my husband, against whom I have secretly competed in the past on matters from career to sports.
Until about a year ago, we split our bills, even at restaurants, which raised questions among some of our friends, because I did not want to be dependent on him.
As a journalist, I volunteered to cover tough disaster assignments – both manmade and natural catastrophes – ahead of my male colleagues.
This concern can get a bit petty at times. Because of the stereotype of women drivers as being poor at parking, I set out to prove to every parking attendant in town that I do not fall into that category.
I don’t mind giving them Rp 2,000 for allowing me to park on their turf, but I make a point of ignoring their instructions and relying on my own skill to wedge my car into a tight space.
At red lights, I resent it when the paper boys assume I am more interested in gossip tabloids or women’s magazines while the guy in the next car gets offered news publications (even if I have no plan to buy the latter).
I realize that all these are egoistic hang-ups and I am still working on letting them go, but maybe such an attitude of combativeness is not always a bad thing.
Aside from the instinctive competitiveness, my presumption of gender equality makes it easy for me to forge camaraderie with members of the opposite sex. But I’ve found that is not always the case for women in this culture.
In my first few months as a journalist, I experienced a bit of culture shock as a newbie covering City Hall. I found that many government officials and senior male journalists treated young women as objects of flirtation or sexist jokes.
I was even more shocked to find that in many social gatherings women are expected to bond with their own sex, as are men, simply because of their common gender.
At one function, I joined my husband and his acquaintances in a discussion on politics – instead of chatting with the other wives – and soon realized that my opinions caused an uncomfortable silence among the men.
Don’t get me wrong: I am neither a hostile feminist, nor someone with a chip on her shoulder determined to shove every man out of her way. The truth is quite the opposite.
I believe the boundaries that reinforce the stereotypes of men and women should continue to blur. If a woman can become a president or a jet fighter pilot, why can’t a man stay at home to take care of their kids while his wife brings home the bacon?
The same goes with relationships: If some men are egotistical jerks, what makes us assume that women are somehow kinder, gentler human beings just by their gender?
Perhaps my girlfriends could chew this over, before they put all the blame on their male partners.
+Devi Asmarani
“I hate men,” she declared, the way she always does after a relationship has soured.
I did not know much about their long-distance relationship, but after reading their email correspondence she forwarded to me, it seemed he merely agreed to her suggestion that they split up after they grew emotionally apart.
I suggested she take the breakup in stride and write him an honest, courteous but close-ended email, then bid him farewell. This way they can avoid prolonged ruminating over what happened, which never fails to trigger more resentment and always ends up pissing off both parties involved.
Time and space will allow for contemplation about what went wrong, and if it is meant to be, someday they will be together again in different circumstances.
So they had their “amicable” parting of the ways, though, of course, it did little to console her broken heart.
I often feel conflicted when my female friends consult me about their relationship problems as I lack the knack of telling people what they want to hear. I am loyal and supportive, but I don’t buy into gender chauvinism – the belief that one sex is better or more morally upright than the other.
There are always two sides to a story, and more often than not, both people share the blame when a relationship fails. So I am probably not the best person to seek a “girls-rule-guys-suck” pep talk.
Maybe this springs from my own refusal to allow my gender to define me, because there is nothing I hate more than being judged based on my sex. Throughout my life, I have worked hard to ignore the unwritten but pervasive gender limitations and, unfortunately, my sticking to this gets a little obsessive at times.
Blame it on my parents. When I was young, I wanted to become a badminton player like my brother and begged Mom to enroll me at a training center for athletes. She sent me to dance school instead.
Her rationale, explained later: “Boys are more likely to succeed at sports than girls.”
Although I grew to love dancing, my dream to become an athlete was crushed. It was my first major disappointment in life, and my first lesson that we cannot always get what we want.
In hindsight, it was probably a good move on Mom’s part, as I likely had no chance of excelling in the sport.
Still, it left a mark on me. My life since has seemed to revolve around this effort to prove her, and all the others who think like that, wrong.
I often find myself getting a little competitive with male counterparts, including my husband, against whom I have secretly competed in the past on matters from career to sports.
Until about a year ago, we split our bills, even at restaurants, which raised questions among some of our friends, because I did not want to be dependent on him.
As a journalist, I volunteered to cover tough disaster assignments – both manmade and natural catastrophes – ahead of my male colleagues.
This concern can get a bit petty at times. Because of the stereotype of women drivers as being poor at parking, I set out to prove to every parking attendant in town that I do not fall into that category.
I don’t mind giving them Rp 2,000 for allowing me to park on their turf, but I make a point of ignoring their instructions and relying on my own skill to wedge my car into a tight space.
At red lights, I resent it when the paper boys assume I am more interested in gossip tabloids or women’s magazines while the guy in the next car gets offered news publications (even if I have no plan to buy the latter).
I realize that all these are egoistic hang-ups and I am still working on letting them go, but maybe such an attitude of combativeness is not always a bad thing.
Aside from the instinctive competitiveness, my presumption of gender equality makes it easy for me to forge camaraderie with members of the opposite sex. But I’ve found that is not always the case for women in this culture.
In my first few months as a journalist, I experienced a bit of culture shock as a newbie covering City Hall. I found that many government officials and senior male journalists treated young women as objects of flirtation or sexist jokes.
I was even more shocked to find that in many social gatherings women are expected to bond with their own sex, as are men, simply because of their common gender.
At one function, I joined my husband and his acquaintances in a discussion on politics – instead of chatting with the other wives – and soon realized that my opinions caused an uncomfortable silence among the men.
Don’t get me wrong: I am neither a hostile feminist, nor someone with a chip on her shoulder determined to shove every man out of her way. The truth is quite the opposite.
I believe the boundaries that reinforce the stereotypes of men and women should continue to blur. If a woman can become a president or a jet fighter pilot, why can’t a man stay at home to take care of their kids while his wife brings home the bacon?
The same goes with relationships: If some men are egotistical jerks, what makes us assume that women are somehow kinder, gentler human beings just by their gender?
Perhaps my girlfriends could chew this over, before they put all the blame on their male partners.
+Devi Asmarani
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