If I had a thousand guesses on the first person that would correctly use "sir" for me, I still would not have guessed "TSA Agent in Florida."
They looked me straight in the face. From three feet away. Zero hesitation or uncertainty. Wasn't even wearing a binder. Six months from now I will probably still be excited about it.
“If the conditions of failure could be described, then people could be whatever gender they wanted to be at any time.”
–Suzanne Kessler & Wendy McKenna
Gender, An Ethnomethodological Approach
If you read just about any scholarly article on gender attribution, at some point you’ll come across this source citation: (Kessler & McKenna, 1978). That’s because they had a revolutionary perspective on studying gender. Rather than asking, as many scientists, sociologists, and psychologists already have, “what is the difference between a man and a woman”, they asked, “when we look at a stranger, what makes us decide that person is male or female?”
What does Ethnomethodology even mean? What does that have to do with gender?
The example they give in the book is to imagine an anthropologist who is studying a shaman. The shaman says that he can take certain medicines that let him turn into a bird. The anthropologist, who doesn’t believe that people can turn into birds, might assume that the person is hallucinating being a bird. But if they study it like that, they will never understand that shaman’s experience. He does not believe he is hallucinating. He believes he is becoming a bird. And until the anthropologist can let go of their assumptions and follow him into that truth, they will never understand his world.
Just like most scientists assume “people can’t turn into birds," they also assume “there are two distinct biological sexes for human beings - male and female.” But until we are willing to let go of that assumption, there are things about sex and gender that we will never understand. Kessler & McKenna undermined that assumption for their studies, and that’s what makes their work unique and fascinating.
What is Gender Attribution? And how did they study it?
Gender Attribution is the moment when we look at a stranger and decide that that person is male or female. Kessler & McKenna wanted to determine how we make that distinction. They studied the existing data. Keep in mind, this was the 1970’s, and what was available to them was different than what a lot of scholars might have access to today. In their book, Kessler and McKenna are sharply critical of the scientific and historical assumptions made about gender. The main bias that they kept pointing out in existing research was this:
“This research takes it for granted that there are only two genders, that there are differences between them, and that the cause of these differences can be found in biology.”
They pointed out that even people who see gender as a social construct still see it as something an individual constructs for themself. They don’t turn the camera around to focus on the observer, the person who assigns the gender to another, as being an important part of the process.
“For the most part, classifying people as women and men is a deceptively easy procedure. For this reason, all theoretical and empirical work in the area of gender has taken this process for granted.”
They give examples of gender attribution in sports, biology, psychology, and sociology. One by one, they shine light onto how biases are shaping the results. The argument they make, which is refreshing to hear even today, is that we can’t divorce biological sex from our social construct of gender.
The last few chapters of their book focus on the data from their own studies, which are very interesting. First, they focus on developmental gender attribution, asking how kids tell gender based on drawings they’re asked to make of male and female pictures. Second, they ask people to attribute gender to a series of diagrams which have intentionally mixed up gender indicators.
How do they deal with the difference between Gender and Biological Sex?
“We argue that whether one is male or female is merely another way of asking how one decides if another is male or female.”
In other words, if we accept the idea that gender and biological sex aren’t the same thing, we should accept the reality of what those two things actually mean: Gender is what you think you are. Biological sex is what I think you are.
There’s a lot to unpack from this book, so expect more posts from it. All future excerpts and analysis from this will be labeled with the tag #The GEA Book
I'm reading a book from 1978 about gender. I don't want to be reading a book from 1978 on this topic, but you tell me any other book that presents actual data on how the process of "gender attribution" works. (Please? I am struggling.)
Anyway, there's plenty of stuff in here that hasn't aged well, like this part about how all "non-psychotic" people only identify as male or female. 😬
BUT THIS AGED LIKE THE BEST OF FINE WINES:
What? No, sure. You can loosen the rigid gender roles. They're natural, right? They'll just happen on their own. There is absolutely no reason to believe that loosening the gender roles will lead to any unusual genders. No one will ever laugh at this statement in non-binary, genderfluid, or agender. 🙂 In fact, we should loosen them more actually. Apparently that will only make it easier for people to decide which of the two naturally occurring genders they are. /s
I'm branching out from the just the comics I originally set this blog up for and expanding it into a place that I can post about gender stuff in general. I've been doing a lot of research and learning lately, and it has been interesting.
While I am an aspiring gender shapeshifter, I only realized that that was even possible because of August_Skyz videos. Also "draw the same person in the same outfit, but one of them is clearly masculine and the other is clearly feminine" is a fantastic drawing exercise.
(ID under the cut)
Image Description:
Digital art of TikTok/Youtube artist, August Skyz. Their masculine presentation and feminine presentation are standing shoulder-to-shoulder, with their hands out in front forming the corners of a frame for their faces. They are wearing the same outfit, but in different ways that fit with their different gender expressions. They are standing in front of a building that has a checkered pattern with the genderfluid flag colors, and a vertical sign that says, "Get A New Perspective."
My name is Savvy, hence the blog title, and I'll be sharing things I learn, reblogging stuff that's relevant, maybe making some comics.
I've got gendersonas that may show up in comics when that's relevant - Her, Him, and Them.
Personifying my gender expressions helps me understand them a little better. It also gives me a place to vent about the struggles, laugh about the weird moments, and share the things that stand out to me as I'm figuring this new identity out.
The art tag will be: #gender savvy art
Specifically comics will be: #gender savvy comics
I'll add other tags to this post as they become relevant.
EDIT: I switched up the designs for the 'sonas to make them more cartoony and colorful. I'm going to be using this new design for them moving forward.
amandla
titsay
gummygunk
romaincrisis
izzy806
vaporwave
gracieabrams