Gender norms. A tale of 2 titties by Pamela Francis

Student Interviewer: Gemini season is wrapping up and I know that you’re a… double Gemini…?

Me: Double Gemini.  Yes.  Sun and Moon.

Student Interviewer: Tell me a distinctly Geminian joke.

Me: Hmmm…. Ok.  I made this one up myself.  Where did the heavy-set woman get her psych degree?

Student Interviewer: I don’t know.  Where did the heavy-set woman get her psych degree?

Me: at the hippocampus.

Student Interviewer: Geminis seem to be pretty fluid when it comes to gender roles.  Have you been keeping up with all that’s going on with that?

Me: with the gender roles?  Like what do you mean?

Student Interviewer: Ok so, you’re a published author…,

Me: Yes.  I just put out a book called Candid Me’s: The Mental Gyrations of a Gemini Mom.

Student Interviewer: I saw that on Amazon.  You have three books on Amazon.

Me: Yes.

Student Interviewer: You’re a published author…, an internationally read blogger, a one-time independent filmmaker, screenwriter, world traveler, and now YouTube influencer, business-owner and 54-yr-old mother of 2 young boys. What were some “Rules” about gender that you were taught and/or live by?

Me: Girls wear dresses; boys don’t

Growing up I went to a private school. We wore uniforms. I remember the pleated skirt, knee-socks and white button-down blouses the girls wore, with the rounded collars. Boys wore white button-down shirts, too, but theirs buttoned on the opposite side and their collars were pointy. They wore slacks. We girls could not wear pants except on the coldest days of the year, and even then we would have to take them off during homeroom the minute we stepped inside the building. We could wear tights all day if we wanted to keep our legs warm, but outside of that, going to a coed high school when I could have just as easily gone to the all-girls school a little further away, I got to live out the cultural norm of being a girl on the girl side of things by wearing what girls wear, and letting boys be boys, and not trying to change that in any way or do anything radical. It would have been radical for any of us girls to show up in pants expecting to get away with wearing that all day. It would have been outright unbelievable for a boy to show up in a skirt or dress. Unless it was Halloween or something. And even then it would have caused a huge uproar.

Student Interviewer: Wow…that’s crazy. Tell me about another one.

Me: Girls wear make-up, perfume and nail polish; boys don’t

When I turned fifteen I started to wear make-up. At first my mother encouraged me to put on lipstick and blush on picture day so that my photos would come out prettier, I guess. Then she would get with me in the front of the mirror and help me apply make-up before a dance or a party so that I would get asked to dance instead of just being left standing against the wall. I don’t know what the boys did before the dance to ensure that they wouldn’t be standing against the wall, but it absolutely was not apply make-up. Sometimes they’d wear cologne. I had to admit, it did make me want to be next to them more so than the ones who didn’t wear any. I remember sitting in class next to a study partner who wore such strong cologne but I know it was something he was probably told to do by a male in his life in order to keep from offending me, his female study partner. Occasionally I would wear perfume, since that is what girls do, my mom modeled for me. But in reality, I hated half the perfumes she bought and sprayed up all over the bathroom every morning on her way out to work. The smell I preferred was clean laundry. That, and bath soap. A clean body in a clean shirt just after a shower. That’s what I liked. By the time I moved out on my own, I had stopped wearing make-up, perfumes and dresses unless I was specifically trying to attract the sexual attention of a male. No males that I knew — and I knew plenty — would be caught dead in nail polish, by the way. Not unless they were from the punk rock crowd. And even then it was understood that it was a “masculine” use of nail polish worn by a rowdy, rebellious male. It was important to make that distinction because if you didn’t, you could be construed as gay. And at the time, nobody wanted that. Even if they really were gay. Especially if they were.

Student Interviewer: Any others? What was the real zinger?

Me: Boys make the first move

I grew up with the teaching that boys chase girls; not the other way around. In the romantic world, if you were a girl, you had to do whatever it took to attract the attention of males so that they could notice you and like you and choose you. Once they chose you, you did whatever it took to keep their interest and keep them chasing you. You never chased them. Not for love. It was better to be alone — or even a lesbian — than to chase a male. Along with this “boys make the first move” gender norm was the accompanying belief that men are supposed to make money and reinforce the girl’s worth by spending it on her. If you could not get a male to spend money on you, something was wrong with you. Your worth was directly related to how much men were willing to go into their wallets for you.

Student Interviewer: How has your experience or identity with gender changed over time?

Me: Once I became a young adult living on my own, I began to explore other ways of expressing my gender. I liked to go back and forth between dressing and acting very feminine with dresses and flowery patterns and legs out and high heels and soft hair styles, and then I would flip and dress very masculine or “butch” in pleated pants, penny loafers, neck ties… hats. I even used to wear “wife-beaters”, which are the signature ribbed tank-tops that men wear under their button-down dress shirts. I would wear those with boxer shorts as my outerwear, and construction ankle boots. I loved being super femme on some days and confusingly boyish on others. My best friend and I even came up with an alter-ego for me for those days where I would just wake up wanting to be a boy. I called myself Raffi Effeminaté. Raffi is like rough. Effeminaté is like feminine.

In addition to now living on my own as an adult and making my own decisions about what type of “girl/woman” I wanted to be, I also began to make more money. I began to notice that the boys I liked did not seem to have as much money as I did, and so that whole thing about boys make the first move and boys spend their money on you went out the window. At some point I began to do for men what I had been taught men do for women. I spent my own money and rented cars for men to be able to take me out. I bought boys jewelry. I took men on vacations with me if they couldn’t afford it. I’ll never forget the time I sent a male flowers for his birthday. No one could believe it. I actually ended up doing that at least twice more in my dating life with different males I was with. The reactions were always one of astonishment. I was breaking the rules. What I found out soon enough, however, was that I was also making things hard on myself by messing with the gender rules and establishing patterns where men could get away with being broke and still have me as their woman. It backfired on me. I had set a tone where I was now chasing men for love and supporting them financially. I also became known for being very capable and independent. This resulted in men doing less than their fair share and even falling way short of their “masculine” duties as far as being providers (another gender norm). By the time I became a mom, I was easily the breadwinner and my children’s fathers (my sons were born 7 years apart) would always turn into stay-at-home dads.

Student Interviewer: This has been so enlightening. What would you say to wrap up your experiences with gender and gender norms?

One of the things I learned through my experiences with gender and gender norms was how drastically things could change over time. At some point males were wearing painted fingernails, make-up, dresses and wigs whether they were punk rockers or not. Things like the rise of the Pride Movement, the fashion industry, the music industry and Hollywood pushed images in my face that made me abandon so many of the beliefs and concepts I had grown up with. Once I realized how much the work-place had changed to reflect the diversity in gender roles, and how much the schools had changed to protect and respect the changing sexual natures of young people I was like, wow. Things will never be the same as they once were. We could be looking at a whole new way of relating and being within the human species now. We may even evolve ourselves right into extinction as we move towards the de-prioritization of procreation and motherhood in favor of just being who and what we want to be. Whatever that is.

Tags: Candid Me's, Gemini Season, gender norms, gender roles