the social construction of gender identity

To be a woman means being expected to excel at a balancing act of competing needs from forces in your life. To balance independence with intimacy, promiscuity with mystery, directness with softness, to exist in the space insofar that your presence is known but never threatening to others. Be talkative, but never speak over others or too loudly. Be social, but leave the party before it dies down and leave others wondering where you went. Be someone that men think they might get the chance to have sex with, but do not actually have sex with them and risk being labeled a “slut,” which is usually preferable to its counterpart, “prude.” Be intelligent but never smarter than the men in the room, God forbid they feel emasculated by you. Be caring and nurturing, but never too emotional, or else you’ll be seen as unhinged. Be honest, but spare the feelings of the men surrounding you. If you call out a man for his harmful speech or behavior, you risk enraged retribution, which could come in any number of unpredictable forms. This balancing act is what is required of me to ensure success in my dating life, my work life, and my familial life.

I was taught how to be a woman mostly by the women in my life — my two older sisters, my mom, and my nanny. By the female characters on the television shows that I watched religiously. By my female teachers and my female classmates. Conversely, I was taught by all the males in my life how not to behave. Once I exited elementary school and began doing things autonomously for the first time in my life, my own experiences and the reactions they yielded from others most comprehensively informed my perception of womanhood. I learned from the boy who drugged me in high school while my boyfriend, his friend, was asleep in the next room over, that to be a woman meant to be sexually conquered by men. I learned from my mother, who resented my dad for not making enough money so that she did not have to work, that to be a woman meant to be the primary caretaker for the children while the men provided for the family financially. I learned from the men who called my best friend a whore in eighth grade for getting raped by a guy she thought loved her, that to be a woman meant to be shamed for any kind of display of sexual conduct, even if it is not due to your own choosing. I learned from my friend’s mom who screamed at me for cutting her daughter’s hair when we were five years old that being a woman meant having long hair. Before my brother was born, I learned from all the people who told my dad that with three daughters he was unlucky because he wouldn’t have anyone to drink beers in the front yard and watch NFL games with; to be a woman meant you do not watch football games or drink beers in the front yard with your dad. I learned from the man in Italy who followed me home from a bar one night, touching himself the whole way to my hotel, that to be a woman meant to be an object of the voyeuristic male gaze, and feeling powerless about it.