Gender: A Flaky Pastry? I Wish.

Gender a flaky pastry? Of course it makes no sense! Not yet, anyhow - let me explain. My tech-heavy writing class, for which this blog has been whipped together like a last-minute pasta salad,* has introduced me to the most delightful online buffet I have yet encountered: Pageflakes. This scrumptuous site allows one to assemble at will, in one place, all one's most favorite web offerings; for the over-extended and starved for time, it resembles in no small way a smorgasbord from heaven.

I'd like to show you just what I mean, so I'm going to shamelessly promote this site by giving you a tour of my xploragen pageflakes, a customized complement to this blog, assembled to give a more than adequate dose of what's hot in gender discourse today, from news to blogs to academia. I’ll even throw in some of my own musings on the topic.Let's go see what's cooking!

(Warning, this kitchen is about to get hot with symbolic meaning, like a New York City drag ball!)

The first items for your perusal are the bright, welcoming colors of Hawaiian flowers, artfully arranged across the top of the page with the color scheme continuing throughout the page to neatly tie everything together aesthetically and symbolically. I chose this theme carefully as representative of my own conceptions of gender: yellow and magenta are hardly blue and pink, rather, yellow is often used as gender neutral and magenta comes awfully close to lavender, which has historical ties to the gay and lesbian movements. Flowers, of course, are aesthetically pleasing reproductive units, therefore the historical connection with females and femininity. Academic pursuits, however, especially research, which my blog and pageflakes are ultimately all about, are historically gender-coded as male and masculine. Form, in this case, conveys meaning without involving a single word, much like a Japanese obento arrangement (food arranged artfully, full of meaning).

Next on the menu are the appetizers and a la carte items in a balanced arrangement across the top of the page. Our appetizers feature a universal news search primed to give the latest news on the feminist front and our universal blog search will serve up a selection of blogs written by, for, or about trans people and topics. Again, I have crafted the menu to play on a subtle symbolic level: feminism is supposedly dead, living on only in the frantic, ghostly rants of onry old feminists clinging to an outdated meal-ticket. However, the universal news search manages several times daily to find choice offerings of feminist concerns in media world-wide. The blog search is primed for trans topics because historically trans people were written about, talked about, and decided upon by non-trans people in positions of power. With the advent of the internet, trans people have much greater visibility and opportunity to speak about, for, and to their community: our blog search is designed to tap into the growing number of blogs by trans people rather than confine them to being spoken about by “experts” in the news on our pagecast.

Our a la carte items pay further tribute to the voices of feminists, trans people, gays, lesbians, and genderqueer people of all types. We have a selection of ten fine RSS feeds, from Genderfork (a collection of androgynous photography and thought) to Bilerico Project (a staple of lgbtq blogging) to classic feminist blogs such as Bitch, PhD and Feministing.com; we're sure you'll find something to tempt your tongue.

Just under the appetizers you'll find our academic fare: imnothin's own bibliography tailored for research to be covered in the Adventures in Gender blog. Here we have peer-reviewed articles, academic book reviews, and scholarly books as well. Several items have been garnished with imnothin's own annotations to help the reader determine what their flavor of the day will be. Each source cited is an entree in itself (provided you actually read it, that is).

Finally, top things off with some del.icio.us bookmarks from our dessert section. Our current offerings feature imnothin's own del.icio.us bookmarks and those of The Common Ryan, imnothin's social bookmarking soulmate. Here you'll find an ecclectic assortment of gender related tidbits from around the world, a nice way to top off your gourmet gender meal.

If your stomach isn't yet turning from this heavy sauce of analogy, or perhaps even more so if it is, let me now explain why I'm presenting gender in terms of food. Gender, like food, is a vital part of our existence. However, unlike food, gender is not a biological necessity; it is crafted and imposed upon us by our own respective cultures, it has been made a social necessity. We are made to think that doing gender, performing gender, is as natural as eating, but in reality, each gendered act, each gendered reference, is as cooked as a well-done roast, sometimes to the point of being rather tough to chew and swallow. Still, we are not afforded the ample opportunity to pick and choose in the realm of gender, as we are with our daily food selections. Imagine a gender buffet, where you could take whichever items you thought most tasty, and as much or as little as you liked. Imagine a world where gender preferences were your own concern, and no one else's, where you could be selective, like choosing and enjoying a fine wine, or indulgent, like eating a rich dessert.

Conversely, try to imagine being verbally abused, violently attacked, or even killed, because of the food you happened to be inclined towards. Eating is a biological necessity, and we have all these ways to enjoy it, unlimited ethnic cuisines that are spreading globally to reach everyone's tongue with a new and delightful taste. But we don't biologically have to wear a dress and heels, suit and tie, wear only socially acceptable accessories, act only in social prescribed gendered roles. Why should gendered behavior be so rigidly defined and enforced? Why can't it be like going and eating a flaky pastry if that's what you are feeling like right now? Or perhaps skipping a meal altogether if you choose?


*By which I mean a quick and tasty, yet artful and satisfying dish, not a cold, slimy, cheap substitute for a real meal that leaves you wanting for substance and sustenance! Heaven forbid I post anything in cyberspace that would resemble the latter in the least!