I haven't blogged in forever...yikes!!!
Not for a lack of content or writers block or anything dramatic, it's just some good old apathy...
Anyway, I really do not feel like boring you guys with a moody...cranky post...not today anyway.
I have been meaning to write about gender for a while now and since Caitlyn Jenner is now a trend...smh!!! I might as well write about gender today.
So I had just walked into a convenient store to buy a packet of cigarettes...just found out that cigarette smoking is in fact a nicotine addiction...that just like an alcoholic or drug addict I am in fact addicted to cigarettes. Funny, I had no idea ciggys were an addiction... I always attributed it to a bad habit that I am yet to kick.. three years later... I am still yet to break free from my addiction. Anyway, I digress...as I am waiting to be handed a box of poison masquerading as ciggs and I look down and see these Easter egg shaped chocolates called Kinder Joy. I have seen these chocolates ten million times before and so a change in packaging definitely caught my eye. The packaging was pink written girls and blue written boys.
This really bothered me. It pissed me off because the lady in front of me kept on insisting that her daughter take the pink one because she is a girl. It got really unnecessary when the mother was visibly angry at her child because she wanted to take the blue chocolate.
Now, this got me thinking about how humanity is working over time to gender people and things. Since when did pink become a girls color while blue a boys. Since when did we allow ourselves to get trapped in the viscious cycle that is gendering. Toys have gender...clothes have gender...animals have gender...people too are locked down into the binary cisnormative he or she genders.
At what point did we get so obsessed with making sure that everything fits into thepretty box that is gender. Why is it that pink packaging is for girls and blue for boys yet the content inside the package is exactly the same? Why is it that we are so intolerant of gender non conforming persons...getting so aggravated because "why can't they just be he or she?" Why is it that when I wake up every morning my biggest dilemma is how I dress as a queer woman... God forbid I end up looking like a man because the clothes I wear are gendered male..too butch... Or as a queer man wondering if the tightness of my pants come off too effeminate.At what point did we allow our children to feel restricted in choice especially for something as minute as a toy...irony being toys were created for fun but here we go gendering a fucking toy...telling girls to play with dolls and boys with guns and cars.
The only reason people are miffed by Caitlyn Jenner's transition is not because she is now a woman but because "why is she coming out so late...she is fucking 70 years old...she should have just remained closeted or made her coming out less open..." Shame on all of us. The fact that Caitlyn has been closeted all her life is because of people like you and me... a humanity consumed with gender. Locking people down in he or she boxes and stifling their self expression. You are assigned a sex at birth but gender is what you identify as. We however bring people up without considering that the constant messages fueled by gender are stifling self expression.
Growing up being told that because you are a girl or a boy you should behave like this, dress like that and most importantly have only pink or blue things. By continuously going around gendering people and things we shove trans and gender queer persons deeper and deeper into the closet. By refusing to acknowledge that sexuality and gender are as fluid as our nature of being human is...we continue to marginalize persons who do not conform to the binary notion that there are only he or she pronouns. By continuing to gender clothes, toys, activities and locking them down in he/she boxes...we continue to stifle our self expression as humanity.
Not for a lack of content or writers block or anything dramatic, it's just some good old apathy...
Anyway, I really do not feel like boring you guys with a moody...cranky post...not today anyway.
I have been meaning to write about gender for a while now and since Caitlyn Jenner is now a trend...smh!!! I might as well write about gender today.
So I had just walked into a convenient store to buy a packet of cigarettes...just found out that cigarette smoking is in fact a nicotine addiction...that just like an alcoholic or drug addict I am in fact addicted to cigarettes. Funny, I had no idea ciggys were an addiction... I always attributed it to a bad habit that I am yet to kick.. three years later... I am still yet to break free from my addiction. Anyway, I digress...as I am waiting to be handed a box of poison masquerading as ciggs and I look down and see these Easter egg shaped chocolates called Kinder Joy. I have seen these chocolates ten million times before and so a change in packaging definitely caught my eye. The packaging was pink written girls and blue written boys.
This really bothered me. It pissed me off because the lady in front of me kept on insisting that her daughter take the pink one because she is a girl. It got really unnecessary when the mother was visibly angry at her child because she wanted to take the blue chocolate.
Now, this got me thinking about how humanity is working over time to gender people and things. Since when did pink become a girls color while blue a boys. Since when did we allow ourselves to get trapped in the viscious cycle that is gendering. Toys have gender...clothes have gender...animals have gender...people too are locked down into the binary cisnormative he or she genders.
At what point did we get so obsessed with making sure that everything fits into the
The only reason people are miffed by Caitlyn Jenner's transition is not because she is now a woman but because "why is she coming out so late...she is fucking 70 years old...she should have just remained closeted or made her coming out less open..." Shame on all of us. The fact that Caitlyn has been closeted all her life is because of people like you and me... a humanity consumed with gender. Locking people down in he or she boxes and stifling their self expression. You are assigned a sex at birth but gender is what you identify as. We however bring people up without considering that the constant messages fueled by gender are stifling self expression.
Growing up being told that because you are a girl or a boy you should behave like this, dress like that and most importantly have only pink or blue things. By continuously going around gendering people and things we shove trans and gender queer persons deeper and deeper into the closet. By refusing to acknowledge that sexuality and gender are as fluid as our nature of being human is...we continue to marginalize persons who do not conform to the binary notion that there are only he or she pronouns. By continuing to gender clothes, toys, activities and locking them down in he/she boxes...we continue to stifle our self expression as humanity.
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