Perceptions towards gender are never far from the news, either in action or in comment. A little story hit the social media-waves recently: a 7-year-old girl shaved her head to look like her dad. The popular response was that she should not have been ‘allowed’ to do that to herself and that (oddly) the mother was to blame. Opposition said women owe no-one the obligation to be pretty and the child’s choice was her own to make. The fact that the little girl in question was just as cute with or without hair was little raised.
Now, I consider myself a pretty liberal Moose and if my daughter wanted to shave her head, and I was satisfied she really wanted to shave her head, I’d like to think I wouldn’t fuss. Eh, who am I kidding they’d probably go ahead and do it anyway. But the question I’m not sure about is the second. “Women don’t owe anyone the obligation to be pretty”. This is true. But there are two major issues here.
1) Humans are social animals and crave approval from other humans. Denying this would be folly. Even taking the stance to be “individual” calls for approval through extra application of courage.
2) All animals judge each other. On smell, size, appearance, attitude, sex, posture, voice, and many other categories. Humans utilize all of these. Clothes (including hair and make-up) are part of it. Certain attires send out specific signals. Is it morally wrong to use those cultural tools to send out signals? Surely not. All books must have a cover. The cover may as well be put to use in attracting the audience who would like to read the contents. False advertising is another matter, but that helps no-one in the end.
Let’s not forget, we judge both sexes on the external persona they present. It is not a solely female issue.
Further, what in the world has this got to do with writing?
Divorcing oneself entirely from the cultural mores in the physical world is near-on impossible. But in the world of fiction, matters are more fluid.
The adoption of male sobriquets by female writers is nothing new. Occasionally the reverse also occurs. The reasons for this are well known.
I adopted the name “Moosey” many years ago in online writing groups. An androgynous appellation is without doubt liberating. Without any indication as to Moosey’s real identity most other writers assumed I was a (probably retirement age) male. If discovery of the real status was ever made, it would elicit mild surprise, but by then the character was established, sans gender bias.
When would you be able to do this in the physical world? Rarely.
Without the baggage of gender, at least in the field of sending out signals (as in, putting on clothes to be “pretty” or ‘manly”), we are given leave to remember who the person within might have been before the cultural mores dictated our behaviour. The phrase “Walk a mile in another’s shoes” translates to using the words of another human. The writer is freed to walk not only in the shoes of another gender, but another class, race, age or even species. Surely this must be an aid to furthering understanding between disparate social groups.
How well the writer walks in those shoes is, of course, down to the skill of the writer.