I had a bit of an epiphany this morning, or at least a thought, which might be worth sharing.\r\n
I\u2019ll begin with this: I grew up with norms and social constructs relating to sex and gender that were deeply fucked-up. That\u2019s not this morning\u2019s epiphany, though. I\u2019ve known that for some time. Over the last, oh, thirty years, and particularly the last ten, I\u2019ve attempted to work against the various ways that those norms and constructs have been harmful to myself and others. The patriarchy, as we only-somewhat-joshingly refer to the systems of power and gender in our culture, infiltrates almost every aspect of our lives, and I am still finding new ways in which my instincts are based on (or at least influenced by) ideas about sex and gender that I now believe are wrong.\r\n
But here\u2019s the thing I realized this morning: there are people who don\u2019t<\/i> believe that they hold deeply fucked-up notions of sex and gender.\r\n
I mean, I kinda knew that, I guess. But I don\u2019t think I\u2019d recently thought about it in those terms: there are people who believe that the norms and social constructs of sex and gender that they grew up with are the right norms and social constructs: beneficial to themselves and others, correct to some objective truth about the universe, perhaps Divinely ordained, and certainly not fucked-up.\r\n
I wonder what that\u2019s like.\r\n
I mean, I don\u2019t really. But a thing about growing up in the 70s as YHB did is that we were being made aware that the Old Ways were wrong. Women\u2019s Liberation and the Sexual Revolution and the Gay Rights movement were mainstream enough that pre-teens were at least dimly aware that Something Was Happening, even if we didn\u2019t know what it was, did we. Then the eighties happened, if I remember correctly, and\u2026 well, my point is that I don\u2019t remember a time when I felt like the values and norms and symbols and institutions I inherited were unproblematic. I wouldn\u2019t have used the word problematic<\/i>, mind you, and I spent much of my life deluding myself about the extent to which I had thrown off those things, but still.\r\n