Labels. Why do we find it necessary to attach them to people and often so hastily and unnecessarily? The other day I was with a couple of friends amongst a bigger group encompassing several people I didn't know. Casually I nodded to one guy and asked 'who's he?' 'Oh, that's Simon, he's gay,' came the response. Beyond his name, was that the most important thing I needed to know about him? With an overtly camp demenour, perhaps it was but I would rather have heard 'Oh, that's Simon, he's a bit of a dickhead,' or 'Oh, that's Simon, he's cool.' Then it occurred to me, I wonder if the same is said about me when I'm out of earshot. I certainly hope people have something far more interesting to say about me behind my back!
So why is it that human nature dictates that we must pigeon hole people based on their gender, sexual preference, (dis)ability, nationality, qualifications, religion... The list is endless. Is it worse that we then make assumptions based on which pigeon hole people belong in or indeed feel uncomfortable if we cannot identify which label to apply to people?
Ash Beckham is a really cool TedX speaker (interestingly I found it really hard not to add labels myself there rather than just present a name and a talent) who speaks openly about 'coming out of your closest' which she uses as a cover all phrase for hard conversations. This story, which forms part of several of her talks, I've played over and over again.
'Several years ago, I was working at the South Side Walnut Cafe, a local diner in town, and during my time there I would go through phases of militant lesbian intensity:not shaving my armpits, quoting Ani DiFranco lyrics as gospel. And depending on the bagginess of my cargo shorts and how recently I had shaved my head, the question would often be sprung on me,usually by a little kid:
"Um, are you a boy or are you a girl?"
And there would be an awkward silence at the table. I'd clench my jaw a little tighter,hold my coffee pot with a little more vengeance. The dad would awkwardly shuffle his newspaper and the mom would shoot a chilling stare at her kid. But I would say nothing, and I would seethe inside. And it got to the point where every time I walked up to a table that had a kid anywhere between three and 10 years old, I was ready to fight. (Laughter) And that is a terrible feeling. So I promised myself, the next time, I would say something. I would have that hard conversation.
So within a matter of weeks, it happens again.
"Are you a boy or are you a girl?"
Familiar silence, but this time I'm ready, and I am about to go all Women's Studies 101on this table. (Laughter) I've got my Betty Friedan quotes. I've got my Gloria Steinem quotes. I've even got this little bit from "Vagina Monologues" I'm going to do. So I take a deep breath and I look down and staring back at me is a four-year-old girl in a pink dress, not a challenge to a feminist duel, just a kid with a question: "Are you a boy or are you a girl?"
So I take another deep breath, squat down to next to her, and say, "Hey, I know it's kind of confusing. My hair is short like a boy's,and I wear boy's clothes, but I'm a girl, and you know how sometimes you like to wear a pink dress, and sometimes you like to wear your comfy jammies? Well, I'm more of a comfy jammies kind of girl."
And this kid looks me dead in the eye,without missing a beat, and says, "My favorite pajamas are purple with fish. Can I get a pancake, please?" (Laughter) And that was it. Just, "Oh, okay. You're a girl. How about that pancake?"
It was the easiest hard conversation I have ever had. And why? Because Pancake Girl and I, we were both real with each other.'1
Even as children we are keen to apply boy/girl labels on people and adults are insistent on applying them to toys. Why is it necessary to have pink and blue variations of the same toy? To have boy's sections and girl's sections in Toys 'r' Us? To specify whether you want a male or female toy with your Happy Meal? Why can't children just play?
Even when I go to the hairdressers I have to pay women's prices for what is essentially a men's haircut (why does short and spiky denote a 'men's' haircut anyway!) which is what prompted me to write this post in the first place. The last time I got a haircut I paid the $25 'men's' price rather than the $30 'women's' price, interestingly without a word uttered from either party. Why can't we always pay for a hair style rather than our perceived gender?
I read an interesting article about labelling gender from an early age and the discomfort that this can bring for many children.
'Hearing that the school would get a new uniform brought a new low. But the head and governors were worried about the arrival of a new academy down the road. So not only were our pupils’ perfectly adequate black blazers now to be replaced by expensively piped-and-pinstriped ones, lest we get “left behind” in the school fashion wars, but we were also informed there would be gender-specific ties – red for boys, orange for girls.
This was five years ago, but I still remember feeling bewildered. In a society that already puts too many arbitrary divisions between people, why create another by making our kids wear different-coloured strips of material?' 2
She then continues; 'Two stories recently reminded me of that letter. First, the case of Maria Muniz, a transgender teenager in Brazil, who was fined by school officials for wearing a skirt. In protest, all her classmates wore skirts – male and female – until the school overturned the decision.
And parents have complained after a primary school in East Sussex introduced “gender neutral” toilets. This is not actually all that unusual. Many new schools are now built with private toilet cubicles that open on to a corridor where the washbasins are lined against the wall.
Nevertheless, the parents said they were concerned that their children would feel “uncomfortable” using toilets occupied at different times by people of the opposite sex – somewhat forgetting that this happens in almost every household in the country. And they apparently worry about bullying, as if girls and boys have always treated each other perfectly in their same-sex washrooms over the years.'2
'In 2000, New York University researchers asked mothers to put their 11-month-old children on to a sloped surface and set the incline to the level they thought their child could reach. Mothers consistently under-estimated the incline that girls could cope with, and set the bar too high for boys.
Before they have even reached the age of one, then, we can see that children are being set different aspirations based on false assumptions about their gender. “Skirts versus shorts” is simply the dress code embodiment of this difference.
Uniforms should do what their name suggests: unify students, instead of dividing them. Doing so won’t suddenly resolve all gender disparity, but it would be a reminder that – in schools, at least – we are all expected to set our intellectual incline at the same level.
It would also reduce the endless list of awkward choices faced by people who, for whatever reason, find gender identification difficult. Personally, I’ve never once thought about which toilet I ought to go into. But I grew up with someone who did – someone who couldn’t play on the sports teams they wanted to, or be in the changing room they felt they belonged in. Making a decision about what tie they should wear would have been torture; likely involving letters from parents, and a sit-down meeting with senior leaders, and lots of “but I have a special exception” pleading – all of which is embarrassing enough for any teenager and even more so for someone already marked out as “different” for intractable reasons.' 2
So why where does this inherent need to categorise people come from and will there ever be a time when we can just accept people for being wholly unique, individual and themselves?
1 http://www.ted.com/talks/ash_beckham_we_re_all_hiding_something_let_s_find_the_courage_to_open_up/transcript?language=en accessed 28/12/14
2 http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/21/lets-scrap-gender-divide-school-uniforms accessed 28/12/14
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