Journal Interrobang's Journal: I Am Definitely A Dude, Dude?
Thanks to a link over at my friend DGlenn's LiveJournal, I just took the Spark's Gender Test. The news is in. It's official.
I'm definitely a dude, dude.
So now I can actually say that according to some scientistic index the methodology of which I don't know, I qualify as bigendered, or maybe even androgynous/gynandrous. Well, I never claimed to have acculturated well, and one suspects that this "gender test" doesn't do too well with people who know they're on the boundary line anyway.
In any case, I score about 55% man to 45% woman, which is about right, I figure. As I wrote in a survey on gender issues a few days ago, "If pressed [about my gender identity], I would probably try to explain that I don't really have one. Most people simply assume I'm that spurious construct known as a "woman," but I really hate the term, and don't think of it as applying to me. I self-identify as 'female,' but I see 'female' as a biological descriptor and 'woman' as a cultural descriptor. Since I either failed to or did not for some other reason acculturate (I think) as a 'woman,' I don't feel the term is appropriate in my case."
Likewise, on the other hand, I also said, "'Man' is a cultural construct that defines the social norms typically (in that culture) associated with maleness. I'm not one, mostly because I don't conform to those social norms."
Well, according to some indices, add "...very well" to the end of that last.
In case any of you are wondering, biologically I'm female. That at least I'm sure of, if nothing else. Still, I had to chortle at the image on the "results" page that proudly announced "You are definitely a man!" -- it showed a figure with a mannish face and haircut with a female figure dressed in an orange skirt suit with a tie. Other than the orange skirt suit (I do not wear orange, and I do NOT wear skirts [unless I'm in garb, but that's another matter], and I try not to wear suits), that's me...and my sense of aesthetics. I am the kind of person who'd wear a tailored 'women's' suit with a shirt, tie...and a bowler hat (and a waistcoat with my watch fobbed to the pocket if I thought I could get away with it)! (Then again, I always thought that men historically have gotten away with wearing the most elegantly practical stuff possible...mmm, Edwardian 'men's'...)
All of which probably goes to explain why a lot of people thought (and still think, I'm sure, but now that we're all out of high school, I get a lot less of it in my face) I'm a lesbian, among other things. (One time in Cambridge, I had a truckload of rednecks yell "Faggot!" at me...) Which of course is NOTDB, and has nothing whatsoever to do with gender, as I wish some people would figure out.
On the other hand, it does kind of hurt to be labelled a "freak of nature," as in the last page of the "Gender test." Not of course that the gender you perform has anything to do with nature...
Two other points: Never confuse human nature with human nurture, and which do you think gender roles really are?
I'm definitely a dude, dude.
So now I can actually say that according to some scientistic index the methodology of which I don't know, I qualify as bigendered, or maybe even androgynous/gynandrous. Well, I never claimed to have acculturated well, and one suspects that this "gender test" doesn't do too well with people who know they're on the boundary line anyway.
In any case, I score about 55% man to 45% woman, which is about right, I figure. As I wrote in a survey on gender issues a few days ago, "If pressed [about my gender identity], I would probably try to explain that I don't really have one. Most people simply assume I'm that spurious construct known as a "woman," but I really hate the term, and don't think of it as applying to me. I self-identify as 'female,' but I see 'female' as a biological descriptor and 'woman' as a cultural descriptor. Since I either failed to or did not for some other reason acculturate (I think) as a 'woman,' I don't feel the term is appropriate in my case."
Likewise, on the other hand, I also said, "'Man' is a cultural construct that defines the social norms typically (in that culture) associated with maleness. I'm not one, mostly because I don't conform to those social norms."
Well, according to some indices, add "...very well" to the end of that last.
In case any of you are wondering, biologically I'm female. That at least I'm sure of, if nothing else. Still, I had to chortle at the image on the "results" page that proudly announced "You are definitely a man!" -- it showed a figure with a mannish face and haircut with a female figure dressed in an orange skirt suit with a tie. Other than the orange skirt suit (I do not wear orange, and I do NOT wear skirts [unless I'm in garb, but that's another matter], and I try not to wear suits), that's me...and my sense of aesthetics. I am the kind of person who'd wear a tailored 'women's' suit with a shirt, tie...and a bowler hat (and a waistcoat with my watch fobbed to the pocket if I thought I could get away with it)! (Then again, I always thought that men historically have gotten away with wearing the most elegantly practical stuff possible...mmm, Edwardian 'men's'...)
All of which probably goes to explain why a lot of people thought (and still think, I'm sure, but now that we're all out of high school, I get a lot less of it in my face) I'm a lesbian, among other things. (One time in Cambridge, I had a truckload of rednecks yell "Faggot!" at me...) Which of course is NOTDB, and has nothing whatsoever to do with gender, as I wish some people would figure out.
On the other hand, it does kind of hurt to be labelled a "freak of nature," as in the last page of the "Gender test." Not of course that the gender you perform has anything to do with nature...
Two other points: Never confuse human nature with human nurture, and which do you think gender roles really are?
