#genderperformativity

Normally I would describe my style and my actions as gender-neutral; I dress pretty androgynously and tend to put minimal effort into my appearance. I feel most comfortable when no one looks at me for what I look like but rather for what I’m saying. One tendency I do have though is to act pretty timidly- and while this is a gender neutral trait, for some reason I attribute this to being more of a feminine characteristic. Analyzing why I see timidity as more womanly is its own issue, but moving past that, I see characteristics of assertiveness and  confidence as more manly traits, or more specifically, traits I see most commonly in white heterosexual males that are financially secure. This is what I tried to embody this weekend. On Saturday I went to a premedical conference where I tried on mannerisms that were outside of my comfort zone. Instead of my normal timid and reserved self, I tried to open up my posture and act like someone more confident and sure of themselves than I am. I have heard of the ‘fake it until you make it’ strategy before and I guess this is what that is. I pushed myself to give my opinion or viewpoint more than I normally would, I looked up and smiled at more people while trying not to be afraid of eye contact, and I talked to more figures of authority. I corrected myself every time I reverted back to my hunched over state. If I could summarize these actions into one thought process, it would be ‘I am worthy of attention and respect and I have valuable opinions to contribute’. On an internal level, I would say I still felt like myself, I would just approach situations a little differently by being more aware of how I carried myself and what I would say and when I would decide it was a good idea for me to say something at all. It was exhausting because I was always thinking about how I was presenting myself and I was interacting with more people than I normally would. This was a shock to my system but it is something I am going have to learn to get stronger with anyway. Gender performativity is attached to the ways that people define themselves and others based on sex, race, class because in some ways it can boil down to confidence and the difference between how the people around you value you and your contributions versus how you yourself value you and your contributions. As a cisgender person, the privilege I had while doing this exercise centered on the fact that no one saw my actions as something to do with being a cisgendered person. In Monday’s reading by Peggy McIntosh, she goes over daily white privilege and here similar topics can be related to someone who is cisgender. We can act certain ways without those actions being tied to our cis-genderness.