Tag Archives: sexuality

Woman or human being?

I may be a little late choosing this topic for my post, I know, The International Women’s Day was last week. However, I think that it is not only on one day a year that we should think about women and the roles women play in our society. 
I cite this time Simone de Beauvoir who says that
“Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female — whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”
The word man can be a male human being or mankind as such. In German for example, there is another word for mankind, which is Menschheit, being “Mensch” a generic word for a human being, although sticking to grammar, the gender of the word “Mensch” or human, is masculine…  “Ein Mann” is a man and “eine Frau” is a woman. In Spanish as in English we refer to both using the masculine word for man or hombre. We also have mankind, humanity, and other words, but it is significant that “man” is still a popular term.
So, how should we behave? What does being a woman mean? 
Simone de Beauvoir was and activist and a feminist who wrote about what it meant being a woman, thinking, behaving and feeling as a woman. In her book, The Second Sex, she analyzes women’s situation and her work is seen as a symbol of contemporary feminism. It was written in the late forties and at the very beginning she didn’t even liked to be called a feminist. However, in the seventies she agreed to being one.
I think that we all agree that there still exists prejudice or discrimination, the so called sexism, in many areas of our society, in many countries stronger than in others.  This attitude comes from traditional stereotypes or gender roles, as explained in the definition in Wikipedia. Extreme sexism may lead to sexual harassment, and even harsher actions such as sexual violence or even rape. There is an interesting video postulating a theory of how a man could also be the victim of harsh sexism, if society would be ruled by woman.
I don’t think we have to go to the extremes to may it clear.  Any one could belong to the oppressed majority, as the video shows us.
Let’s take a look at the way a woman managed to be taken seriously in a difficult area and in a time when men, and especially, medical doctors were considered gods.  This woman, Virginia Johnson, was one of the first ones who started questioning the sexual behavior and sexual responses of women at a time when the topic was out of any question. Moral and belief were the guidelines to judge and decide how a woman should behave.  She started assisting Dr. William Masters with his first scientific studies on human sexuality in the late fifties and early sixties in the United States. The studies were on male and female sexuality, but there were a lot of prejudices on the female role. Before these controversial research studies and their conclusions the idea of sex was very limited. These ideas culminated in the publishing of one the first sex manuals “Human Sexual Response, (1966)” ,   There had been studies on pregnancy and birth, but the way women functioned hadn’t even been questioned before. It was also a pioneer work in having a woman be part of such a study.
A good idea of how she got there and how the topic, studying human sexuality, started to be taken serious, can be watched in the TV show “Masters of Sex”. It sounds really spicy for a TV show, and it really is.  The characters in the show are very well portrayed and I found every episode very interesting. 
Going back to women, do we need to have a special day because we are women?  I’ve seen a lot of posts about the “Day of the Cat”, “Day of the book”, “Day of…”  Is it really what we want? In this case, we also need to have a Men’s day, a Dog’s day, a Turtles‘ day,  etc. 
I think we often miss the point, women’s day was introduced to think about all abused women in the world, and not to congratulate each other on being women…  It is a call to respect women’s rights in the working world, to respect their position and condition, and to remind the States all over the world to help in this undertaking.
It is of course nice to be a woman, and to be proud of being one, but remember, don’t stick to predefined roles, don’t judge yourselves and compare yourselves with ideal or superficial woman figures. Be simply yourself, every one of us is beautiful in her own personal way!
 
 

To be or not to be…

These famous words that everybody knows and cites have now another meaning for me and it’s not about Shakespeare.

 

I just finished reading the novel “In One Person” from John Irving.  

 
The novel starts in the late 1950’s in New England. It’s about young Billy, in school, having trouble finding who he is. He lives with his mother, a weaker woman that copes with his education relying on the help of her family, especially her father.  They don’t talk much about Billy’s father and he only knows some war stories and of what a hero he must have been. His grandfather loves to play theater and he mostly disguises himself to play women roles. His mother starts a relationship with the literature teacher in Billy’s school who loves Shakespeare. Richard, this new man in her life, offers her and Billy some stability and hold. He is also in charge of the theatre workshop in school. Later on Billy will act in some small papers in school plays. Thanks to him, Billy decides to start reading books where he can find some answers to his adolescent questions. He wants to know more about real love and later on about “having crushes on the wrong people”. 
In the library he meets the librarian Ms. Frost, a middle aged lady, who understands his troubled mind and suggests him some classical readings starting with Jane Austen. He reads many books until he gets to his main topic “crushes on the wrong people”.  Billy feels especially attracted to her and they start meeting after the library’s opening hours.  Billy isn’t sure about his sexuality. He hopes to find answers first in literature, then in Ms. Frost and also in his schoolfriend Elaine. 
Leaving school and knowing that he likes boys and girls as well, he decides to continue his studies and hopes to find inspiration for his writing in Europe where everything should be more open. He lives for a while with an opera student, an attractive woman,  in Vienna and he also meets another male American writer like himself.
He stays in contact with his school friend Elaine who had also had a crush on the wrong person.  They meet again twenty or more years later and talk about their lives, common friends and crushes.  At the end of the novel they have both lost some gay friends to AIDS and even visit some of them together.  Billy is happy to have survived the devastation in the 80‘s and would have been even happier, if homosexuality and bi-sexuality wouldn’t have been tabu.

I had never really lost thoughts about anyone being bi-sexual and I think that most of us have heard that it is weird and that it is just like being gay. Following Billy’s steps you realize that it is not that way. Bisexuals simply like to be intimate with both sexes. They may have a preference for one or the other and they don’t have to look especially different. Of course, being bisexual doesn’t mean that they are automatically promiscuous, this is a separate category that may apply to all sexual preferences and genders.  

 

The novel confronts us with this controversial topic starting in the ‘50s and going to the 21st century.  It’s a topic that is rarely discussed openly and it is not easy to imagine someone just talking about it as if they were talking about their favorite ice-cream.  It’s not “to be or not to be”, bisexuals simply like both are both.  Being bi-sexual, gay or lesbian is definitely not being weird.

 

Just to finish, when I was young, it was impossible to mention the word “homo” or “gay” in a “decent” conversation and the term “lesbian” wouldn’t be in a dictionary (exaggerating…). Nowadays you can talk quite open about it and I’m very glad for everybody who can simply live the way they prefer. I’m also proud of having friends with all preferences. Yes, with all. Oh, and don’t start guessing 😉
Nevertheless, I was quite shocked to know that there are still parents in my age or even younger who cannot accept to have a child who isn’t “straight” or as they say “normal”. They prefer to have them out of their homes and out of their lives, if they don’t “change”.  I thought that in Germany, this wouldn’t happen anymore, but now I really wonder… 
I still hope that we can contribute a little with our thoughts and actions to help others accept their children and, of course, friends and everybody the way they are.  

The question is not: to be… or not to be “different”, but to treat everybody with respect.