This is the official trailer for a new film, Genderf*kation: A Gender Emancipation.
As it is described on the website: “The subject of gender is a taboo topic in many societies, yet fundamental to every aspect of all of our lives. This film breaks through the gender stereo-types and historical gender ideologies to liberate our bodies, minds and spirits from our own social Gender Dysphoria.” The subjects of the documentary speak of those things with candor, admitting both passionately and matter-of-factly ideas like “people have really strict ideas of how gender can be expressed” to “I’ve seen people use gender as a shield.”
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In a review of the film by Jim Brunzell, The Optimistic Pessimist from the Twin Cities Daily Planet, Jim says:
“Genderf*kation delves into six subjects and their journeys through political, religious and social stances who discuss their struggles and perseverance to understand or allow for gender variations. The film brings up other factors including gender historical aspects and stereotypes and allows each subject to speak freely about who they are, how they are active in their communities and mainly, open up and present a provocative take on an unfamiliar subject. The subject is often taboo, but in Genderf*kation, Durant is able to give each subject aptly time on screen and brings out important circumstances, facts, and issues that will surprise and touch many viewers. Although the film was based and filmed in the Twin Cities, it speaks to a universal subject.”
Our question is–in this day and age, why on earth would talking about gender be considered taboo?
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Read more related posts in our Gender & Sexuality section, here.
About the Editors
I think there are a few reasons why talking about gender is still taboo today…and I’ll apologize in advance, because this is probably going to be a very long comment. For starters, our society divides so much between two genders it’s something that exists in almost every aspect of our lives. The classic example is bathrooms…we have one for men and one for women. Even when we’re talking about private stalls, it’s still considered a cultural no-no to use the one that’s not labelled for your assumed gender. Our society takes almost everything and puts a gender on it, from sexual behaviour, to hobbies, to colours…it is a pervasive aspect of our social identity. It’s a way to make very quick assumptions about a person, and humans do like to be able to make quick assumptions.
It’s also binary, and I’ve found that often when a system is binary it becomes more difficult to break down. There develops an adversarial relationship between the two sides…you’re either with us or against us. You’re a woman, or you’re one of the ‘other’ side…a man. With gender, I think our social narrative shows this…how many man vs woman reality show episodes are there? How often do you hear about a group of women getting together to complain about ‘their men,’ or vice versa? We create a binary, and then entrench ourselves in it as a means to create a sense of belonging. I am a woman, and in part I identify that by identifying what I’m not…namely a man.
So what we’re left with are some rigid definitions of two groups in a binary system and these definitions are used to inform pretty much everything else in society. These definitions become normative and viewed as ‘natural,’ and that makes it difficult to talk about anything that exists outside of them. Then you add onto that the way in which sexuality and gender are often conflated, as one of the people in the trailer mentioned. Western society hates talking about sex, particularly non-normative sex, so the mainstream would prefer to avoid the topic altogether.
Plus, in general western society (perhaps most societies) are concerned with what is normal and adhering to social norms. People want a sense of belonging, and part of the way they do that is by ostracising those who don’t fit into social norms. But no one wants to talk about how society has marginalized a whole group of people just for not conforming, because no one wants to think of themselves as belonging to a group that’s that mean. So people don’t want to talk about people who deviate from the gender binary, because then they’d have to admit that the binary system they ascribe to has become a system for discrimination.
We did not create a binary. Biology did.
Maybe in some physiological ways there’s a binary, but anatomical difference and gender difference are not the same thing. There’s no “biological” reason why pink is the color of girls and blue is the color of boys. There’s no biological reason for “girls wear skirts and boys wear pants” or “boys are doctors and girls are nurses” or the whole “sugar and spice versus snakes and snails” garbage.
And, actually, there are not necessarily only two physiological categories. For example, not everyone is an XX or XY. There are others besides those two.
Finally, even if there were such a thing as a biological binary, I don’t see why we couldn’t define the sex binary in a totally different way. For example, there’s a pretty clear split between people who have reproduced and those that haven’t. Can’t get more reductionist than that. Or more specifically, those people who have given birth in one category and those who have not in another category. (Don’t think we’re not doing that already….) As far as reproduction is concerned, people who don’t reproduce are equivalent to each other no matter what’s under their kilts.
Exactly so, Wellokaythen.
“For starters, our society divides so much between two genders it’s something that exists in almost every aspect of our lives. ”
Huh!? Sometimes I wonder what exactly modern anthropologists are taught. Name a single society where there isn’t this type of division by gender. Please. Our society?!…no…every single society EVER without known exception. Gender roles are a human universal.
“Gender roles are a human universal.”
This is true, however it’s not the entire story. The specifics of how gender informs the rest of a society is specific to that society. For example, there was a community in Africa that ascribed hot and wet to women and cold and dry to men. Something that was hot was seen to be more feminine, and something cold was seen to be more masculine. And similarly, women were considered hotter and wetter, and men were considered colder and dryer. Western society, on the other hand, doesn’t ascribe gender to temperature or wetness/dryness. The specifics are different.
Also, when I pointed out that our society has such a pervasive use of gender, I wasn’t saying other societies don’t. I wasn’t being comparative. I was just saying, gender permeates almost all aspects of a person’s life in the west.
I saw a documentary about a tribe in Africa that has a ritual where the young men belt each other with sticks and the winner is favoured by the women, then the men drink their version of beer. I know it’s stereotypical, but there it is.
“If we do not do this the women will not love us” said the guy with cloth wrapped around his head to protect it, apperently losing an eye is not uncommon but they’re men so bad luck.
Does any of this come as a surprise or is it somewhat familiar? Even one of the guys watching the show turned to me and said something to the effect that we’re not that different after all. I was working with a Somalian guy whose father had knocked out some of his teeth and cut his face to make a man of him so to speak, my dad used to make me do 20 push ups on command, it’s not exactly the same but there’s a commonality of intent. Here in Australia the Aboriginals would require young men to walk out on this long stretch of rock at a great hieght to earn their manhood, how does all this not form a generic pattern?
HeatherN – well said! I hope Genderf*kation: A Gender Emancipation helps to start opening some eyes. Hopefully future Genderf*kations will expand the process.
“why is talking about gender taboo?”
because feminists and mra’s dominate the discussion on gender, and if you don’t agree with them, they actively attack you rather than simply say ‘we dont agree’
Not necessarily. I consider myself an MRA, and if a person identifies as male, I have no problem considering them as such. It all comes down to basic human respect of how humans individually view themselves. Any level headed person would think that way.
Then again, gender allowance is pretty disproportionate when cis women are not questioned about wearing pants, but cis men are ridiculed for wearing silk pantyhose. It feels good!
In our macho culture, women are allowed to perform male or masculine attributes with a bit more flexibility than men are allowed to perform feminine attributes. Why? Because the primary “threat” to uptight alpha male sexual insecurities is men who present as feminine. Performing a feminine male is a good way to get your ass kicked. Playing a butch woman, will still get you attacked, but less so.
Its a sad state of affairs any way you look at it.
“Because the primary “threat” to uptight alpha male sexual insecurities is men who present as feminine. Performing a feminine male is a good way to get your ass kicked.”
I agree about men having less latitude to act “feminine,” but I’m wondering how it works that this is a threat to an alpha male’s security. Wouldn’t being a “feminine” male make it LESS likely that the alpha he-man would feel threatened by you? I would think that other manly men would be more threatening than an effeminate male, if this is all about the simplified alpha male primate theory.
“Wouldn’t being a “feminine” male make it LESS likely that the alpha he-man would feel threatened by you?”
Not if the alpha male is insecure about his sexuality and finds a feminine male attractive, and acts out violently to these feelings.
Wouldn’t being a “feminine” male make it LESS likely that the alpha he-man would feel threatened by you? I would think that other manly men would be more threatening than an effeminate male, if this is all about the simplified alpha male primate theory.
depends on the aspect of femininity we are talking about. if talking about female clothing and/or a man painting his face as gonzo did below. then the ‘confusing’ arousal at the sight of a man in female clothing could disgust and then a violent reaction
due to the wholesale importation into female beauty of (slender) male markers by the 1920s flappers (who were an offshoot of the ‘new woman’ ideology) and again in the late 1960s. the modern global female beauty ideal is essentially a male face, and a slender male body with t1ts (more men than women can perform this ‘beauty ideal’ with ease)
for example, het men now encode longleans legs as female characteristics, they produce arousal in a good number of het men. so seeing a slender man walking around with pantyhosed-and-heeled long lean legs sticking out off a mini skirt, will create arousal in the alpha het of this example. which then would cause internal discomfort as he thinks,’ i being aroused by a man, but im not gay or bi’. disgust kicks in, and ‘the obscenity’ must be dealt with
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if we are talking about a man with a ‘feminine’ manner, character.
the visible demonstration of difference by the femme guy, could be perceived as a challenge to the authority, the dominance of this alpha male. a challenge that must be crushed, a person who has the balls to be different could be a threat to the alpha’s authority. even if the femme man is no threat to alpha’s throne, femme guy’s example could encourage other more dangerous men to act out and express dissent
another reason to attack a femme man is this:
het/ish women, certainly in the west, have demonstrated a greater prejudice against femininity in het men. than het/ish men have against masculinity in het women. clothing is a most stark example of this, the photo to ozy’s article http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/femmephobia-girls-are-gross-writ-large/
whether that tutued guy tops or bottoms, in that outfit he is going to get alot more sex from men than from women. the more that guy moves away from femininity (whether dress or behaviour), the greater his chances of having sex with a woman. het women’s very low valuation of femininity in men, gets noticed by het men and absorbed into the pecking order that men sort amongst themselves. and an easy way for a ‘person’ (regardless of social class, a low cove really) to raise their esteem and ranking in a group is to dump on those at the bottom of the pecking order
“In our macho culture, women are allowed to perform male or masculine attributes with a bit more flexibility than men are allowed to perform feminine attributes. Why? Because the primary “threat” to uptight alpha male sexual insecurities is men who present as feminine.”
I disagree. The reason women can get away with behaving like men is the same reason women can get away with anything…women are the protected sex. Men on the other hand, even weak men are supposed to fend for themselves.
Exactly. When you you boil it down to the fundamentals the reason for this is clearly primal and instinctive, human behaviour in this respect is not arbitrary in the least.
As much as the politically correct focus on details that are admittedly subject to a degree of change and variation, something as basic as “even weak men being expected to fend for themselves” is so predictable it it is an inevitability.
It is not adequate to focus only on aspects of gendered behaviour that have changed over time or vary between cultures, this is obviously slanted to fit a political agenda based on wishful thinking.
There remains the fact that there are also commonalities and similarities that form patterns and repeat themselves time and time again, that is the other side of the coin.
It is no mystery as to why this is somewhat overlooked and it’s no mystery that expectations of men, despite all the rhetoric, are as predictable as clockwork. Look around and notice that vulnerability in women causes empathy and vulnerability in men causes contempt, how often do you see and hear “man up” these days?
Because the primary “threat” to uptight alpha male sexual insecurities is men who present as feminine.
I don’t think that “threat” only applies to those insecurities and the alpha males that have them. That would only explain why other guys would feel “threatened” by them. There is still the matter of all the people, regardless of if they are such uptight alpha males, that benefit from those insecurities.
Simply put the biggest threat to people who like to manipulate men and using those insecurities as their weapon would stand to lose a lot if guys started to work their way said insecurities and became truly comfortable with themselves.
Wouldn’t being a “feminine” male make it LESS likely that the alpha he-man would feel threatened by you?
The thought is that the alpha he man is threatened by it because it forces him to face his own insecurities and realize how weak he truly is. Well the last thing the alpha he man is supposed to do is admit weakness (he’s supposed to just stoically overcome it without showing it).
While that is true to an extent that is not the full picture. As I said above there are others who benefit from manipulating the alpha he man to their whim. (For example look at the White Knight, the man that acts all tough “in defense of women”.). If the alpha man were to become truly comfortable with himself, who he is, and does things on what are truly his own terms then he would not be so easily manipulated. (Take our White Knight buddy. If he were to realize that his desire to look tough “in defense of women” was a point of manipulation and would not just side with women blindly without examination he would no longer fall prey to women that try to use him as a bludgeon against other men, and women.
What I don’t get is why people think biological gender itself is debatable. Regardless of what you identify as you are either biologically male or female unless you happen to be both. I’m only taking equipment here which is what gender is. Now gender roles and biological gender are not the same thing. I don’t agree certain colors, clothes, behavior, sensitive, dominant, submissive, etc should be gender specific associations. I will defend the sensitive guy as much as the rough and rugged gal but that’s gender role association not gender. If I think I’m female it doesn’t change the fact that biologically I am male. I think the gender role associations is what make people identify in such ways to begin with. If it wasn’t generally though that wearing tiaras was a girl only thing and such an association never existed then possibly the guy who like tiara’s may not have ever felt he identified as female because he is more in touch with “female behavior” but would simply see himself as a guy who like’s tiaras? There’s a lot of grey area I’m sure but that’s my 2 cents…
You are confusing biological sex and gender. Biological sex is categorized into male, female, and intersex (which, my understanding is that there are various intersex labels). Also, it’s not only about genitalia and physical characteristics, but also about whether you have XX or XY chromosomes. Interestingly, chromosomes and physical characteristics don’t always match up as would be expected. So even when we’re talking about biological sex, it’s still not quite as simple as XX=female and XY=male…though that does work for the majority of people.
Also, someone who identifies as a transwoman or a transman isn’t just saying they have traditionally feminine or masculine characteristics. It’s about much more then that. There’s a nice little article here that provides a nice little introduction.
If it wasn’t generally though that wearing tiaras was a girl only thing and such an association never existed then possibly the guy who like tiara’s may not have ever felt he identified as female because he is more in touch with “female behavior” but would simply see himself as a guy who like’s tiaras?
i agree with you. as a crossdresser i think the same thing.
my three posts here comment further on this
http://goodmenproject.com/sex-relationships/hegemonic-heterosexuality/comment-page-1/#comment-126767
Okay but just because you are a crossdressing man who doesn’t feel like he’s a woman because he likes traditional feminine clothing, doesn’t mean that goes for everyone.
Now, not to talk for the trans people out there, but of the ones I know, mostly it’s been the other way around. They feel like they aren’t the same gender as their body prescribes, and so they perform the other gender as a way of passing. It’s like…when I was wearing particularly masculine clothing and looked really butch, I still felt like a woman. I was just changing my style. However, when my friend, who’s a transman, cut his hair really short he was expressing the gender he identified with. Same action (short hair, trousers), but different meaning. He was changing his physical appearance to reflect the gender he identified with. He didn’t identify with that gender because of his appearance…if that makes sense.
hehe, we posted at the same time. we read ceez’s post differently as my 7.28 post explains.
heather, your reading is the correct one. i had completely misread ceez’s post. ceez does appear to be speaking about trans men and women.
i had skimmed ceez’s post. and the part i italicised caught my eye and i identified with it, so i concentrated on that. i did not automatically connect, ‘If I think I’m female it doesn’t change the fact that biologically I am male.’ to the following paragraph. which was an error
We all do it, no worries.
If it wasn’t generally though that wearing tiaras was a girl only thing and such an association never existed then possibly the guy who like tiara’s may not have ever felt he identified as female because he is more in touch with “female behavior” but would simply see himself as a guy who like’s tiaras?
after seeing heather’s different interpretation of ceez’s post.
i want to clarify, my post was talking about male crossdressers and male tv’s. i was not talking about trans women, as they are women
Ah yup…just saw that.
I think you were thinking Eddie Izzard, and I was thinking Jenna Talackova.
Genderf*kation: A Gender Emancipation is now available on DVD. Order your copy now at http://www.genderfukation.com!
Genderf*kation: A Gender Emancipation is available on DVD and on Amazon Video on Demand through our website, http://www.genderfukation.com. Click on the products tab!