Josh’s quiz results surprised him — but here’s what he came to realize about himself.
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I took a quiz this week on brain gender. Not anything scientific, but one of those completely reliable Facebook quizzes we all hate, but just have to see our own results. I’d seen it earlier in the day and had managed to avoid this one until my lovely wife said, “Guess what quiz I took today?” It was then that she brought up the brain gender quiz for me to take. Was I more male or female?
Having been married nearly 13 years, my wife and I have a friendly banter back-and-forth that she is a bit “manly” and I’m not even close to “gay-acting.” It may not be right, and gay friends of mine — that we won’t name here because they may not be my friends after this — wince when I try to do an impression of a flamboyant gay person. My wife will say that I am “just too much of a man” to do the impression right. But is that true? Is it manliness or is it that I’m just not very coordinated in the manner it takes to do such an impression.
“I’m not manly!” my wife says, as she smacks me. “Your readers will think I’m built like a man.”
I have to clarify … she isn’t manly, but can sometimes be male-minded in some aspects of her life. She gets along better with men than women, she stuffs her feelings deep down, and she likes to drive. (Is that stereotypical enough?) Yet, she is extremely beautiful and sexy in that feminine way that men like, that I like. In contrast, I’m manly, with hair growing all over (even out my ears as I get older), wearing my clothes like a slob without caring, and wondering where the meat is for dinner. I could be accused of being the Lummox author Mike Magnuson describes: “He’s been known to scratch himself at inappropriate times. And he leaves pizza boxes in the living room, drops his socks on the floor. He doesn’t give a crap about ironing his shirts or making his bed or changing his sheets. He farts and he belches without excusing himself, and he doesn’t put the toilet lid down or clean the crud from the toilet base once a week.”
So on this evening, prior to taking the quiz for myself, I’m told that my wife got the result that her brain gender was 68% Female and 32% Male. Not what I was expecting. I was sure the scales would be shifted more toward the “manly” side of the brain. Even so, I was quite sure my result would be heavily male because of how I act on a daily basis. I almost cried when the result said my brain gender was 88% Female and 12% Male. What?? How is that even possible? I’m more female than my wife?
Yet, as I look back I could see it somehow, could see the times I would rather sit at a family reunion with my mother and aunts playing cards instead of hanging with the men of our family, could see how I hold strong grudges over time and bring them up during arguments with my mother (and now wife). I could see how I’m sensitive (though I don’t always show it) and I like to be pampered by my wife, which has now turned into begging my kids for back and foot rubs. I could see how the connection to my feminine side had nothing to do with being male or female, being straight or gay. It had everything to do with how I think about life, how I perceive my place in this world and what I want from it.
♦◊♦
So how could my wife see me as “manly” with such a lopsided brain gender result? It seemed I had “a sissy’s heart,” but what did that truly mean? Does that mean you’re afraid to get into a fight with any guy on the playground? Or even a girl, for that matter? Does it mean you can’t enjoy poetry or the opera? Does it mean you can’t like having a tea party with your daughter, holding your pinky finger out while you sip from a tiny pink cup? I concluded that it meant you just have something passionate in your heart other than the mundane ways of a lummox.
You see, I may be “manly,” but I also enjoy life. That is what I’ve become passionate about, what I love to talk about, and I’m finding my place in it — as a husband who loves his wife as deeply as salt is connected to the sea, as a father who would die for his children, and as a friend who can always do more for his neighbor. It is the blend of my two selves — the feminine and the masculine — that makes me who I am, not the “manly” side I used to hold so dear.
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Photo credit: Jack Zalium/flickr
I think you’re right josh about dismantling first then a rebuild. Without that easy test there is no oh wow moment and a rethink of what you were so firmly embedded in as the only truth. Then we might fo away with the linear rules and and expand what is meant to be human. Perhaps we’ll find we do away with gender completely in the end. I will be a man or a woman who thinks and does as i do and there will be no sexist judgements about it. Sec and secuality may be the main things to consider.
These tests can not tell you anything about your gender – or the gender of your wife. A test that is based on chliché views of what typical male and typical female is, can only produce random clichés as a result. It does not say anything about us as human beings and the gender roles we occupy. Deconstructing gender lines is very “in” right now and up to a certain point it makes sense (in order to break up clichés and power structures) but at one point we will have to construct new rules for our society. I don’t see… Read more »
True, this dorky test isn’t definitive, but we sometimes learn things from unexpected places. Regarding gender roles, I’m not sure there has to be rules. Isn’t that how we got to this place to begin with? Just like training, you must first breakdown the muscle to build it back in a proper way.
“I have to clarify … she isn’t manly, but can sometimes be male-minded in some aspects of her life. She gets along better with men than women, she stuffs her feelings deep down, and she likes to drive. (Is that stereotypical enough?) Yet, she is extremely beautiful and sexy in that feminine way that men like, that I like. In contrast, I’m manly, with hair growing all over (even out my ears as I get older), wearing my clothes like a slob without caring, and wondering where the meat is for dinner. I could be accused of being the Lummox… Read more »
And that makes another point about stereotype. Often, outside the USA, Americans are seen as slobs or unsophisticated. Yet, most are not, and are not that disgusting. The difference between sex and gender is a complicated discussion that should be had. Pointing out that Americans have disgusting lives (in your opinion) doesn’t help the problem, but only continue to feed the problem.
All the assumptions in this piece are sexist
That is true. Many of the long-held stereotypes that cultures (like in the USA) were built on are sexist, assuming that the male sex is stronger, smarter and superior. But my final assumption, and the special thing that I learned for myself, was that we aren’t held to those gender roles. We can think and act how we want to be. So often I saw myself as so manly and stereotypically male, but the world did not see me like that, nor did my wife. Yet, in the article I make a point of putting in the part where my… Read more »
I agree with Paul, and I really dislike this whole manly man definition. I mean, whose definition of what thaat is. the stereotype vision mass produced by media? I think that is so patently false. I took those tests and I cme out almost evenly split male/female every single time, slightly more male than female thought process. I came up with what I think is a much better descriptor of thee sexual self. You could devise a test to better quantify, but for even the purpose of self assessment it goes like this: I am a bilogical male so am… Read more »
I do a great “flaming” queer: I think it’s made my wife a little worried–it gives me an excuse to “calm her fears,” if you know what I’m sayin’. But I think there are a lot of manly guys with so-called feminine qualities and interests that are not only absolutely normal, but often more evolved than their more-limited fellow males. At least that’s what I tell myself. But no, I really think it’s true, that as we evolve, men will come to appreciate and benefit from traditional feminine qualities and interests, and women will do the same with traditionally masculine… Read more »