You may not put Marie Kondo and gender identity together in the same sentence automatically, but two of the hottest topics of 2019 have come together in this illuminating piece of writing by Sandy Allen.
To summarise: a woman receives Marie Kondo’s book, she struggles to get her boyfriend as enthused as she is about tidying up, but starts to sort through her belongings nonetheless. As she sorts, she realises that she does not like her dresses and skirts, and indeed most of her more stereotypically feminine things. She gets a haircut, buys flannel shirts, keeps her boyfriend but not before explaining to him that she felt “internally not-female, or not just female, though I didn’t know what this made me instead” and attends a dykemarch. Sarah Ditum surmises my feelings when she tweets: “Mostly though I am quite depressed that the narrative of this story of bold gender self-discovery hinges on a woman trying to get her male partner to tidy up, which is literally the most normcore gender thing ever.”
Being dissatisfied with the trappings of femininity and a world that views women as inferior is nothing new. In fact, this dissatisfaction started a whole movement. It’s called feminism.
The author also uses the fact that she dressed as Ace Ventura for Halloween as an indicator that she may not be female. Dressing as the opposite sex, or even inanimate objects, at Halloween is fairly common in many circles. Costumes for women often range from sexy nurse to sexy poop emoji, why would any woman with an ounce of imagination limit herself to the women’s costume aisle? On one occasion I dressed up as the Hogwarts Express for a costume party.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
This creeping shift in gender theory has been coming for a while. Last year, the usually incisive Bitch Media retweeted 4 Ways I've Managed To Affirm My Gender Through Fashion from Everyday Feminism. Thrillingly, a woman buys some lilac suede heels and calls them “my queerest wardrobe addition in a while.” The reader is left to extrapolate how experimenting with different colours like “shades of pink, orange, and blue” makes the author feel more, or less non-binary than the average woman.
How did we get here? This line of thinking is regressive and sexist. And shallow too, as if womanhood is contained in a dress or a haircut. We have moved on from “if you are a girl, you must wear dresses not trousers” to “if you like trousers not dresses, you must not be a girl” with no critical thought applied. What if you are female and like both? Or neither?
Gender ideology also seems to have shedded any class analysis, there is no recognition of women as a biological class of people who experience oppression on account of their biology. Clothing choices and other cultural expectations all stem from this one truism: if you are born female there are different expectations than if you were born male. Subscribers to this ideology see the problem of women being expected to conform to man-made notions of femininity and conclude that the problem is with the word “woman”, and not the society that views women in this way.
Declaring yourself non-binary is sexist and relies on a different sort of binary to be applied. It requires everyone else to be in a box marked “approved gender” whilst individuals get to opt out of the box. Declaring yourself non-binary is predicated on the binary of those who subscribe to narrow gender and those who do not. It takes the idea of fixed sex-role stereotypes as unquestionable constants and it effectively sanctions the idea that women do just like pink and pretty things. If you don’t, you’re not a woman. It is gender stereotyping writ large, codified into an ideology and stamped with “progressive.” It’s #woke.
It is not hard to imagine why many people do not identify with the current expectations of what a woman or a man is, and it’s especially not hard to imagine why teenagers may be clamouring to affix these labels to themselves. Puberty is hard, many feel like they don’t fit in. These labels give the opportunity to explain to young people why they feel different or like misfits. This is incredibly common, I would say ubiquitous, amongst young people. For some it is truly more keenly felt than others, teenagedom can feel intolerable, but having a special label is not a stand-in for developing a fully fledged, well-rounded personality regardless of sex.
It is no secret that at school many of the most popular girls and boys probably subscribed to a lot of stereotypical roles. The popular boys were probably sporty, cocky and cheeky and the popular girls were probably pretty, giggly and largely non-threatening (to the boys, that is). Being popular confers a certain kind of presence and special treatment socially, and for the majority of us somewhere in the middle, the idea of being able to declare yourself “non-binary” or “gender fluid” holds a certain kind of appeal. We too can be special and noticed.
However, the ability to label oneself non-binary is a new iteration of Not Like Other Girls. You know, the frivolous ones. Who only like glitter, and pink. But here’s a secret: it does not matter if that is all you like or if you cannot stand pink glitter at all. Women contain multitudes. We are complete human beings, we are individuals with personalities. We are not thoughtless one-dimensional caricatures of make up and boobs, which is what we are so often taught to believe women are. It is an indictment on a society that views women so poorly when little girls everywhere think they are unique for having independent thoughts and interests.
On the other side of the sex divide the ability to opt-out of being labelled by your sex holds many advantages for men. It is often used by men as a way to skirt round their misogyny. Men who are disgustingly sexist will hide their words and actions behind self-descriptors of “oh but I’m non-binary” or “I’m not completely a man.” Funny, because when Dundee City Councillor Gregor Murray called women cunts when he did not like what they had to say, it just smelled like the same old misogyny. He also called a women’s group advocating for equal representation in politics “fucking roasters.” It is not that bad though, because he’s non-binary.
Recently, in a Facebook group for the social dance scene, one male member posted that they routinely “degender” all toilets at their dance events. I pointed out that turning all facilities unisex does not help women and in the UK ~90% of all sexual assaults in public facilities occur in unisex spaces. In the ensuing discussion one reply, from a male individual, was “I’m not entirely a man, if that helps.” Men declaring themselves “non-men” or “non-binary” and inserting themselves into discussions about women pushes against women’s boundaries, intentionally or not. Women are not a support group for every man who does not like blue, or fast cars, or sport.
I do not wish to police what everyone calls themselves, you can identify as whatever micro-gender you like. But if everyone in the world identified as non-binary then we would still have one half oppressing the other half, except now we would not have the language to talk about sex based oppression. In a room full of one hundred non-binary people, would there still be an accurate way to predict who would be affected by abortion laws? We all know which sex oppresses the other sex, but guess who wins with this obfuscation of language (Clue: it’s not women)?
The idea behind Sandy’s piece rings true, Marie Kondo’s philosophy of tidying is holistic and can help people sort through more metaphysical aspects of their life as they fold their t-shirts. But I wonder if, as well as helping Sandy discover her gender identity, did Marie Kondo’s tactics help Sandy identify out of the gendered power dynamics that befall many heterosexual relationships?
Rob and I married and moved to an old farmhouse in the country. I now have two floors of rooms to tidy. I often wander delightedly for hours, scrubbing and straightening and vacuuming cat fur and flies and once, with a whoosh — to my great surprise — the skeleton of a baby mouse.
Rob and I write out our chores on a big spool of brown paper by the fridge, to ensure we contribute evenly. I am proud of us, of him, for how we’ve managed to share the responsibilities of maintaining this home.
If only sex-based oppression could be folded away so easily.
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