When boys are ‘girls’ Sometimes, subverting a stereotype just turns into sexism. Have you ever heard someone called a ‘total girl’ for being strong and powerful?
I spend a lot of my time surrounded by “girls.” Only most of them aren’t women.
“Hey, girl.” “Girl, he was so hot…” — Every time I’m in a gay venue, I know I’ll hear versions of these comments again and again, spoken by men to men.
Most strike me simply as silly and even somewhat sweet. But others cross the line into what can only be called sexism.
The “Troy” cartoon that appeared in last week’s Southern Voice is one of those. The syndicated strip is reprinted on this page so you can see for yourself how buff Rigo sobs when his boyfriend, Jorge, repeatedly calls him “a total girl” and a big “woman” for being sensitive and worrying about a friend. Jorge uses the term as criticism, and Rigo takes it as an insult.
Think it’s not sexist? When was the last time you heard someone called a “total girl” when they were being strong and powerful?
AND IT’S NOT JUST gay men. Even as a lesbian, I am sometimes shocked by how much I can absorb the anti-woman bias that still exists in dominant society.
Groups like the Femme Mafia and high-profile femmes like the characters on “The L Word” prove that change is happening, but when I was a baby dyke coming out in the early ‘90s, it seemed that most of lesbian culture aspired to an androgyny that looked more like masculinity.
I cut my hair short, wore men’s jeans and eschewed make-up and purses – but it never felt natural to me. It was only when I fell in love with a girl for whom all of those things did come naturally that I finally began to make peace with my own femininity.
Donna and I hadn’t been dating very long when she offhandedly referred to me as femme, and she laughed when I steadfastly (and absurdly) argued that I wasn’t. Thinking about it later, I realized that I rejected the label of feminine because I thought it made me sound weak — the exact association that, as a self-proclaimed feminist, I should reject.
LANGUAGE IS ALWAYS a battlefield for minority groups, as we debate what words we can call each other, and what terms it is okay for others to call us. The two categories are never completely the same. The recent controversies over Isaiah Washington and Ann Coulter using the word “faggot” are only the latest examples.
People who once referred to themselves as “colored” (think NAACP) came to prefer Black, then African-American, and now sometimes back around to “people of color.” And some young people of color don’t think twice about greeting each other with a phrase similar to “hey, girl,” but using a certain N-word that the rest of us don’t even want to print for fear of being labeled racist.
Likewise, people who once were fine with being called homosexual now prefer gay, and some of us casually refer to each other as “fags,” but bristle when the F-word is spoken by others outside of our group. And people who wanted to be called “women,” not ladies or girls, are reclaiming “girl power” or – better still – “grrrl power.”
Those who would throw up their hands and dismiss the entire debate as too much “political correctness” ignore a key fact: the meanings words hold change based on how and by whom they are said.
One way that men try to demean other men in a sexist society is to associate them with women — a group lower on the social hierarchy.
So sometimes when gay men call each other “girl,” it’s similar to calling each other “faggot.” It’s a way to reclaim a pejorative and turn it into something empowering.
The best drag performs a similar inversion of stereotype. In this context, the drag queen’s message is this: Yes, I’m a gay man, and if you’re going to think I’m a girl, I’ll show you the fiercest, strongest, most beautiful girl you can imagine — and you still can’t have me, so who has the power now?
BUT ALL DRAG ISN’T LIKE THAT, and neither are all uses of the term “girl” by gay men.
For every drag queen who turns fierce femininity into a form of strength, there is one who simply revels in the negative stereotypes ascribed to women, caricaturing female bodies as grotesque and revolting. When gay men laugh at that, what they are really laughing at are women.
Similarly, when gay men call each other “girl” not as a term of defiant endearment, but as an insult, they contribute to a culture of sexism that even lesbians have to fight not to internalize. It’s the basic issue of whether you are subverting a stereotype, or simply reinforcing it.
To eventually be successful in the fight for gay and lesbian equality, we need both the girls and the “girls.”
So we need to be careful that our words don’t inadvertently insult each other.
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