Wilhelmina Wang wants to know what gender means to me. In fact, she wants to know what it means to all of us and to add incentive, she’s made it a contest with some lovely prizes. The full details are below. Here is my response:
From Wikipedia: The World Health Organization (WHO), for example, uses “gender” to refer to “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women“
I am female and have never identified as male. Though, I also believe that there is a spectrum of female roles, behaviors, activities and attributes. At times I’ve felt this to be more akin to how stereotypical a person is in their gender. In many ways I am not your typical woman, yet, that doesn’t mean that makes me more masculine. The absence of an ultra feminne stereotype does not make a male. It just makes me less of a frou-frou girl, if you get my drift. Perhaps it’s better to sum it up in I am not/I am.
I am not:
- ultra-feminine in the stereotypical way, I don’t wear skirts much, care for lots of make up or fashion in the way that many girly-girls do
- a lover of shopping, shoes, pink, frills, romance novels, or any of a billion other supposed “female” characteristics
- a woman who sought with vigor to be a mother in order to feel fulfilled
- a tomboy or boy-ish in any way, except for my humor sometimes and my ability to be “one of the guys” (i.e. not-prudish)
- afraid of power tools, fixing things, bugs, dirt, camping or other things in the stereotypical “male” domain
I am:
- feminine without trying to be
- logical, rational, analytical and in control of my emotions; my hormone cycles don’t appear to effect this
- a mother who encourages her daughter to be independent and stays neutral on pink as a color option (her fave color is blue)
- lucky to have had incredible female role models in my life who are smart, funny and damned good at what they do. I don’t know/care if they are “pretty”, but to me they are all beautiful because of their energy.
- independent, strong, assertive, kind, caring, creative and like my role models, smart, funny and damned good at what I do.
- a good wife to my husband; we share in everything equally.
- In fact, equality is incredibly important to me – whether in a marriage, or other family roles, between genders everywhere, and especially in the workforce and within society at large. The earnings gap makes me crazy. Paying more at the dry cleaners and hairdresser makes me livid. Paying sales tax on tampons because they’re considered “luxury items” makes me scream.
Have I ever identified as male? No, I don’t think so. Sexually, I’ve never wanted a penis nor to fuck somebody with a strap or to pack. (Though, I am always open to the idea that sexuality is an evolution. So, who knows? Perhaps that will change in the future.) The idea of having a penis seems alien and I’ve mentioned on occasion how if I had one it would just get in the way. I also don’t think I would like having such a visual sign of arousal.
Conversely, I also am not overly attracted to women sexually. There have been the odd occasion where I did entertain the idea of sex with another woman, and perhaps in the future might act on those ideas. But, I’m not driven by them. Overwhelmingly, I am attracted to men.
Ultimately, I love being female and all the complexities that that entails. I am completely at ease with being MY type of female on the spectrum. Though, I do admit that sometimes I have difficulty relating to those on either end of that spectrum. But I remain open to understanding and don’t pass judgment. The world needs diversity. And acceptance. And equality. Within, and outside of, whatever gender you happen to be.
Here are the contest details:
What does your gender mean to YOU?
This might seem like too much of a queer-centric contest, but even if you don’t play with your gender necessarily, I’m sure you still have feelings about your gender.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about my own gender more, and while appear mostly feminine, I often wish that I could wake up and just pick whatever gender I wanted to be that day, and be it. Soon I’m going to be doing a series of posts/HNTs exploring my own gender(fucking), and I’m really looking forward to reading about other people’s takes on gender. I thought combining a shout out for feedback with a contest would be cool.
Prizes:
I’m not giving away as much as I was for my last contest, but the prizes are still pretty sweet:
1. A Femblossom Heat from Emotional Bliss!
Not only does this vibrator vibrate, it heats up, matching the speed and frequency of the vibrations. After you use it, the Femblossom also secretes an antibacterial agent which means you can clean it with a quick wipe.
Specs: variable speeds + frequency, curved to fit the body, lats from 90-240 minutes, heats up + self-cleaning.
2. A Tantus Ryder!
Specs: anal plug, silicone, 4.1″ length and 1.5″ diameter.
How to Enter:
To enter, you need to do two things:
- Leave a comment on this post in response to the question: What does your gender mean to you?
- Spread the word about the contest! Either reblog or retweet. Or both, if you wish. If you’re reblogging, exact text would be best (don’t hotlink to the images, though), and you can add your own words to it. Link to the blog post in a comment. You can only do this a minimum of once. If you’re retweeting, do so at least once and a maximum of ten times, and use the following text: RT @wilhelminawang What does your gender mean to you? Answer and win a Femblossom Heat & TantusRyder! http://bit.ly/LOBoZ
- (Optional) Subscribe to my RSS feed and let me know in your comment that you have
Each comment, reblog and retweet will earn you one “entry” into the contest, and after all the entries are in I’ll use a randomizer to select the winner Yep, only one winner this time.
Deadline to enter: November 21st, midnight, EST.
I was poking around Twitter this morning and saw Ethan Imboden (
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