In celebration of International Women's Day, Funny Women is asking a panel of accomplished women from all over the world if female humour has a role in their culture and how much being a woman defines them – you can still book tickets for the event on Thursday 7th March HERE.
Preparing for this event got me thinking about my own culture and if my background as an American, or Virginian more specifically, had any impact on my sense of humour and how I define myself by my gender, if at all.
Although I was born and raised in a fairly conservative southern state of America, my very liberal parents and religion are what really shaped my beliefs, especially that of gender and how I view my place in society. I was brought up as an Unitarian Universalist, which is a difficult religion to explain briefly to those who are not familiar with it. I like to jokingly sum it up as 'Hippie church' or 'agnostics with children' but those in no way fully describe what UU is.
The point is though, that my church encouraged me to express my gender any way I chose to and I was never expected to act a certain way because I was female. Not being treated differently by my family and spiritual community set me up to reject and ignore any barriers of specific gender definition that I came across growing up in Virginia, which makes my perspective quite unique.
Whilst I acknowledge these influences, I feel somewhat uncomfortable talking about how my background and culture as a woman defines me because I genuinely don't believe it does or should. I'd like to see humour used more to dissolve the division of gender rather than define it, and have it bind us together as people, not just as women. I know however, that this is a product of my personal upbringing and that my experience is very different from many others.
I've always believed gender is more social then biological. As with sexuality, I feel gender is more a spectrum than an either/or option with pre-determined characteristics. Being 'defined' as a women is something other people have undesirably put upon me rather than something I see myself. I've always resented the generalization of being placed in a group that's so diverse and has, in my opinion, little to do with my personality, interests and abilities. My goal is more to blend effortlessly in with society than set myself apart because of my gender.
There was an example of this just last week when the hashtag 'things girls like' was trending on Twitter. I was infuriated at the thought that anyone could predict my likes solely because I happen to be female. I checked just in case I was wrong in my assumptions and that actually the majority of girls were tweeting their shared love of Star Trek, The Clash and fort building, but, it seemed, my resistance to proscriptive gender roles is futile. (I put that reference in there for you ladies, since stuff I like must be stuff girls like, right?!)
Of course my assumptions were correct, but I was surprised at how both women and men were commenting with stereotypes. There were girls that saw no problem with the hashtag and felt they rightly spoke for their entire gender by saying we like 'men who commit' and 'scented things'. I'm fairly sure there are lesbians with perfume allergies who might disagree.
Assimilating women into a single culture this way, not only fails to account for those who fall outside the gender norm, it isolates the transgendered community. Someone whose biological sex was male at birth, and has spent a significant portion of their lives with male privilege, will of course have a different experience than a ciswoman, but that does not lessen their representation of women. Transgendered women are still viewed by society as 'not real women' and usually left out of the women's rights movement. It's very rare that a transwomen will be asked their opinions and experiences of being a woman without the main focus being that they are transgendered. As much as I dislike being blended into a group with all women everywhere, there are people who this generalization leaves out and that is much worse.
I am aware though, that there are countless women less fortunate in their freedoms than I was. There are cultures where gender roles are clearly defined and strictly enforced. I'm very interested in hearing the experiences and opinions of women who live where choice is forbidden, particularly in Muslim countries where thinking outside the gender box goes far beyond being frowned-upon and is a literal death sentence.
There are places where having the right to an education is a battle, and being a women means you are a less desirable member of society – these places are so far removed from my own experiences that I'm eager to learn more about them. Do these women wish they could blur gender lines and how would their societies change if they did? Are there women who see themselves as separate from men (as their cultures believe they are,) and therefore would just be happy to have equal rights?
Because of this I am glad to see a panel of women from all over the world expressing their individual points of view. I think it's important for people to remember that there is no universal experience of being a woman. One women's voice is never enough to represent our gender, whether it be a panel, a comedy gig or any other situation. We simply can't all be lumped into one group with one opinion and one experience. In my ideal world the concept of 'women's culture' would not even be a thing at all.
Pictured: Barbie in a Hijab, Danica Priest
Danica Priest is a writer, musician and PR consultant. Follow her on Twitter @danicapriest
