Page 104 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

THE QUESTION OF CULTURAL GENDER

To me as an anarcho-feminist it is important that the structures of
society should be thoroughly changed. No managers or directors, even
if they are women . . .
I know many people who represent various sexual minorities.
Sexual equality is a natural thing to me, I haven’t questioned it for
years. On the other hand excessive freedom and openness can put you
under pressure to be something other than what you really are . . . I
like to put on make-up. I don’t do it to emphasize my femininity (at
least that’s what I say to myself), but my individuality. To neglect your
looks serves no purpose. Some feminists or lesbians dress like men or
differently to make a statement and detach themselves from gender
roles. But when you do the opposite of what’s expected, that’s like
admitting that the expectations are there and in a sense you reinforce
them. But the gender roles will not go away even if women grew
beards and men started to wear miniskirts.

For the writer above, gender appears at once as performative and essentialist.
Womanhood and manhood are self-evident qualities, and at the same time
gender appears in the shape of different performative sexual minority roles. But
this cultural openness also causes personal pressure. The excerpt re flects an
awareness that heterosexuality is a ‘given’ identity.
Now, two other views:

Suvi Ronkainen (thirty-six years old, social psychologist and feminist): Per-
sonally I feel more comfortable under the label of feminist than under
the label of woman. Woman somehow coaxes you into a self-evident
category. And yet women are very different; we’re a very hetero-
geneous group. Within the category of ‘us women’ there are groups
with whom I might not even want to be in the same room! That’s why
sisterhood is not global, unless it is consciously, politically, made into a
global issue.

Sirpa Pietikäinen (forty years old, Member of the Finnish Parliament, founding
member of For Women network): My own relationship to feminism and to
the feminist perspective has been somewhat ambiguous. I know
women whose values are much more macho than many men’s, but also
women who are so bunny-girl that it makes me feel sick. I don’t think
we have anything else in common apart from our ovaries except of
course the stereotypical treatment we receive. Womanhood is always
present, furnishing us with labels in a completely di fferent way to
manhood. Manhood is more often ‘genderless’, as if it were somehow
neutral and objective.

The two short excerpts above exhibit a keen awareness of the diversity of

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