Gender Studies 1974

My partner came home from his fishing trip with tendonitis in his elbow and began to wear a black neoprene strap around the muscle below the joint to reduce the pain. After a while of having his arm wrapped, it began to itch, and soon the itching was more irritating than the tendonitis, so he removed the neoprene strap with a sigh of frustration that awakened my maternal instincts. Inspecting the strap, I saw that the neoprene was lined with a thin layer of black rubber, presumably to grip the skin and hold the strap in place.

I said, “It itches because your skin can’t breathe. Put a layer of gauze around your arm under the strap or cut up a sock to let the air through.”

He said, “You mean like the cotton crotch in pantyhose?”

I lurched. “Yes.” Suddenly a thought tornado. My gender, my history, my wardrobe, my private struggle with twisty tights, all of it up in the air to be examined. It shocked me that the man I live with pulled a pantyhose joke off the top of his head. I wanted to get a can opener, crack his skull and peer in there to see what else I’m missing. He’s a comedian. He said he and his friends learned about feminine technology on TV commercials. Half a century ago we were treated to a camera scrolling Joe Namath’s shaved legs from his perfect pedicure to his handsome face as he joked in a 1974 TV commercial about how if he wore pantyhose, he would wear Beautymist pantyhose. No one accused Broadway Joe of pandering to the female gaze. Could Travis Kelce do a bra commercial?

This is Gender Studies in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine. It’s easy to imagine a bunch of 1970s high school boys sitting on a couch watching TV together and having a good laugh at pantyhose commercials where women were touched, grabbed and mocked. But there is no 1970s corollary for women mocking men’s intimate apparel. In 1974, there were no TV commercials for male undergarments, certainly not with the biological implication of a cotton crotch. We did not have the inspiration of Farrah Fawcett with a condom on her finger saying, “If I wore a condom, I’d wear Trojan.” 

Gender imprints on us at a very early age and as we move through our biological phases we are inevitably associated with the gender we appear to be. When I got my first job as a carhop, I knew it was a girl job. As my boobs grew, I knew I was not safe. I would never be safe. A lot of resentment goes with that feeling. I wished I was a man for about twenty years. Not because I’m dysmorphic, because I resented the burden of being a target for sexual assault. But you don’t have to be cis female to experience that.

We each have our own internal experience of gender as we navigate the gender bingo card. Yes, gender is a game we play. Notice how younger generations loosen the bonds of gender because the rules are too limiting and burdensome. Man buns. Male nail polish. Ear gauges. Gender evolves. Even so, men who are not macho are likely to be objects of physical violence by other men who need to prove just how macho they are. Women who are not feminine enough to please males will be criticized, humiliated, and even assaulted. Physical domination is the way traditional men prove themselves. Submission is the way traditional women prove themselves. 

It doesn’t take intelligence to repeat this pattern. These tropes have been in play all my life. We are wired to see gender the way we’re wired to see race. For humans, there is no escape from the human body. Gender is exhausting because a person who does not conform to gender norms is a target. When we police gender, everyone is under scrutiny. And then violence, the last refuge of the incompetent.

But chin up. Things have changed for the better. In 1976, a man could write a horror novel about a teenage girl who thought she was dying when she got her first period. Then another man could adapt the novel to a screenplay emphasizing the gore and repugnance of a bloody woman. Then another man could direct a film based on the book about a woman humiliated by bleeding, and no one called any of them a misogynist. Because that’s just how the world worked back then. “Carrie” was a film made by men about purity culture and the horror of menstruation. Today that probably wouldn’t fly.

To be clear, “Carrie” may be an enjoyable film. We all have to live in the times we’re born to. Gender is changing. I can see Gender Horror becoming a popular new genre. But could a horror movie about menstruation be made by men today? Would women buy it? Could Scorsese have directed “Barbie”? 

Because if women don’t buy it, it’s not selling. Almost a decade after “Carrie,” in 1985 Courtney Cox was the first person to say “period” on TV. It was a big deal. The boys in the boardroom missed a decade of product sales because they didn’t want to talk about menstruation. This is the timeline we are living through. Gender Studies circa 1970 happened in the back of the bus. The main thing the boys were taught was that having sexual intercourse with a girl was status, and the main thing girls were taught was never have sexual intercourse with a boy. Obviously, not everyone was included in the lesson plan. 

Now we’re old and we’re still tortured by the bodies we were born in. One of the most difficult things to accept about aging is how waning hormones diminish the glory of gender. Male and female bodies change shape, weight, muscle mass, hair, teeth, stamina, flexibility, bladder control. We know how our bodies change because we’re living in them, and we can feel it. We see it when we look in the mirror. We experience our changing abilities. We witness how we are treated differently because of our appearance. People make assumptions about us. Gender non-conforming people have similar experiences of being judged, rejected and excluded. As olds we should have empathy for them. Life in a human body is challenging, no matter which body you live in. If you don’t believe it, try putting on a pair of pantyhose and wearing them for a day.