Tag Archives: gender

The Dean of Men’s Daughter

Nationality: American
Age: 68
Occupation: Senior Vice President
Residence: san diego
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English

“She was only the Dean of Men’s Daughter,

With an IQ of twenty-three,

But the things that we college boys taught her

Could’ve earned her some sort of degree.”

 

Where’d you get that song?

 

University of Maryland!

 

So you learned that in college.

 

Yeah. 1965.

 

Who’d you learn it from?

 

I don’t know, some college boys. Some graduate student. In engineering.

 

ANALYSIS:

This is a folksong that most kids at the University of Maryland presumably learn, from other, older students. It suggests school pride in being raunchy and sexually active, and there’s also a clear dynamic of gender roles embedded in the joke. The girl is either naive or provocative, but it’s the boys that show her the ropes and supposedly “corrupt” her. She is also obviously dumb, if she has such a low IQ. The fact that she’s the Dean’s daughter makes her a catch, because she’s highly unattainable and in a sense, off-limits, as well as perhaps easily corruptible because of her ‘stupidity’. Or maybe she’s dumb but attractive, so the boys don’t care. The fact that she’s the dean’s daughter makes her low intelligence funny. So this suggests the boys at U of Maryland can get away with things, and can persuade or manipulate even the most unattainable girls. They can have their fun and still stay out of trouble with the administration.

Buns Up Game

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Middle School Teacher
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/15
Primary Language: English

“So the Buns Up Game is a game that I played in middle school and they’re still playing it at my school. And so the object of the game is to never get your buns hit with the tennis ball, and so the game is played against a wall and someone throws the tennis ball at the wall and the other person has to catch it with one hand. And it can bounce once or not at all. If you miss it with one hand, then the person who threw it can then grab the ball and you have to run to the wall and touch the wall with your hands before the person grabs the ball and chucks it at your butt. And that’s why it’s called Buns Up.”

 

The informant was a 50-year-old woman who works as a middle school teacher teaching English, dance, and history to 7th and 8th graders. Although she has spent the last 19 years living in the San Francisco Bay Area, she grew up in Lubbock, Texas and Austin, Texas. She is also my mother, and this interview took place over Skype one afternoon when we were talking about things she did when she was growing up that she has observed taking place among her students now. She learned this game, “in . . . Lubbock, Texas. I learned to play it outside because we had a lot of cement and a blank wall. Mostly the boys played it, but some of the girls that were more courageous would play it also. At my school right now there’s a blacktop and it’s mostly the first graders that are playing it, instead of like the middle schoolers that used to play it.”

 

When I asked her why thinks people play this game, she said, “Well, because it’s a skill to be able to catch, eye-hand coordination with one hand, the ball that’s about the size of a baseball or a tennis ball. Plus it’s fun to throw the ball at people if they, and it, well it makes people feel bad if they, I mean it makes people feel good if they have more skill than the other player. Plus it’s reflexes and yeah, you get to actually take mean action on people, I guess.” When I asked her what she thinks this game means, it became clear that the informant did not think much of this game. She said, “I think it means that it’s an easy game to play with a ball and a wall. Like, you don’t have . . . I mean, it takes very little equipment and only two people and, with a city, if you don’t have a field or grass it’s a game you can play in the street.”

 

I tend to agree with the informant that the main reason this game is played is that it requires little explanation and little equipment to play. It is easy to start and stop, can be played in many different locations, and is challenging enough to be entertaining. I there’s a little more to the meaning behind the game though, based solely on its name. Because this game is generally played by middle school kids, it seems like there is something to the fact that part of the game is throwing a ball at another person’s butt. At this age, this action might seem particularly taboo. It is also interesting, then, that Buns Up is somewhat gendered, with only a few girls taking part, and that my mother was one of these girls. This game provides an outlet for children to be silly and active, while subtly crossing established social boundaries.

Drag Performance

Nationality: Latin-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/22/2014
Primary Language: English

About the Interviewed: Davey is a student at the George Washington University double-majoring in English and LGBT Studies. His ethnic background hails from Spain. At the time of this interview, he was currently on leave at his home in Southern California. He is biologically male, but he identifies as gender-queer. Nonetheless, he prefers male pronouns. He is 20 years old.

My friend Davey moonlights as a Drag Performer. I asked if he could define what drag is.

Davey: “Well, everything is drag, that’s what RuPaul [drag icon] says. To most people, it’s just dudes dressing up as girls, which is like, kind-of what it is, but not really. It’s a statement on gender, it’s a statement on performing. People come to drag shows dressed as men, people come as women, people come as whatever the hell they want, that’s what drag is. It’s an illusory gender performance. Men and women both dress as things you can’t describe. Men become Queens, Women become Kings, some become things that you can’t describe.”

I asked him if he could describe what a performance is like.

Davey: “That depends on the queen. When I go out there, I lipsync to songs by Rihanna, Beyonce – I like to be fierce. Most queens lipsync, some don’t. Some actually sing live, if their voice is pretty enough. Those are the fishy queens.”

I asked Davey what “Fishy” means.

Davey: (laughs) “Oh lordy! It means vagina. The more fishy you are, the more you look like a real woman in dress and make-up. Some queens try really hard to be fishy. I don’t have the make-up, or the skills. Yet.”

We then talked about Davey’s personal experiences as a drag queen.

Davey: “Well for starters, I’ve never performed at one of the [drag] clubs. You have to be pretty much be top shit to get in these days. I’ve just done it for parties and things. Just for fun.”

I asked him if the pursuit of “fishiness” was about emulating a standard of beauty.

Davey: “Yeah, I mean, everybody wants to be a supermodel, but I just wanna have fun. I think that as a drag performer, we’re attracted to these images of grandeur and beauty, and some respond by mocking it and others try to become it. It all depends on how you interpret it. It’s art. It’s meant to be that way.”

Summary:

Drag is a performance that plays with the notion of Gender in Western Society. Performances take the form of wild cabaret shows, that showcase vibrant individuals who dress in ways that denounce typical gender norms. Drag can either be a form of Male to Female impersonation, or it can be something crazy and hard to pinpoint. Davey defines drag as a visual art.

As an artist myself, I resonated with Davey’s final statement on gender performance – that art is meant to be multi-faceted. Even within cultures, the meaning of certain performances or pieces of folklore are heavily debated. Ultimately, it’s up to the audience to pick and choose which elements resonate the strongest within themselves.

Wedding Ring Test – Pregnancy Gender Predictor

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 51
Occupation: Manager
Residence: Shanghai, China
Performance Date: 4/20/13
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Informant: “This is how you do it. Take a pin, needle, or wedding ring and attach it to a thread. Then you hold the dangling item over mom to be’s belly while she is lying down. If the needle or wedding ring swings in a circular motion, you will be having a girl. If it moves in a to and fro motion like a pendulum, you will be having a boy.”

Me: “Did you try it?”

Informant: “I did and it worked for me! But it’s just an old wives tale.”

Analysis: This is a very common thing to do when one is eager to know the gender of one’s baby. It was thought to originate in Italy, except instead of a wedding ring, they used needles on threads. Due to female roles back in time, needles and threads were more common in an expecting woman’s life than nowadays. Using the wedding ring as opposed to the thread was thought to originate in Ireland.

Pregnancy is one of those exciting events, and the gender prediction always arouses the curiosity of others. There are several “old wives tales” on predicting the gender of a baby, however some of them contradict each other. According to testimonials online, people will often end up with an even split of results -50% of the tests will predict a boy, and 50% will predict a girl. This suggests that there is little truth or evidence to support the effectiveness of the tests, which may be why the informant was skeptical to believe in it despite the fact that it worked for her.

“Boys will be boys.”

Nationality: Asian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Marino, California
Performance Date: February 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

My informant learned this saying from an old television show that he used to watch.  This saying has become part of his daily speech.  Almost every conversation he has includes his saying “boys will be boys” to the point that the person he is talking to is extremely puzzled.  He says it in situations in which they saying makes no logical sense, hence the confusion of the person he’s talking to.
My informant likes this saying for the irony and confusion.  He knows that it doesn’t make sense when he says it because he says it at the most random times.  When he says it, it somehow relates back to the conversation, but not necessarily.  It leaves people speechless because they don’t know how to respond.
For my informant, “boys will be boys” provides him with a sense of nostalgia because it reminds him of watching television as a child.  Because he learned the saying from watching a television show, the saying reminds him of childhood and the fun times he had as a child.
My interpretation of “boys will be boys” is quite different from his.  In his case, he says it for the sake of saying it.  I believe this saying represents how boys act, and many people interpret it this way as well.  This saying is a way of asserting that boys are stupid and immature.  Boys can act like complete idiots.  This saying is just a more polite way of explaining how boys can be.  I think that this saying is very useful in life when talking about boys.  It isn’t as harsh as saying how boys act.  By saying “boys will be boys,” people know what someone means without saying something in a blunt manner.