Gender

[gagged_Louise]

Yes, gender is more like a field of negotiated experience, about the way óne comes across as more or less masculine/womanly/brash/commanding/soft-spoken/ strident/silly etc - and the kind of relations you get involved in, and how they look - than just the fixed fact of being physically male or female. That latter one is immutable for 99.9% of people unless you actually go through a physical sex-change, which wasn't possible until fifty years ago.

In a book about Martha Stewart a few years ago - I think it appeared shortly before she was sentenced to jail, sorry I don't recall the name of the author - a recurrent theme in the picture of her was that behind the scenes, she had been rough, brash, too greedy (competitive and hard-fisted - virtues in a male CEO) and apparently also had Dominated her husband - figuratively speaking: she had forced him to give up some of his opportunities in business and serve her business empire. At the same time, Ms Stewart's status as a house stuff & cooking priestess in America rests solidly on her feminine image, doesn't it?

Though the writer didn't come out and say gender was the issue, he clearly felt she was being "unwomanly", and the quarrel was with her having been 'no real woman' rather than with being a tomboy or doing what it takes to get rich, and this was a grave sin. The same thing recurs with Hillary Clinton or female soccer players (often accused of being lesbians) - they are seen as "not real women" or it's flatly stated "lesbians are girls who were ugly, had hairy armpits and didn't learn how to please a man, so they didn't get enough cock in their teens - in frustration they turned to other loser girls". That last one is a view I think is perfectly dumbass.

Madonna's impending divorce also has lots of gender implications - she was always a far bigger success than Guy Ritchie, and she's been both playing on, subverting and submitting to the limitations of her woman-ness. I don't think she's being very subtle, but the pushing of gender boundaries is a constant part of her shows and her public personality.