Gender Codes

So, what is gender and why does it matter?

On many levels including physical gender is simply a charade. While sex is a biological characteristic that one is born with (and it still isn’t so black and white), gender is a set of societal rules that we apply to people who we assume to have specific sex characteristics. There is nothing “natural” about gender identity, we all simply play the roles that we believe we are meant to play and, whether it’s a good thing or not, understanding these dynamics is often integral to how we interact with others.

The norms that are assigned to male and female genders are largely the same throughout the world, but can also change based on culture and religion. In fact, some cultures recognize a 3rd gender, whether that be inter-sex, two-spirit, hijras, etc., which proves that “breaking gender norms” is not a new idea, it’s older than any of us can imagine.

These rigid binaries of defining two genders as male and female focus on separating us because of the ways we are different, instead of celebrating those differences and recognizing the similarities. Binaries lead us to believe that there is only one way to be a man and one way to be a women, which is incredibly harmful in a multitude of ways. Not only does it exclude all people who identify as another gender, but it also excludes those who do identify as a man or a women but don’t dress, talk, walk, or act the right way. The prevalence of media and advertising in our lives has magnified these issues as we see what “real men” and “real women” are meant to be.

WOMEN’S PORTRAYAL

Women have always been presented as passive, weak, sexy, desirable, ever-youthful, playful. The women who aren’t any of these things are assumed to be gay or criticized as too masculine. Photography often shows women with one leg raised, touching themselves in various ways, cradling objects, leaning to one side, laying down, eyes closed with open mouths, staring into the distance, and often with children.

Now, as a professional photographer I can tell you that poses like this are not chosen randomly. The angle at which we show a model does matter both visually and psychologically. Canted angles, like we often see women in, throw you off balance and are not as “strong.” While one could make the argument that this is simply an artistic choice I would refute, “okay, then why are women the only people we see portrayed artistically?” At the bottom line most portrayal of women stems from desire, and often desiring a person keeps you from seeing the entirety of them.

MENS PORTRAYAL

Men’s portrayal, in contrast, is all about power. It’s about getting what you desire (note how this would be connected to female portrayal) and being strong enough to take it. They are often shown with arms crossed, muted and earthy color palettes, looking straight into the camera, gripping something tightly, flexing their muscles, or adorning a woman like an accessory. On the surface level male representation does not seem as bad as women, right? Wrong. This portrayal leads to an overly masculine outlook on men, and makes many men feel self-conscious as they will never look as ripped as the men on magazine. This, of course, applies to women as well and just goes to show how full circle the issue is.  

FOUCAULT & NORMATIVE POWER

To just scrape the surface on gender norms we can see the monumental power of normalization. Foucault claims that normalizing power, aka what we don’t see, is more powerful than direct power, and here we can see that he’s right. Gender inarguably defines so much about who we become in our lives, we see it so we are it and we don’t know how to be anything else. Societal rules inherently give power because they provide a sense of normalcy, and that is what we accept to be true. In many ways the power of normalcy is what will lead us towards unbiased inclusion, whether this be of LGBT people, POC, or different genders.

The tricky thing about visual codes is that ultimately we do want them. They’re harmful in many ways, but extremely helpful in many ways (like normalization). They allow us to identify ourselves as part of a specific group so that we can be outwardly perceived by society as who we want them to see us as.

Visual codes can be applied to many different aspects of culture. For example, the Black community in the U.S. has a wide range of fashion trends that, when seen, lead you to automatically make an assumption about the person’s race. These include hoop earrings, oversized clothing, Jordans (sneaker culture as a whole), hairstyles (braids, cornrows, locs, twists, etc.) and so many more.

They can also be applied in smaller ways, for example the clothes you wore and the way you did you hair and makeup in 2009 could differentiate you from being scene, punk, grunge, or goth, with not a major amount of difference between the four.

Food for thought. Would you have been able to guess my gender by the tone of this piece? 

all images used with Unsplash lisence