Project backstory: I can do things.

[feuervogel]

I got a bit of verbal confirmation last night that the purpose of this exercise went over some heads. I'll restate it, more explicitly this time.

I am doing this in order to work through a lot of societal bullshit I've internalized. In particular, the notion that women's lives are less interesting than men's. To tell me, "it's easy, you just have to X" misses the point. :|

Another thing women learn from society is that we can't talk about how good we are, and if we do, we're braggarts. It's hard to talk yourself up, to say why you're the best applicant for the job or why your novel is special and the agent should rep it, when you're fighting against years of conditioning that tell you not to do that. (Not to mention backlash, wherein people call you a bitch for saying, why yes, I *am* awesome, thanks for noticing. One reason I love Toph: she's awesome, and she knows it, and she'll let you know it, too.)

It's easy for me to come up with things I can't do. It's harder for me to come up with things I can do. And even harder for me not to qualify them -- I can X but not as well as.... So this is a list of things I can do (and some of them I do well). That I will NOT be qualifying, dammit.


-I can learn languages easily. I started reading at 2.5, and the internet tells me 4-5 is average. My German 2 teacher in high school got permission for me to skip German 3, and in 10th grade, I took German 4, Latin 1, and sign language. I thought Latin was too easy, so I didn't continue. I took two years of university Japanese for fun. I have never gotten less than an A in a language class. I want to learn Turkish and Hungarian.

-I have good pattern recognition skills. This is likely part of why I can learn languages easily (grammar is a pattern, after all). I love word searches, and I don't really have to try until I've found over half of them. The ones where the words aren't just in straight lines are more fun because I have to work for them.

-I am naturally athletic, and I have a good kinesthetic sense. I can go 6 weeks without practicing tai chi and not lose much of the form.

-I am a classically-trained soprano. I can sing. I have a 3-octave range, from the C below middle C to two octaves above middle C (higher if I'm warmed up). I can also sing alto and first tenor.

-I can sew. I can crochet.

-I can cook. I make awesome desserts.

I could only come up with five things. That's really sad.

Comments

[anthimeria]

I am DEEPLY jealous of the ease with which you learn languages. I took Latin for five years and it fell out of my brain not a year afterward. I'm entrenched in English (I love English! I can do nifty things with English!), but fail at other languages. Go you for having a kickass talent!

[feuervogel]

Aww, thanks!

Part of my trouble is that I don't think it's a particularly kickass talent, even though my experience is clearly outside the norm. I have to get over this way of thinking.

[kirin]

That's, uh, six things.

Also, I think "I can sew" is seriously under-selling "has made several complicated Victorian outfits, a hat, and a freakin' corset". Your period costume work is awesome.

I dunno if more suggestions are helpful as far as this exercise goes, but I bet I could come up with some...

[listener.livejournal.com]

You make amazing non-desserts as well. "I can cook" is quite the understatement.

[beth_leonard]

That's some pretty awesome things too.

--Beth

[anacoluthon.livejournal.com]

I think making a "stuff I can do well" post would be good for me as well! I still have that socialization even if I don't wear that skin anymore.

I have always been impressed by your language skills. =) And of course I appreciate the delicious end results of your food-fu.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

In particular, the notion that women's lives are less interesting than men's.

I don't understand this part... Are you trying to determine for yourself that your life is interesting despite being a woman? Or just putting together a case to debunk the notion that women generally have less interesting lives than men?

If it helps either way, I'm a dude and my life is boring ass. I can list ten women easily whose lives are more interesting than mine and whom I envy. You would be on that list.

A bit of feminist theory

[feuervogel]

Neither, and you've got the wrong meaning for interesting. I'm not talking "interesting times" or "climbing K2" but the things which society values, and "things women do" aren't on that list. (Though thank you for the compliment!)

It's why Harry Potter is about Harry Potter and his friends Ron and Hermione, rather than Hermione Potter, the Girl Who Lived, and her friends Ginny and Harry. It's why 90% of movies (or more) have male leads (and why movies starring women are "chick flicks.")

It's why having Toph and Katara being lead roles was so important: aside from their being brown, they were both female characters. It showed girls (and boys) that girls can kick ass, too. That there's more to female character than sidekick or romantic interest. Even Azula was an amazing character. ATLA has five female characters, who each have personal goals and personalities that don't revolve around getting a boyfriend. That's so incredibly rare.

These are things which nobody explicitly says, except when they do. "Girl stuff" is icky and bad. Boys are told "don't play with girl toys," for example. Even without that explicitness, when girls grow up in a society that favors male lead characters, that doesn't put female characters in lead roles in books or movies because boys won't watch them; when girls see themselves relegated to the sidelines -- if they're visible at all -- in favor of boys' stories, we learn that we're less important. That our stories are less important. That we don't matter.

And that's why I'm doing this.

Re: A bit of feminist theory

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

"...but the things which society values, and 'things women do' aren't on that list.

Aaah... I see now. That's probably why I didn't get the context. So, if a book were written about your life, you're checking whether your self in the story would resonate more with people if the experiences were identical, but if you were depicted as a man?

Side note: I've recently noticed that most of the comics I've been reading these days have strong female characters in the lead. I think I've always had an attraction for those kinds of stories and it just happens to be a good time to accommodate that. Though I don't know where to begin on where that attraction comes from.

Re: A bit of feminist theory

[feuervogel]

Sort of? There's a great post somewhere about how Hermione Potter, the Girl Who Lived, would be read as an icky old Mary Sue, even if she did the exact same things Harry does in the books. And Harry isn't called Mary Sue or Gary Stu, but a normal male teenager protagonist.

But still not quite. I'm trying to overcome 34 years of societal programming that tells me I don't matter. That tells me I'm only valuable as an accessory to a man (T&A). What I'm doing has nothing to do with men or comparing myself to men. That's what I'm trying to avoid here.

Men have nothing to do with this at all whatsoever, except inasmuch that I'm running into male privilege every three steps.

What gender are the people who are writing these comics? Just curious. Some male comic artists do a good job of writing real female characters, as opposed to cardboard cutouts, or so I hear. It's been a long time since I've read books or comics written by men (unless I already know the male writer doesn't fill his text with egregious misogyny or even run of the mill misogyny. I get enough of that shit in my daily life that I don't need it in my fiction.)

Re: A bit of feminist theory

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

It varies, depending on the book... Buffy is written by both men and women. Gotham City Sirens, Zatanna, and Power Girl are written by men, though PG is drawn and heavily influenced by a woman. Empowered...might be a bad example.

I can dig the personal affirmation and I hope I better see what you're working on. I'm overcoming a lot of similar crap; deprogramming how I see myself in spite of my upbringing.