Another one of my sporadic emails to the Anti-Jen mailing list…
Hi all, :)
I'm reading (sporadically) "S/he" by Claudine Briggs. The book isn't bad,
but she found an interesting and unexpected observation at one point called
"Size and Sexism (pg 108).
Her observation was that MtF people experienced different levels of sexism
and/or harassment which often correlated with their size. That was, the
larger/bigger a MtF then the less harassment they experienced than
shorter/more petite people.
She suggested that this came back to men often being bigger then women and
that there was an unconscious "fight response" like an assessment of "Can this
person hurt me if they have to?". (I guess this might be a throw back to the
caveman era.)
So, I am 183 cm, ~80 kg (6 foot, about 175 lbs. for you Americans) and I would have to agree with the author so far, in that I have not experienced any major harassment and/or sexism.
What do other people say?
Hoping for some responses.
Steph
This was something I hadn't quite thought about, mainly because if it is true, then logically because I'm big I wouldn't have had it happen, a self-fulfilling sort of prediction.
I guess sexism can be wherever you want to find it though. If a man speaks over a man it isn't sexism, neither if a woman speaks over a woman, but if a man speaks over a woman, suddenly it is? I'm sure I could go on for a long while about the dangers of "separatism", or the fanaticism of the radical women's movement in the late 70's, contrasting it with fundamental religion, but right now I think I'll just go to bed.