AKA My Good Friend Columbo From the Memes Helps Me Investigate Gender Roles
I wonder if, when times are tough, people are that much more likely to turn not to essential human values, but to their notions of what a Good Man or a Good Woman should do.
I say “I wonder if” because I would never do this. I basically swore off gender many years ago and hardly ever looked back. If gender is a thing that only I can define, and if it’s likely to be something I feel deep within me (whether as a conviction, an abstract complex, or what), then I feel nothing, and therefore, I guess I choose nothing. This is freeing, insofar as I don’t have to take my mother saying “you had better be a proper young lady/gentleman” so seriously, but it doesn’t really fill me with a sense of joy, or belonging, or conviction.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In and of itself, it’s neutral. I don’t have to put more concepts on gender that way; in fact, that might be overburdening the concept, expecting too much from it.
People seeking to be a Good Man or Good Woman often turn back to things that are very ancient. Even a new wave will often claim to be bringing back old things. They go back to the Goddess or they go back to Jung. Probably one of those.
Well, people might also look to their family history. I guess my mother is heroic for breaking her family’s cycle of abuse, for her strong sense of justice, for her tenacity as a single mom, and so on…but many of her strengths seem to be my weaknesses. Then my dad’s side of the family shrugs its shoulders and says, “Uh, the Protestant work ethic?” I can look to the history of Black people in general, but I feel so distanced from that, as a random lonely light-skinned suburbanite who learns about the Struggle in schoolbooks, that I’m not even used to capitalizing the word “Black” yet and I swear it’s been ten years since I first saw that.
All that to say it feels inauthentic or just not useful to enshrine these family-related figures in my life and look to them for grounding values.
So the typical things that give people’s identities a moral meaning seem far from me. I don’t need something to replace them, I suppose. I can proceed as normal (as I have been). I’m not without morals when things get tough. But I wonder: if these things don’t give me a deep and fulfilling sense of meaning and belonging, what might? And if such a thing is out there, it could only be a net positive—right?
I can’t look in myself, because when people talk about essentials within themselves, I don’t understand how to apply that to me. And that’s for the same reasons that when I read the phrase “rich inner life,” I have no idea how that is being defined and I assume it doesn’t apply to me. It’s not that I’m a vapid husk; it’s just that I don’t go on adventures within my soul. My experience of myself is very pragmatic, and mental more than soulful. Like a brain in clear gravy. Strong emotions seem to pass easily. Roles I took on only because society gave them to me were much less painful to discard than to keep.
So to find meaning, I have to look at the outer world in some way that feels authentic. I have to look at my identity as it is experienced rather than to my personal inward experience of it (which is to say, no experience of it).
Thinking along these lines encouraged me to look at my social roles…which made me realize something I have only realized quietly and fleetingly before: I don’t have a clear idea of how others perceive me. I’ve never even really sought this out.
If I had any social issues growing up, I usually thought “that’s their problem; I’m fine” and didn’t even ask why they were doing this to me, beyond “I guess they don’t like me.” I didn’t dwell on it. I would be laughed at and not know why, then move on quickly. In school I seemed to have no social role.
Now, as an adult, I interact with the wider world more. I…go to the grocery store sometimes, I…talk on the phone with my parents…okay, I don’t socialize much, not even online, so my data is limited. But it seems like I’m perceived as harmless, maybe even pathetic, enough that people making sarcastic jokes will cry “I WAS KIDDING! JUST KIDDING! I’M SO SORRY!” while I’m still processing what they just said. Maybe this will change as I finally get more wrinkly–as the tides shift and I’m read not as “vegan lesbian/twelve-year-old boy” (note: none of these labels are me in any universe) but instead simply as “pruny vegan lesbian.” The way I look seems deeply uninteresting to most people, supremely ambiguously brown, not confrontational, not stylish…except to a very small percentage of creepy older Black men who I’m sure see a tomboy they can fix.
Nothing about this feels so wrong or distressing to me that I want to actively change my social roles, whether through my appearance, the way I talk, or just the way I handle myself on the street. If I make myself look like less of a fool, I don’t know how much I get from that. Most of my life is not on that street. It’s with people who know by now that I’m not a fool.
The way I look and act right now can be useful. Maybe I can be a jester in the valuable ways, throwing a harsh but needed truth into the mix when nobody suspects it. If things get serious, maybe I should see myself as a spanner in the works.
I think that with family and close friends, I am seen as a mediator with a fairly clear-eyed view. So maybe my value is Truth, something that is not gendered.
If I feel that I am “in between,” maybe this can be considered a nonbinary value.
Warmth might be something people consider feminine. Some would say that men “should be stoic,” but just about everyone would agree that the Good Man has, if nothing else, a fire within him. It doesn’t matter, in this case; I don’t think I’m a warm person at all. This would be a personal value in a different sense, something I can always strive to improve, rather than a spear I already made and only need to sharpen.
Once upon a time, I was thinking about a white ferret for no apparent reason. I had been for a few days by then. As I was going about my business, a white ferret appeared in the grass by my dorm. I don’t strongly associate myself with this ferret, or call it any particular thing like “spirit animal,” but I remember this from time to time. Maybe in social situations I can be like a ferret: unassuming, but sharp-witted. Sinuous and fast. Looks cuddly, but fangs are sharp.
Now, people will look at mythical and religious figures for their values sometimes. I would feel inauthentic doing this too. As much as I love what I’ve heard about Hermes and Athena, I would feel odd placing their figures in my home just to wink at them saying “truth and justice!” from time to time. What else can I use that feels more connected to me personally? Jesus?? I guess that works, but Jesus represents so many positive values that I’m not sure that would be useful for these purposes.
I refuse to use historical figures or modern famous people because I’d live in fear of the day news like “Gandhi Abused Women” comes out about any famous person you can think of. So the final frontier (besides a character or emblem I make myself…and I’m not above that) might be fictional characters. I would be a little ashamed to do this, if not for the fact that I already put Columbo in the thumbnail of this post. You saw this coming!
Columbo seems to embody both Truth and Warmth. He’s an L.A. cop, yet universally beloved (an accolade that I think is only shared by Dog Man). At first glance he seems totally unthreatening, merely annoying, but he can put you away for good. Also, he’s got great hair. That pilot episode where actor Peter Falk has STRAIGHT hair is a nightmare. I can’t even watch that.
Then there comes the most important detail, even more important than his hair (which I’m sure I only like because I never do anything with my unruly curly hair): his fashionable coat. I don’t care what you say, I don’t care what you think; I’ve wanted a tan trenchcoat for what feels like centuries. It didn’t start with him, but with Irresponsible Captain Tylor, one of the greatest anime boys of all time. This is fashion to live for. To die for. And I don’t even like clothes. I guess that’s why all the clothes I want to wear are evidently stained paper bags.
This post was conceived by the convergence of two things: me reading stories of trans experience (mostly binary experiences, I guess you could call them), and me sending my sibling a Columbo remix apropos of nothing. My sibling responded “you are Columbo” and I began to think playfully, Maybe I am.
I don’t think there are ever going to be general emblematic Nonbinary Values, in large part because doing that would defeat the purpose of a label like Nonbinary, which is to be broad, inclusive–for many, it’s a jumping-off point to words like polygender, agender, maverique. There’s just no need for an institution to suddenly create a set of Nonbinary Values! They’re going to have to come from people or groups who feel empowered to define their archetypes for themselves. They might be individual to each and every one of us. We don’t need them, but–much like labels–if we want to try them and they help, then they help, and that’s that.
Now i guess I need to find a Columbo bobblehead to place meaningfully in my room. Somewhere around here there’s a Monk bobblehead. You know, from the detective show Monk. Um…close enough?
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I really want to post something that takes a little more research soon, and isn’t just my gender or sex musings, but it takes time! Still, you can stick around and browse. Learn about me connecting sex and gender from an asexual and agender and thoroughly confused perspective. Or go learn about the Blondie movies—you know you want to. Blondie is public domain soon, you know. Alternatively, check out my thoughts on Almost Christmas!