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On being a eunuch
'I think I look like a guy,' I said to one of my friends when I was twenty, with some vague notion of cosplaying one for Hallowe'en. 'No one would ever take you for a guy,' she scoffed. 'Your features are too delicate.' The proper comeback was 'Then I look like a delicate guy', because in fact people started calling me 'sir' not long after. True, they were mostly little old ladies in France who didn't bother looking at me closely. Tall = male to some people. The police in Japan also thought I was a guy, but I figured that was a combination of my height and size, the bike I rode (red), and the time I rode it (after midnight.)
Actually I had two bikes. No one ever stopped me when I was on the bottle green one, but the iridescent red one set off 'probably stolen' alarms in the minds of honest o-mawari-sans. They'd politely pull me over as I swung off Kannana doori onto the Kawagoe Kaidou, pause for a disconcerted moment when they heard my female and distinctly gaijin voice, doggedly continue with a request for the details of when and where I bought my bicycle, which they'd confirm with HQ by walkie-talkie, and finally wish me a good evening and send me on my way. I have met Carrot Ironfoundersson's brother, and he's a slightly tubby Japanese policeman who comes up to my chin.
Equally if I was wearing my winter coat, a practical dark green oiled cotton affair with a lining but no lines to speak of, and a certain pair of pants, also green but, amusingly, the only women's trousers I owned, I'd get snarled at when I went into the women's washroom, or followed about discreetly by an attendant until she was able to get a glimpse of my face. So fine- my body might present as male to some people but the face was still the tipoff.
No more. I get called sir by Mormon pushers looking sincerely straight into my eyes. I get called sir by waitstaff when I'm wearing a dusty-pink top. I get called sir in summer when I'm in hot pink or orange cargo pants, a singlet that indicates the cleavage of my 38D bosom, and a brightly flowered hapi coat over that. I got called 'brother' by the panhandler I gave a loonie to last night in spite of my pink fringed scarf.
Even in my own culture I now present as a middle-aged gay man, and probably nothing short of a skirt will convince people otherwise. (Actually I know what would do it-- colouring my hair. Large shapeless people with grey hair really do come across as unisex. If it doesn't care enough to dye its hair, it must be male.)
Actually I had two bikes. No one ever stopped me when I was on the bottle green one, but the iridescent red one set off 'probably stolen' alarms in the minds of honest o-mawari-sans. They'd politely pull me over as I swung off Kannana doori onto the Kawagoe Kaidou, pause for a disconcerted moment when they heard my female and distinctly gaijin voice, doggedly continue with a request for the details of when and where I bought my bicycle, which they'd confirm with HQ by walkie-talkie, and finally wish me a good evening and send me on my way. I have met Carrot Ironfoundersson's brother, and he's a slightly tubby Japanese policeman who comes up to my chin.
Equally if I was wearing my winter coat, a practical dark green oiled cotton affair with a lining but no lines to speak of, and a certain pair of pants, also green but, amusingly, the only women's trousers I owned, I'd get snarled at when I went into the women's washroom, or followed about discreetly by an attendant until she was able to get a glimpse of my face. So fine- my body might present as male to some people but the face was still the tipoff.
No more. I get called sir by Mormon pushers looking sincerely straight into my eyes. I get called sir by waitstaff when I'm wearing a dusty-pink top. I get called sir in summer when I'm in hot pink or orange cargo pants, a singlet that indicates the cleavage of my 38D bosom, and a brightly flowered hapi coat over that. I got called 'brother' by the panhandler I gave a loonie to last night in spite of my pink fringed scarf.
Even in my own culture I now present as a middle-aged gay man, and probably nothing short of a skirt will convince people otherwise. (Actually I know what would do it-- colouring my hair. Large shapeless people with grey hair really do come across as unisex. If it doesn't care enough to dye its hair, it must be male.)
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*guffaws* And his Angua, er I mean, canine companion? A chihuahua that he tucked in the basket of his own bicycle?
I am tempted to say its height when you're in the Americas, and other features when you were in Japan. I am under 160cm, but when it was cold (and I buried in hat and bulky jacket) I got called 'Sir' by the (local) young cashiers in rural Australia.
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Not when you're on the job. Probably an Akita permanently chained up on a short leash in his back metre-long yard.
How 160 cm registers as male to the overgrown Aussies beats me hollow. Mind, most Aussie women I knew there were pretty androgynous themselves, and the chimpira outside the soaplands never knew whether they were o-nii-san or not.
We won't go into the problem of mentioning 'Australia' and 'cold' in the same breath. Malaysia doesn't fit you for a normal temperature range.
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This is, depending on one's mood, very amusing or slightly annoying.
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160cm and yellow in bulky winterwear registers nicely as either yellow male or female to anyone =P
Sans hair and voice, it is difficult to tell.
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I can acknowledge the truth in this! Especially as the older a woman gets the more likely she is to sport short hair.
Several years ago I was wearing a wool, jumper dress and had my long hair up in a pony tail (not low on my nape but up on my head) and I was still referred to as 'sir' by a sales clerk. XD I was told by an acquaintance that the lack of make-up or scent with with my broad shoulders, large frame, and the confident way I present myself really gives off a male vibe. Frankly, I think this is a big reason why I keep extra weight on, I actually have curves when I'm thirty pounds overweight. =p
I do think that we start life off androgynous and that over the course of our lifetimes we drift back to androgyny.
And you're right, dying your hair (especially red, in my mind) would probably make a difference. Or make up. Blah! It would be much easier if we had traditional garb that was gender-coded for us.
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There *is* gender coded garb. They just don't make the women's in sizes a woman can wear. Which is fine by me; my gender actually isn't a terribly important aspect of who Iam.
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Somehow that translates in my mind to sexy as hell. Possibly the disjunct between what you look like and what, evidently, you sound like. I can see how it might annoy, but still...
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On the other hand ...when hubby had long hair he looked like a pretty girl from the back ... but even now with the hair all shorn away ... from a distance he apparently still looks girl-ish!
I apparently am just 'aunty' - like now hee! ^__~
Which is unfair because hubby still gets alled 'Abang' - 'older brother' and then I get called 'aunty' *sniffs*
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The couple of times I was mistaken for a male physician over the phone was probably due to the phone handset, and the prevalent sexism that has them calling the male physiotherapists Doctor, and the female senior consultants Nurse.
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Yeah life's unfair like that isn't it. 8D
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Other than that- damn people's kneejerk assumptions. It's famous that all Asians look younger than they are to all Caucasians. Even I, who should know better, must remind myself not to look at faces but at hands when I'm sussing out some Asian's age.