The Fallacy of Gender

In certain spaces, gender is more defined.

I will never forget the time I walked into a police precinct headquarters during a shift change.  A twenty-one year-old college student, I was at that age where the balance between self-consciousness and self-assurance is fiercely ambivalent.   I had been sent there on an assignment to do a ride-a-long for a class that fulfilled a credit in both my sociology and criminology majors.
 
I stepped into an austere room with fluorescent lights, gray walls and carpet, a dry-erase board, and long classroom-style tables.  Scattered about the room were about fifteen men of all different ages, although mostly younger.  They were all dressed in the Columbus Police Department uniform of black pants and white shirts, perfectly ironed and starched, and they each had around their waist a set of weapons including a firearm, a taser, and a club.

I felt physically vulnerable.  In the face of so much brawn, I was never so cognizant of the fact that I probably couldn’t do a pull-up if my life depended on it.  Too, I realized that these men were probably also sizing up my physical attributes -- in a different sort of way. 

Yet at the same time I recognized the command that my female presence had.  Within just a few minutes, the officers began to turn on each other as they vied for my attention, cracking jokes at each others’ expenses in one breath then politely inquiring about my studies in the next.

Up until being in that room, I had never been so acutely aware of my gender, and that is one reason this memory stands out to me. 

I am sure there were other times when I had noticed it:  perhaps when I was one of just a few females in a classroom, or at a football game where men were playing and women were at the sidelines in skirts, or at a bar where men were creeping up on groups of dancing women.  However, I cannot say that I have ever before or ever afterward felt so distinctly my gender – that is, before living in Cameroon.

There is another memory that stands out to me, this time in Cameroon, but where once again I and law enforcement officers were the players, and gender once again took a lead role, this time in a slightly humorous presentation.

There is a portion of the road just before you get to the prison in Mokolo that is like something out of an old Western movie. Sand blows in the wind obscuring visibility, mountains endure the sun in the distance, and a couple donkeys graze in front of an old mixed-stone building that could be a mill.  Just a bit farther up the road is the giant square structure that holds the prisoners.  It is gray from dust but painted white underneath, and there are a couple of watch towers in diagonal corners where guards with machine guns watch through glossy green windows. The entry is through the side, and is marked by makeshift straw and wood walls and a path that leads to a reception room, which is just a bit bigger than a closet. 

As usual, I had entered into the small dark room, and found myself shoulder to shoulder among four or five male guards, tall and muscular in their army green fatigues and belts with weapons.  Behind the disintegrating wooden table a guard was monitoring the comings and goings of visitors.  He was an older gentleman with ebony skin, and he gruffly demanded my identity card with a rigidity that I was not used to.  (While the prison is in no other way like ‘Cheers,’ everyone knows my name.)

But I handed it over anyway, thinking little of it.  Until, without precedent, he ordered me to leave my bag and “anything I didn’t need.”  I had my money wallet hinged onto a belt loop and tucked neatly into my jeans, so I was not worried about forfeiting valuables.  But I was slightly unnerved, because I was accustomed to the leniency of coming and going without even a glance at my messenger bag.

As I began to gather my things from my bag, a realization hit me.  This man didn’t know it, but he’d just challenged me to a duel – a gender duel.

I stared blankly into my bag in astonishment for a moment.  I was stunned by my bad luck that the one time I had been asked to open it was the one time I had ‘contraband’. I stared at my ‘weapon’, which in this case happened to be a wooden penis I’d brought for a condom demonstration.

Just like the old cowboy and Indian shootouts, I knew circumstances were about to turn ugly.  As a female in an all-male environment, I was pretty sure that wielding a wooden penis would bring on a spar.

Heat began to rise into every pore of my skin, and I felt as helpless as if I really had been asked to draw my weapon.  I shuffled my hands around in my bag for a couple minutes as if searching for something, trying to cause a delay while I thought of a way to diffuse the situation.

I was now pouring sweat.  I began to stammer in French to convince him it wasn’t necessary to leave my bag, but I couldn’t seem to put my words together.  Instead, I was just faltering and chuckling like a nervous idiot.

Moreover, my behavior had sparked the curiosity of all the men now, who were watching me fumble.

Finally, I just sighed to myself, accepted that there was no way of avoiding it, and I unveiled it.

As quick as a draw as I could muster, I grabbed the wooden penis, thrust it towards the guard, and smacked it down on the table like it was a flush hand in a poker game. As the act began to register with the guards, I also nonchalantly set aside some rice, a notepad, and a couple of condoms – why the most natural things in the world.

Irrationally, I was thinking my bluff of valor could work, and maybe it would go unnoticed, when one of the men shouted in Fulfulde, words that I didn’t know, but a meaning that was surely something to the effect of “She has a penis!”  And, of course, they all began to laugh uproariously, exactly the way I knew they would.

Yep. Uh-huh. I do have a penis, I stated with sharp confidence despite the fact that these were words I never imagined uttering, nonetheless in French. 

I hadn’t chosen this battle, really didn’t want it, and even had tried, albeit ineffectively, to avoid it…but now that it was on, it was on. 

But surprisingly, it was a hands-down win on my side.

As the men chuckled a bit and dispersed, I was left confused.  What?  That was the only response? It seemed to have been an almost ordinary circumstance for me to not only have a penis, but to attest to this fact as well. 

But then, I realized why I had won so easily.  Dressed in my jeans, army hat, and tennis shoes, I might as well have had a penis.  To these men, my declaration wasn’t so far from the truth.

Cameroon is a space where gender is clearly defined.

In this space, I don’t always fit into either of the gender categories, I certainly do not relate to either gender role, and as a result I am somewhat androgynous.

In the United States, gender is more subtle, and it took nearly a locker-room scenario for it to become perceptible to me.  In Cameroon, it is not just in a room in a police station or a prison.  It is nearly everywhere.

It is tangible.  It is stifling.  It is violent.

It imbues all my interactions with both men and women.

Men often perceive me as distinctly female, and all the more threatening because I don’t seem to realize my place.  Other men attempt to deny my femininity altogether, telling me - in a way they think should make me proud - that I am just like a man.  Depending on their perceptions they may yell offensive things to me in the streets, they may not want to work with me, or if they do, they at least make it known they would prefer a male, and they often offend me with presumptuous comments.

Working with women has its challenges too.  They try to convince me that men are indeed superior, they are often unwilling to think critically about even the simplest concepts, and they are in constant disbelief over the fact that marriage is not my life’s goal. Women think I don’t understand what is like to be a woman.

At times I become angry at men because they make me feel powerless to define myself, thus corroborating the very definition that I resist.  At times I become angry at women because they accept the definitions that have been conferred on them.

The Buddhist principle of interconnectedness emphasizes that aggression towards another is actually aggression within oneself, and thus towards oneself.

The harm men cause to women, they cause to themselves.  The harm women cause to themselves, they cause to men.

Not long ago, an on-duty prison guard who was drunk tried grabbing me and pulling me into him while he demanded my phone number.  I gave him a harsh glare, a decent push, and a few stern words.  Afterward, I realized that not once during the exchange did I feel threatened. 

When a woman refuses to give a man the ability to define her, she is empowered.

I enjoy running in the evenings at the stadium, where all ages of men congregate to watch and play soccer, volleyball, and basketball.  I am often the only female within this very large area. 

In the United States there are over 100,000 female law enforcement officers (BJS).  There are no figures on how many female law enforcement officers there are in Cameroon, but they do exist.  I have met one female prison guard just in Mokolo, and from time to time I see female military personnel.

In the midst of a space where there are very clear definitions of gender, one can find freedom in defying them.