What It Means to Be A Woman; Then and Now

The description of what it is to be a woman changes with the times like many other things, but some things do stay the same, one of these being the inaccurate idea that women are defined by beauty and their abilities in the “womanly arts”. This inaccuracy is applied to both Silence and Caitlyn Jenner because of ignorance and a patriarchal mindset. In one of the first scenes where Nature and Nurture are arguing over Silence and what it is she should identify herself as Nature maintains that Silence should recognize herself as female because of all the work Nature put into her. Nature says that she “extracted the beauty of a thousand to create [Silence’s] lovely appearance” (2511-12). She continues to go on and on about how beautiful Silence would be as a woman and how even now many females are in love with her because of how beautiful she is as a man. Silence then goes on to consider the arguments made by both Nature and Nurture and comes to the conclusion that “a man’s life was much better than that of a woman” after thinking in detail about “the past times of a woman’s chamber” (2637-38)(2633). A genuine fear that Silence had was that if the rules of the land changed and she was able to inherit that she would not know how to be a woman because she had spent so much time in the wilderness hunting and fighting rather than in a room learning needle point and other womanly arts. Silence saw that because of the way she grew up that she could not possibly be a woman because she “[had] a mouth too hard for kisses, and arms too rough for embraces” (2646-47). Not very often do the arguments for and against being a woman go below the surface level of what society tends to believe being a woman is about. Both Nature and Nurture include in their arguments such basic and somewhat sexist reasons for why Silence should or should not identify herself with her biological gender.

You would think that now in 2016 after the many great strides our society has taken in acceptance and understanding towards the Transgender and Transsexual community that people would view gender as so much more than putting on makeup and going shopping or cracking open a cold one and watching the game. But alas this is not true, when Caitlyn Jenner came out as transgender and underwent her surgeries people accused her of being “too feminine, that she defines her womanhood in terms of hair and makeup” (Source Two). It’s as if the arguments presented by the medievalist created Nature and Nurture have not left society’s mind when considering gender. Even in her show, I Am Cait, her close friend Jenny Boylan expresses her concerns that she believes Caitlyn focuses too much on the superficial aspect of being a woman. And continuing to further sexist stereotypes but on the opposite side of the spectrum Jenny Boylan in her blog comes to Caitlyn’s defense by saying that “you also ought to also note that so far, in her show, we’ve seen her riding a motocross dirt bike, pumping her own gas, and flying a radio-controlled helicopter” (Source Two). As honest as her intentions were she still is trying to associate a feeling of gender with stereotypical acts but this time against males. It is a difficult discussion and something that requires a lot of thought to truly figure out what it is and what it means to be female or male but because of the changing times it really is something we should try and define so as not to continue an old and misguided perception of gender. Femininity and what it is to be a woman are so much more than what the “Romance of Silence” and critics of Caitlyn Jenner make it out to be. No two women are the same so to try and group them together under a canopy of deeply rooted sexist stereotypes as an effort to explain the meaning and feelings of being female is quite an idiotic idea. As Jenny Boylan says in her blog “The world contains Janet Reno and Dolly Parton; Mother Teresa and Lady Gaga, and newborn baby girls who have been “women” less than a couple of hours. Surely, if there is room in this world for all these different ways of being female, there is room enough for Caitlyn; room enough for you, and room enough for me.” (Source Two). 

Source One: Romance of Silence 

Source Two: http://www.jenniferboylan.net/2015/08/14/jenny-boylan-on-caitlyn-jenner-the-big-dress-theory/