rabbit's heart

[rm]

People frequently call me sir, and it took me a long time to understand this or embrace it.

In girls' school being perceived in any way that was masculine was a step well below mere ugliness; it was a blight that came with physical risk: to be mistaken for a boy or told you could be was to be afraid. And it's with a certain sort of shame I remember standing shirtless in an un-airconditioned restaurant in Little Italy with my parents as we waited for a table when I was seven; or someone's mother pulling at my clothes at You Gotta Have Park when I was eight because she did not believe me when I said I wasn't a boy; they wanted boys to paint benches.

I am narrow, like a knife, and because I am quick and nervous and possess a rabbit's heart I am too skilled at darting through crowds.

The subway, in New York, is where you learn whether or not other people think you have a right to exist. I have learnt that I do not, and I understand that this is unexceptional. It is what most women learn on the subway. Because I am slight, I am expected to turn sideways when exiting the car so people can board before I even get off. But I refuse; I do not believe it should be a woman's lot to slide through this world. God gave me shoulders, even if they are small.

I had the male lead in lots of our plays in girls' school. I was Ko-ko in the Mikado and Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream. 100 years ago my classmates would have had "smashes" on me. But I was not given to that world, and those were the first times I started to suspect that my success came from a type of ugliness.

At the bank, people call me sir. Particularly when I wear my hair long and down. It happens even when I wear lipstick. roadnotes theorizes it is because I take up space. I do not stand with my ankles crossed in heels so as to look like an insect on a pin.

A rabbit is always frightened. It doesn't mean to be. But its heart just beats so fast it can seem to tremble. It believes the lies of its body, just like I have often believed the lies of mine and the lies of the subway, our crowded streets, and a school for girls.

But I do have a right to exist. And if that makes me a man, so be it. I will take that and my vicious smile as I refuse to beg and press and cajole my way off the train over the supposed sins of my fur any day.

Comments

[delicatetbone.livejournal.com]

I am narrow, like a knife, and because I am quick and nervous and possess a rabbit's heart I am too skilled at darting through crowds.
Simple, beautiful language...who knew a sentence could turn me on this morning.

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

I am very, very feminine. Curvy. Pouty lips. Small hands and tiny shoulders. I was born with this. It is not something I worked for.

What I am working is to stop apologizing for the space I take up in the world. I have stopped stepping off sidewalks, shrinking against walls. I am amazed at the hostility that comes with my conscious decision to live comfortable in the spaces where I move.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. It's stunning to me how women of any size are ALWAYS treated as if they are taking up too much space. I am so done with it.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Very telling how a simple assertion of personal space is a masculine thing.

[tdanaher.livejournal.com]

I am very round with a hefty bra size, of average female height, have been ever since puberty, have long hair which I wear hanging down or back in a ponytail, I wear pants and ordinary shirts for the most part, and I have spent much of my life being called "sir," especially in banks and other places where I'm dealing with clerks and people rendering temporary services. It also took me a while to figure out why this was, until I came to understand that it must be how my internal attitude projects into the world. I live my life knowing that the issue of whether I have a right to be where I am is not even an issue. I am here. I am in front of the deli counter, or on the subway, or walking down 42nd Street. I am what I am, I am where I am.

(You are a knife? I am a handcart, rolling through the crowds bearing whatever necessary and useful burden that needs transportation from one place to another.)

My goal in life is to do what I want, get where I'm going, and be as efficient about the process as I can be, while also recognizing that some physical limitations I have make my movement through the world slower than that of many other people. (My New York Minute is a minute long.) All of this seems to mean that other people's snap impressions of me are of a man. Fine for them. So long as they don't give me advantages as a man that they'd deny to me as a woman, they can let their heads do whatever they want with their impressions of me.

(Observation: guys who make it difficult for a woman to have some space on the subway are also guys who aren't too keen to let other men have their space, either. Selfishness doesn't seem to care about gender much.)

[spiralflames.livejournal.com]

i know you are more than sick of hearing this, but i don't think i've said it to you, so i will: i cannot grok that you didn't get into grad school. your writing just tears me up.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and true.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

roadnotes theorizes it is because I take up space. I do not stand with my ankles crossed in heels so as to look like an insect on a pin.

*nods* Becca is quite curvy and obviously female, and she occasionally mistaken for a man if she is dressed in such a way as to hide this and I suspect that this is also because she takes up space and is visibly proud and powerful.

In any case, one again I am very impressed by the beauty of your writing.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

On a vaguely related note, whenever I went overseas as a teen (13-16), I was regularly mistaken for a girl. Oddly, this never happened in the US, but it happened multiple times in Greece, Italy, and Britian, despite my not being in any of these places for very long. I still have absolutely no idea what signals I was giving off that made this happen. The only time it became annoying was when there was a frantic Greek steward desperately blocking my way and trying to dissuade me in very minimal English from going into the men's room of a small cruise ship.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

As a child, I think my features saved me: blonde hair and huge, sad blue eyes like a Keane painting are not masculine or adult. I spent lots of my childhood darting and fighting through airports and train stations, often with a bag wider than myself on my shoulder. I learned to use the bag and my elbows to defend myself, to create space which was not given to me. I sometimes rationalized putting a sharp elbow in someone's ribs because while I was thin enough to slip by, they should make room for my luggage.

In fifth grade I was in Africa, my peers were half Americans and half European. There was considerable argument as to whether girls had to cover their tops at the pool. THe European girls argued that they had nothing to cover yet, and knowing their mothers went to topless beaches, did not care: the Americans shrieked in horror and insisted on wearing bikini tops over their pudgy ribs, as there were boys and even men present. I agreed with the Europeans, but didn't have the guts to face the Americans' ostracism - as of course it would have been far worse for a fellow American to commit such a sin. I ordered a one-piece bathing suit to avoid the dilemna, even knowing that they were never comfortable to me, too short for my long torso. But at least my ridiculous bony ribs were covered.

I was thin and figureless, and spent several months in sixth grade (back in America, surrounded by Madonna wannabes and confused by their assumption of puberty) even more wary than usual and with my back to the wall whenever possible, because the boys had made a game of snapping girls' bra straps and I was the only girl without any.

Despite being one of the taller girls, and certainly taller than the boys, I was all bone. My heart is strong, but my blood pressure has always been too low and my lungs too weak; all too often I felt faint and dizzy, and crowds worsened it. I couldn't catch my breath, and felt that all the other people were taking up not only my space but my air. I am not claustrophobic in small spaces when I am alone, but a crowded large space makes me gasp for air.

Remember the suits in the Eighties, when women demanded workplace equality with huge shoulderpads? I didn't need them, my mother said, but they made me brave and reminded me not to slouch and slump and hide. I remember buying my first biker jacket and marvelling at how its bulk and studs made people give me extra inches. I cut my hair shorter, and secretly liked it when I was called 'sir' instead of 'miss', although it still rankled that I failed at assuming femininity when the occasion called for it.

People still judge me by my size, less skeletal now but in a wheelchair, and I tire of having to shout to make them give me space for the wheels. I like the added personal space it gives me when people are standing still, but I can no longer use shoulders and elbows to make a path in a crowd. I'm also shorter in the chair, which makes me more disregarded. Even women now ignore me, walk smash into me sometimes and look down surprised from their cellphones.

On the subway and buses I am not allowed to exist, and have to shout and scream to demand make-way and the area which says it's for wheelchairs only. Women aren't supposed to make a fuss and cause a scene, but I have no choice. People resent my presence. People tell me I shouldn't be there at all. I can't take the stairs and escalators any more, but get forced into a tiny lift the size of a closet which has been repeatedly urinated in and moves so slowly I cannot hold my breath for the time it takes.

A hat seems to help; the brim of a fedora gives me more space, I'm learning. And sometimes I just don't give a damn, and secretly enjoy hitting people with metal chair parts when they don't give me space. It jars me, but the chair takes the brunt. If I pushed a manual chair I would cover it in leather jacket spikes.

[cwoolard.livejournal.com]

The subway, in New York, is where you learn whether or not other people think you have a right to exist.

I haven't read a sentence this perfect, and perfectly true, in literally years. Thank you.

[abbismom.livejournal.com]

My wife has very similar experiences. Someone once described her as "a man with boobs." She laughed. I love her for it.

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

or someone's mother pulling at my clothes at You Gotta Have Park when I was eight because she did not believe me when I said I wasn't a boy; they wanted boys to paint benches.

That is some BULLSHIT. I was a junior ranger from 1987-90 in Central Park, and did at least three years of You Gotta Have Park! I painted benches CONSTANTLY. Dude, the 70's were weird. I would have kicked that woman in the face.

Too bad you didn't start screaming "the lady is touching me in my no-no plaaaaace! Stop touching meeee!"

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hahaha yeah. I was all like "lady it's cold and I'm wearing a bazzillion layers with my You Gotta Have Park shirt over it" but she kept hollering at my parents that I must be a boy. It was very weird. I remember being in the midst of several physical altercations (on different subjects) between my parents and insane parents of other people as a kid.

[patchwerkgirl.livejournal.com]

Hi, I came across this post in a very round about way, but I must say that it really touched me. I've always been mistaken as a male or older than I am because I have always been very tall with broad shoulders. I also get accused of trying to be male because I am more comfortable in traditionally male arenas (I was a wrestler in high school and I am currently an EMT). My best thought is to say whoever you are, stand (or sit) tall and proud. Thank you for this post.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and I suspect I envy your shoulders. I'm always surprised when I rediscover that I am small.

[patchwerkgirl.livejournal.com]

My shoulders are lovely until I try to fit them into most shirts, including my uniform shirts, which have to be tailored. =)

For the longest time, I wished for slender, feminine shoulders, until I met someone who helped me appreciate myself as I am. We waste so much time wanting things that we cannot have that we forget to enjoy the many blessings that we do have.

BTW, your icon picture is absolutely stunning.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's so nice to hear comments on it that aren't about whether it's someone I am not.