I totally see what you're getting at. I was one of two girls and the eldest. Since there were no boys about, a lot of the jobs that our society likes to peg as "stuff guys do" my sister and I got to do, like take out the trash, haul firewood, help dad fix cars and build stuff, etc.
We lived with my grandmother for a time, who both was widowed early and grew up with just her mom (her dad died when she was 3). This meant that I saw women doing traditionally male tasks all the time and heard about women keeping jobs and raising a family all without the benefits of having a man about, doing things like heading the household.
So, I too, grew up with people being people first and everything else second, third, or irrelevant.
There is some interesting commentary in one (some) of the Buffy essay books I read a few years ago that discusses how Spike is Othered enough to come across as more female than male, in that he is kidnapped, tortured, and needs to be rescued as much as any "damsel in distress".
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Date: 2010-08-29 07:15 pm (UTC)We lived with my grandmother for a time, who both was widowed early and grew up with just her mom (her dad died when she was 3). This meant that I saw women doing traditionally male tasks all the time and heard about women keeping jobs and raising a family all without the benefits of having a man about, doing things like heading the household.
So, I too, grew up with people being people first and everything else second, third, or irrelevant.
There is some interesting commentary in one (some) of the Buffy essay books I read a few years ago that discusses how Spike is Othered enough to come across as more female than male, in that he is kidnapped, tortured, and needs to be rescued as much as any "damsel in distress".