Character Identification Across Gender Lines

[qos]

In my previous entry I shared how both Wolfling and I expressed a desire to "grow up to be Michelle Yeoh."

athenian_abroad's response included the following:

My first reaction: "You don't have to be a girl to want to be Michelle Yeoh (or a Michelle Yeoh character)!"

Which brings up a question. How common -- or uncommon -- is it to "identify" with characters, etc., across gender lines? How does that relate to intuitions about whether gender is an essential or incidental quality? How does it relate to the fluidity or solidity of one's own gender identity?

I thought this was a great question. It's also one I'm having a hard time grappling with effectively, because this isn't an area which I think about all that much.

Personally, while I certainly enjoy the exploits of heroic male characters, I tend to only identify with -- or want to explicitly emulate -- female characters. I think Chow Yun-Fat can bring to the screen many of the same qualities as Yeoh: physically beautiful, a sense of wisdom, a regal air, a believable warrior. (I'm thinking of him in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Anna and the King.) But I don't ever want to be him or his characters. I want to bed them, not be them.

When I play RPG's, I never even consider playing a male character unless I'm a GM running male NPC's. As a writer, my primary characters have all been female, even though my most significant creative work has a large number of male supporting characters. When I explore archetypes, I avoid the small number of them which I perceive as being explicitly male. For example: I am always the Queen, never the King.

I've written and deleted at least four different paragraphs here, trying to sort out the way and the degree to which I experience myself as feminine and masculine. . . and I just can't find the words. Maybe all I can say right now is this: I identify as utterly female on a basic biological level, but enjoy having (traditionally) masculine qualities. Indeed, the Queen of Swords symbol is an expression of a mature woman with strong masculine attributes.

Perhaps it's a bit paradoxical. I embrace my masculine attributes while being absolutely comfortable with my physical femaleness. Or maybe I just don't think in those terms very often because I've never had trouble with my gender experience or identity on an internal or social level. I've played with a lot of different aspects of identity, but gender has never been one of them. I've never felt that being physically female has limited my ability to express who I am, whether that expression is considered masculine or feminine. At the same time, on some level I evidently perceive some kind of essential difference between Male and Female that goes beyond biology because I can't/don't identify with male individuals.

Disclaimer: these are all my subjective experiences as an individual. I have no interest in judging the experiences of others, which I know can be radically different from mine.


Please chime in. I'd be very interested in the expreriences and insights of others. I know that some of you have a very strong interest in gender issues, and there are those here whose own gender experiences are very different from mine.

Comments

[9thmoon.livejournal.com]

I almost never identify with female characters or archetypes. When I say almost never I mean, really, I can think of perhaps two or three in my life.

Despite that, I certainly don't consider myself transgendered. I consider it more a statement about what my culture considers virtuous/desirable in a woman and how my personal values differ so greatly from the norm.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I always wanted to be Hawkeye Pierce...

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

I certainly perceive a difference tween male and female energies. That can express through biology but I think it comes from beyond biology.
David Deida I think does a lovely job explaining the differences.
He's here: http://www.deida.info/

I too am very comfortable being female. I've never seen myself as masculine though I wonder if others would say the same about me. I seem to have an interesting mix of energies, certainly I'm more than willing to do things that are often considered traditionally masculine things.
I do know that we all are multifaceted and I'm gonna say it's sure that I can express both masculine and feminine energies, but me, I feel primarily feminine. And when people think I'm masculine I think they don't get what feminine is.
I don't know that I identify much with many characters in movies and such I come across, but I do think that if I do I more often identify with the female ones, probably most of the time.

I don't know if that helps. Feel free to ask anything you'd like. :)

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I grew up with my favorite author (by far) being Andre Norton. I identified equally with her male and female characters (she began writing novels with female protagonists shortly before I started reading her work) and that strongly influenced me character identification ever since. When playing RPGs, I've played approximately equal number of male a female PCs, with the character's gender being something that comes to me along with their profession and background.

I've also known a number of people like myself. Oddly, IME the people with the strongest single sex character identification all are or later turned out to be transsexuals (who always identified with characters of the other physical sex). Then again, my partner teaotter (who along with athenian_abroad is one of the few people I know well who is strongly identified with their birth gender). She mostly, but not exclusively identifies with female characters.

[amqu.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched the movie this post sprang from, so I can't say for sure how I feel about the Yeoh character. In the first two mummy movies, I really liked Evie, but I identified with Rick. In fact, analyzing all the characters while typing this, I identify more with Imhotep and Evie's brother than her. Which is wierd now that I think about it.

I have no idea what all that means. I guess I should add I've never had any gender questioning in my life. If sexual preference is on a sliding scale of 1-100, I'm probably about a 95 hetero.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If I'm writing fiction I almost always choose to write from the pov of a female character.

If I'm reading fiction or watching a movie I'm more likely to identify with the male protagonist- but I think that's because there are so very few strong female characters out there...

One of my favourite movies is Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating- which, as the title implies, has two female leads.

[neversremedy.livejournal.com]

My daughter and I both discuss wanting to be characters in movies and books, and sometimes those characters are not of our own gender. My partner often expresses interest in being a particular female character, such as Azula on Avatar or "Evil" Willow on Buffy. Neither my daughter nor my partner have interest in changing gender, although both have been willing to dress as their counterpart gender (my daughter had me make her a Frodo costume, my partner has put on a dress and make-up and nearly passed as female on special occasions). I, however, have always felt confined by my biological gender. I've always wanted to be able to slip between the two primary genders when I felt like it, but even dressing as a man is nearly impossible for me, as many people have pointed out (usually in the direction of my chest or hips) and said, "how could you possibly hide those?" Not to mention that my face is not masculine or androgynous enough to pass as both genders. La!

I think so long as there are strong traits that one admires in a character, it's difficult not to identify with that person. Often times the women I find most attractive are also the women I'd like to be or emulate. The same is true for the men I admire. Gender has little to do with identification, unless one is talking specifically about reproductive organ experiences or gender-biased social prejudices. Even then, there's a great deal of gray area.