Revisionist histories, part 2

There’s an older gay man in my neighborhood I often see walking around. Sometimes with a much-younger partner (though I think they broke up?), once carrying some plants, but mainly on a post-workout stroll. I don’t know him or his business, let alone his inner life. Nor do I have any sort of proof that he is a gay man, or that he’s been working out. The man himself is not what this is about. It’s that he seems so relaxed, so unencumbered. No stroller, no carrier, no bag bursting with snacks and changes of clothes. I get a vibe from him that he did not, within the last two months, push a human being out of his body, nor that he is trying to figure out how to properly parent a newborn and a two-year-old. Like me, he’s into dudes; unlike me, he is not discussing the toileting situation of small children with his dude (or dudes). Granted some gay men are doing just that. But this man, nope.

I am one of those straight women who has, over the years, wished she were a gay man. That desire can, in theory, fall into one of two categories: a genuine interest in transitioning and living life as a man (one who happens to be gay), or an obnoxious, appropriative, blithely homophobia-ignoring sentiment. (Maybe dude is freer day-to-day than I am. But does he have the support of society? OK yes, probably, in 2021 Toronto, but of his family, growing up what would have had to have been a while ago? Does he have the built-in network of alllll the moms in this, the neighborhood where you are issued an infant and a toddler upon arrival?)

I don’t see myself as falling into either category, because materially, my situation is that of a woman. I did give birth recently, and for the second time. I am in possession of the baby weight, and am registered for a postpartum fitness class. As I age, society deems me less attractive. No one is looking at me wistfully, or if they are, they won’t be when I’m dude’s age. The potential of pregnancy-or-not has been built into my attractions, in the background but still unavoidable, since forever.

It doesn’t pain me that I couldn’t be like that man, and I understand—something I had not heard of in high school, when envious of gay male classmates (a sentiment I interpreted at the time as having crushes on them, only to revise that interpretation once getting some actual crushes)—that it’s entirely theoretically possible for someone with my raw-material as it were to live as he does. But I do not actually want to do this. Partly it’s that I’m more straight than woman, and thus inclined to be the most conventionally-attractive version of my natural self as possible (without major interventions that is, or minor to be honest). But it’s also that, for me, things just are what they are. I might envy a gay man, but I identify with being a woman, because I see my situation as connected with that of the other women in the neighborhood and beyond, particularly but not exclusively the ones with small children.

Has this been my “pregnant women” vs “pregnant people” take? Part of it I suppose. It’s not that I think one must say “pregnant women” but rather that I feel so inclined. Maybe some of it is “woman” as biological category, distinct from gender self-presentation or identity. But it’s also not distinct from those, because I’m also talking about the situation of making the most of what you’ve got when what you’ve got is, well, this. (I type this in sweatpants and a flannel shirt, no makeup or jewelry, etc., but in fairness I did not sleep and am about to run up and nurse. It’s an outfit I’d perfectly well go outside in, but not my aesthetic ideal.)

I know that I have, in the past, made the analogy to “happy holidays” at Christmastime. Yes, the “holiday” is almost certainly Christmas, but what’s the harm in inclusivity? But as I’ve pointed out (when? where? whatever) it’s also not the same, because women, unlike (Western) Christmas-celebrators, are a historically marginalized group. Probably not as marginalized as the people who can get pregnant but don’t identify as women. But there sure are a lot more of us.

I see a political value in reminding: women, women, women. But I also see a gratuitous bigotry in a lot of how this asserts itself, including in simply the amount of space the conversation (which, this post included, I am aware) takes up. The thing where some people insist that if you give birth, you are a woman, no matter your feelings on the matter… who is that helping? For some, giving birth (or experiencing any of the range of affiliated situations: unintended pregnancy, intentionally avoided pregnancy, miscarriage, inability to get pregnant) affirms a material situation of womanhood (thus whatever goes on, apparently, at Mumsnet?), while for others it does not do this. Which is… fine? It’s if nothing else, descriptively, how it goes.

It is a lot easier to talk about the abstract category of “woman” being erased than it is to discuss reproductive health care, or the fact that society—especially in the U.S. but not only—is structured to consider birthing and raising a child this indulgent, careless luxury. I get the sense that a lot of the how dare you erase “women”—no, not all—is coming from people who quite simply dgaf about feminism or women. And yet, and yet, you do sort of need the word “woman” for feminism, by which I mean, for addressing issues that almost exclusively impact women, and things like the ACLU tweet, or the Lancet “bodies with vaginas” cover (sounds so much racier than it is…) are not helping.