Have you ever
thought to yourself, "I wish I could…?" and in your mind you become a
trapeze artist, a racecar driver, a jet pilot.
In those daydreams of wishing you could be something or do something did
you ever think that the only way you could possibly do it would be to disguise
your self? Did you ever think that you would have to dress or live as the
opposite sex just to be an author, doctor or home owner? In history women have
been driven to take desperate measures, to dress or live as a man, to own
property, to fight in wars, to have a career.
One of the most
famous is Joan of Arc. She disguised herself as a man to protect her virginity
while she fought as a soldier with other men. When she was discovered she was
tried as a heretic and burned at the stake. Later her trial was overturned as
they felt she hid her identity to fight for France not deceive the men in the
military. Another famous
"cross-dresser" was Mulan. Yes the one from the Disney cartoon. In
actuality she was a real person who, during the middle ages, took the place of
her father to fight in the Chinese army. She was in the army for twelve years,
earned honors and eventually retired to her village. She was only discovered
once by a doctor and he did not reveal her true gender. Disney based their
movie on the poem, The Ballad of Mulan.
The most recorded
number of women disguising themselves as men in each century have been women
dressing as men to be soldiers.
In the Civil War, it
is estimated that 150 to 400 women posed as men to fight in the war along side
their husbands or on their own. Pictures of these women and articles have been
written showcasing these women and the extremes they went through to fight for
their country.
v
After the Civil
War women would disguise themselves as
their brothers or "cousins" so they didn't have to give up the land
their family owned. Only men could own land so the land would fall to the son
or the husband of daughters. If the daughter didn't have anyone to marry they
took desperate measures to keep their land and their home. Sometime the home
was the home of servants or farm workers so keeping the land was a matter of
life and death for more than the owning family.
As people started
heading West after the Civil War, the property laws still applied and women
could not own the land on their own. However, they were handing out homestead
land property very cheaply out west so women would disguise themselves as men
to obtain the land and live on their own. On legend of a woman living as a man
was Jo Monaghan. She lived in the Midwest on land she obtained disguised as a
man. She had a Chinese cook that may have known the truth but he never revealed
her gender. No one new her real gender until after her death. They never found
out her real identity. There was a movie about her story called The Ballad of
Little Jo.
v
With all the rights
that women have today, you would never think that a woman would have to stoop
to hiding her gender to have a specific lifestyle. However there was a woman
named Dorothy "Tippy" Lucille Tipton
who was born in 1914. Tippy studied piano and saxaphone and had an interest in
jazz music. In 1935 Tippy wanted to
become a professional jazz musician but it was almost exclusively a male
profession. So she adopted her father's nickname of Billy, bound her breasts
and padded her crotch and became Billy Tipton.
n
Eventually, as he
became more successful on the jazz scene, he lived his life as a man. This
included having 3 lady loves, the last one being is wife and they adopted 3
boys. Billy Tipton was known as a talented musician, successful talent agent
and a great father. It wasn't until 1989, when he died that his family and most
of his friends and acquaintences found out he was really a she.
The stories of these
women all occur "back in the day" when women were seen as the
inferior race. It couldn't happen now, right? But up until the 1970's women in
the United States needed a father or husband to have certain things, like a
bank account, health insurance and life insurance. There were laws not only
preventing empowerment of their reproductive health but also their financial
well being. They could have a career as a nurse, teacher, secretary or another
"female" type of job but were expected to quit when they married
and/or had children. When they it was found out they were pregnant they were
usually let go to take care of their family.
This was happening until the 70's when the Equal Rights Amendment became
a part of our United States Constitutional Amendments. It was then that women
were able to sustain themselves independently, if not equally.
Today, the fight for
equality still goes on in different sectors for women but do they have do
disguise themselves as men? There have been women in the modern day United
States that have disguised themselves as men, but the most noted has been due
to some kind of trauma and not because of a social norm or pressure. However in
Afghanistan, families and girls voluntarily disguising themselves as boys to
bring honor to their families is still going on today. It is called Bacha Posh
and it is a tradition in Afghanistan. Having a boy is a sign of honor and
prestige for families in Afghanistan. So families that have all girls will
dress one of the girls and have them live as a boy. They are able to work along
side their father, go out to play with other boys and they can work the street
to make money for the family. The boys essentially have more freedoms than the
girls. The girls don't live as boys all their lives. When they come of age, at
17 or 18 they are expected to go back to dressing and living as adult women.
Their freedoms are taken away, they are no longer able to work and help support
their families. For some women this is a relief but for others it is a
confusing time as they now know what life with freedoms is like and they are no
long treated with the same respect that is given a male.
n
Is there a movement
to stop this? Maybe but for now the social norm is to bring honor to your
family and if that means dressing one of your daughters as a boy then that is
how it will be. They will eventually go back to being a woman and their womanly
duty for the family.
We may not see this
behavior as commonly in the United States but it is important to know that
woman around the world are still fighting their equality, their identity and
their freedoms in some shape or form. It doesn't matter what your political or
religious background is, women throughout history have done what needed to be
done for their own safety and well-being as well as the safety and well-being
of their families. The desperation for U.S. women may not be the most prevalent
thing today and the social norms may not be extreme but, in some ways, women
are still views as inferior and are treated as such. From common sayings like,
"that is a girls job…" to how much we get paid in our professional
lives to traditional female practices within some of the cultural groups we
live next to everyday. It's not a doom and gloom aspect for women in our
country as the tide is changing for the roles of women and men to be more well
rounded and healthy adults. These are the changes we have brought about over a
couple of centuries, less than a half dozen decades and maybe even on a daily
basis.
No comments:
Post a Comment