Trisha Hsiao

To be or not to be

It is not difficult for boys to recall childhood memory of calling others “Sissy boy” or “Mommy’s boy”. No matter they are the wrongdoer or the victim, the stereotype of being masculine or being a real boy has already been set in children’s minds long time ago which establish the morality of distinct genders profoundly. In order to be 100 % masculine, boys were told not to cry when falling down, not to be emotional and were often encouraged to play with man-made objects or science fictional characters such as robots or monsters. They were stuck under this single stereotype; they don’t even know they have the freedom to choose what they want to be. The “social standard” makes the androgynous boys get confused and start the fever of being a real man which to some extent, might successfully overthrow male’s inner femininity or savagely suppress their striking female traits.

Sad. Sad. Sad. The saddest truth in the world – After seeking what others want you to be but in the end you fail to notice what you really want to be. Androgynous male often confronts this dilemma, for they are envious of the macho men’s ease (that’s what the social standard is based on.). Indeed, their anxiety comes from their cognition established since childhood. Thanks to the women’s movement they finally have the courage to “come out of their closet”; They finally come to realized their rights to choose which they had been long suppressed with. They could and they should have the ease as macho men’s as they re-identify themselves.

To avoid from being deemed as androgynous, non macho men try their best to copy the he-men. To them, being androgynous is being gay or sissy. However, androgyny (adj. androgynous) means people who have mixed male and female traits together. It’s not necessarily being gay or lesbian. Not surprisingly, the definition of androgynous female would be people who have female traits physically and mixed traits of male and female psychologically. The wicked jokes about sissy boys or tomboys during childhood might lead to the later frantic imitation on androgynies.

Nobody needs to imitate others, in fact, all the social standards, he-men, or girly women are just models. Emotionally, no one fully belongs to one’s own gender. That actually proves the statement that there is a wide range of men and women who are essentially androgynous. There are spiritually and physically androgynous, to be or not to be one of them is a matter of choice, but rather, one should feel free to be androgynous, for they have more choices than 100 % red-blooded Americans. They could kiss the cats, they could cry according to their emotions, and they could show their affections which is often a restraint for he-men. In addition, compared to all the religious figures throughout history, the androgynous aspect exists everywhere without borders. Gods usually set no limit on how people should behave, neither on himself (oops, herself, or itself). By bearing this thought, the androgynous could change their situation from one-down into one-up. Since the social expectation has been overturned, to be or not to be? That is the only question left for people who confront the crossroad of self-identity.