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My relation to the City is best summed up by an anecdote: The Time Jacob and I Found the 9:30 Club (pictured above).

I live in Herndon, Virginia, a small town in the shadow of Washington, DC. There are always a lot of events my friends and I think of going to, but never actually do. Then, my best friend Jacob noticed that one of our favorite bands was coming across the pond to play a show at a small but well-known venue in DC, The 9:30 Club, the night before Homecoming of our junior year. Unlike the times with other bands when we would wistfully shrug and say we’d “catch them next time”, Jacob and I actually bought tickets. In the days before the concert, we painstakingly planned what metro stop we’d get on at, where we’d transfer trains, and which street we’d take after we left the station.

The night came, and our carefully planned commute got us to our stop right when we thought it would, so all that was left was for us to actually walk to the club.

The problem was that neither of us had ever been there before.

We turned left out of the station, and then walked up the road until we saw what we thought was the street we were supposed to turn right on. We followed that for a couple blocks until we noticed that the numbers were going in the wrong order.

If I knew one thing for certain at that point in my life, it was that we were lost: completely, utterly, and irrevocably lost.  We had been walking by the river for almost an hour, vainly trying to find the pedestrian bridge that would take us to Sawyer’s Point and then across the water.  To this day she still tries to tell me that it was my fault we were lost, while I insist endlessly that it was hers.  All I know is that we were wandering in over a hundred degree heat without water and without the faintest sign of life from anything but the cars roaring repeatedly over the bridge three miles away.  By the time we retraced our steps back to the center of downtown Cincinnati, we were both exhausted, but we still had an hour to burn before we could catch a ride home.  We walked around the empty blocks of office towers, brushing past the meager crowds and barren lobbies.

Link to Radiolab Podcast "Words":  http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/

In our discussion on Thursday, Anne pulled some lines from "Seeing Gender" that talked about "imagining language as a place of possibility, as opposed to a simple scripted repersentation;" we talked about signs and signifiers, repersentations and mimicry and related it all back to gender. This conversation reminded me of a podcast I listened to a while back called "Words". (I have conveniently linked the podcast above and I highly suggest you listen to it right now!). I relistened to it and thought about it in the context of gender. The general theme of the piece is, what do words do for us? are they neccasary? can you think without them? It's fitting that in each of these questions the word "words" could be replaced with the word "gender" and you could have an equally revolutionary conversation. Both socially constructed things seem so essential to life in our ability relate to ourselves and others. I'm currently struggling to articulate many of the thoughts I have and I'm hesitant to come to conclusions before others (I hope) have a chance to engage with the podcast but here are a couple preliminary reactions:

Ann Arbor is a city. It is an active community with surrounding suburbs and a bustling downtown. It is legally defined as a city, and has a big university drawing in bright young minds. There are a hundred thousand people living in Ann Arbor during the school year, but that includes students. Half the city leaves during the summer, and another hundred thousand people visit each year. I’ve met people from Toledo, Ohio, an important enough city to have a small war over in the 1830s, who love coming all the way to Ann Arbor to go to restaurants and activities. Activities including concerts, lectures, and yes, football. Every home game, Ann Arbor brings in about $2.2 million, and clogs every main artery of the city. I try not to leave my house on game days, but most other days I go downtown. My high school was downtown, and we had an open campus so I ate out at a multitude of small, ethnic restaurants every day. Ann Arbor is fairly diverse for the midwest, though most families are middle class. The University attracts people from all over the world, adding to the cultural capital of the city.

Is a city still a city if it’s considered dead? A necropolis? What is a city, exactly? There is a myriad of definitions for “city,” and due to the ambiguity and extensive possibilities, the true definition of a city will never be deciphered. That being said, while states and governments have their own meanings for what a city is, each person has their own denotation of what they think a city is. My relationship with a city stems from its history, its art, and its culture.

Coming from the truly metropolitan and thoroughly modern Singapore, I don’t feel connected with how little history, art, and culture there is. Singapore has a need to stay in the contemporary scene in almost every aspect, and doesn’t leave much room for creativity and culture. While some landmarks of certain cities are older than Singapore itself, the landmarks of Singapore are not particularly historically interesting, in my opinion. However, since Singapore is such a young country, it’s not exactly fair to compare it to a place with such old places. This being said, I yearn to live in and experience a city with history, art, and culture. This is where I turn to museums; specifically, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I had always thought because I had made an effort to educate myself about gender, I had a basic grasp of the concept and its intersection with other identities. But since I’ve arrived at Bryn Mawr and learned more about the people around me and the way they understand gender and how they relate to gender, I have begun to realize that the way I learned about gender was still very normative and not at all inclusive. I have also realized that on a basic level, I have not at all challenged my own views on gender or what my gender really is. An expression of self, yes, but through what mediums and why? Am I only falling into the easiest, pre-assigned slot in the structures of a gendered society? Now I know that my journeys through gender (theoretical and personal) are only just beginning.

The discussion on thursday regarding seeing and reading gender in language really intrigued me. It had never occured to me to look for it or even think twice about it. I guess I always assumed that the voice of the author would be who was speaking in the piece. I find it so interesting that people can seem to tell what gender a voice is just by the words that are being used or the pattern of speech in the particular work. "Seeing Gender" really opened my eyes to a world of gender in language, the last passage expressed so much deep emotion and intimacy that was followed by the question "does gender lie here?" something I never would have asked or wondered about. I'm really looking forward to learning more about this and further analyzing it. 

My own gender identity is something I've always taken for granted. My image in class was that of a rock, which signifies the sort of stagnant journey I've had in discovering my gender. I was designated female at birth, and as such I've considered myself female my entire life and never really had a problem with that. I can wear flowy dresses, baggy t-shirts, dress shirts and slacks, whatever style I find most appealing that day. Though whatever I choose to do I've always considered within the "bounds" of being female. The aptitude test in The New Gender Workbook declared me a gender outlaw, and I'm starting to think of all the ways I don't really fit society's box for my gender. I don't think about my gender all that often, I act and dress the way I choose without too much concern for how it fits the sterotype of female. If I don't shave my legs, if I never wear makeup or nail polish or if I never have children, does that make me less of a woman? What does make a woman anyway? Am I still female if I don't altogether care how I am read by others? Whether or not this causes any personal revelations in my identity I find it an interesting point of discussion that there's always more to learn about gender and sexuality.