Guns & Dolls: Adventures in Genderland

"Barbie was pretty and blonde with wide blue eyes and lips that seemed to pucker while they smiled—like she was blowing kisses through her clenched teeth."

I saw a young boy in my neighborhood pushing rocks into the street with a brightly colored toy rifle.  He was no more than 4 or 5 years old.  Sprawled out on the sidewalk, he methodically and purposefully lined his imaginary enemies up, aimed his neon weapon, and conquered swiftly.

I had to smile.  The sight brought back memories of my own childhood adventures toting around my Red Ryder BB Gun.  Grasshoppers were plentiful on my family’s 7-acre farm in Missouri and I had expressed permission from my parents to save our vegetables from their ravenous appetites.

I would stalk them cautiously, focusing on one at a time.  When I had them in my sights, I’d squeeze the trigger.  Booft!  The sound of a shiny metal bb claiming another garden invader.

I was a stone-cold deadly grasshopper assassin.

It is largely acknowledged in our binary society that little boys play with balls, toy guns, and trucks, while little girls play with dolls, dresses, and tiny tea sets.  From an early age, we form identities within these gender schemas—identities that shape the roles we perform as adults.

Little girls brush their dolls’ hair and dress them in fancy gowns to learn that society values an attractive, well-maintained woman.  They pour tea and play house to learn the domestic skills that make a good homemaker.

Little boys dribble, throw, and hit balls and fire toy guns to be groomed into strong athletes and cunning soldiers.  They race cars and trucks to nurture their left brains and become engineers and mechanics.

Despite the expectations, rebellion occasionally throws a wrench into the machine:  girls that rule sports; boys that play house; women who dominate business; men who create fashion.  Where do we gender misfits belong?

One of the few memories I have of my biological father happened when I was 5 years old and still living in the Philippines.  I called him Tatay, the Kapampangan equivalent of “Daddy,” though at the time I thought his title was more figurative than literal.  In my head, he was my uncle.

Little Hippo age 5

Filipinos have a way of addressing non-kin as if they were relatives.  Peers become sisters, atsi, and brothers, coya; older acquaintances become aunts, dara, and uncles, bapa. It wasn’t uncommon for one person to have several titles.  Using these principles, my young mind rationalized that sometimes uncles also became tatay.

Tatay picked me up one morning for a day of adventure in the marketplace.  We traveled on foot and hand-in-hand until my little legs were tired.  Sensing my growing discomfort, Tatay paid for a calesa or horse-drawn rickshaw.  I remember the hollow clomp of the horse’s hooves and a disdain for its waste receptacle as we made our way into town.

I recall the sweet taste and wooden texture of fresh sugar cane, the perfume of sampagita providing temporary relief from the strange smells of fish-stuffs and garbage.  I clenched Tatay’s hand for safety, judging vendors with a speculative precociousness.

Then, I saw it:  behind the merchant with kind eyes, on a tall shelf of a wooden cart stood a beautiful, perfect, plastic Pink Power Ranger.

My adoptive parents discouraged me from playing with dolls.  Once, I had come home from a play date at my cousins with Barbie in tow.  She was pretty and blonde with wide blue eyes and lips that seemed to pucker while they smiled—like she was blowing kisses through her clenched teeth.

Barbie didn’t stay in my possession long.  She blew me a hissing kiss goodbye when my parents confiscated her.  A few days later, they gave me a Ken doll in her place.  I looked at my parents questioningly.

You can’t brush Ken’s hair.

I tugged on Tatay’s arm and pointed at the Pink Power Ranger.  A crafty plan hatched in my head.  I had seen the Power Rangers on TV and I knew that they transformed from everyday students into lycra-clad, helmeted fighters of evil.  I reasoned that I could smuggle the Pink Power Ranger into my Barbie-banned home as an action figure but then unmask it to reveal the doll hiding inside.

"Then, I saw it: behind the merchant with kind eyes, on a tall shelf of a wooden cart stood a beautiful, perfect, plastic Pink Power Ranger."

He purchased the toy and took his change.  I left the marketplace with Tatay holding my hand and my hand holding the Pink Power Ranger’s.  We took a garish jeepney back home and I held her close to me to protect her from the jealous eyes of other children.

When I was returned, I hugged and kissed Tatay goodbye.  My parents said nothing about the toy or its bubble-gum hue.  I stole away to my room to complete my mission.  I made sure the door was closed first, and then I wrapped my fingers around Pink Power Ranger’s helmet and pulled.

There was no doll hiding behind the pink warrior’s façade.  No blonde luxurious locks to brush.  No wide blue eyes to greet me.  No puckered smiles to blow kisses.  She was empty and hollow inside, like a bottle drained of its refreshment.

Gender is a performance.  Clothes are like costumes.  Roles are like parts in a play.  Society is a bossy director.

Maybe the Filipinos got it right when they cast themselves with several roles—a myriad of ways to still be kin.  Even the Kapampangan pronoun ya is gender-neutral, referring to either he, she, or it.  Why the need for distinction?  Tom-boys, sissies, and gender-benders are your brothers and sisters; your aunts and uncles.  Don’t we all belong to the same family?

Despite the discouragement, I still played with my inner doll.  Though I had my bb gun and boyhood mask to disguise me, I would catch glimpses of her in moments of imagination.  Playing Cinderella during chores.  Singing Whitney Houston to the mirror.  Picking the Princess on Mario 2.  I kept her hidden so that my parents or anyone else couldn’t take her away from me.

These days, the doll and the dude live peacefully in tandem—two sides of the same culture coin.  My sex is male.  My gender is human.  Do I really need to pick one side of the coin my entire life?

Placed on its edge and flicked, the coin spins dizzyingly between the masculine and the feminine, blurring the lines between them until you don’t see just boy or girl, man or woman.  You see a person, an individual.

Atsi and coya together as one.  Guns and dolls reconciled.

Advertisement