Inheritance Of Fear, But Is It Really Mine?

By Erin Pelletier, YES Institute Intern

I just finished my second year at UM and decided to move off-campus for the summer while I intern at YES Institute and work my restaurant job. When I found out I would have my own house, I was excited by the level of freedom, fun, and privacy this would bring to my life. Now, however, I notice how the responsibility of living on my own extends far beyond household chores. Because I am a woman, living on my own seems to necessitate constant vigilance and anxiety. I’ve always noticed that my gender seems to limit the activities, times of day, and areas of town available to me, but living alone has presented a new level of restriction.

People around me seem to be very concerned for my safety when I take the bus to YES Institute and walk home from work. “You should really get pepper spray,” says my dad. “Where’s your boyfriend? Maybe one of the guys can walk you home,” says my boss at the restaurant. I think about the “safety” lessons I’ve learned--to look behind me every block, have my key out in case I need to use it as a weapon, never smile at strange men, cross the street when a man approaches--and the pressure and responsibility become overwhelming. In some ways, I’m sure this endless fear and suspicion has probably protected me, but in other ways it has mainly served to make me feel weak and dependent on men for “protection.”

I thought about this during Gender Continuum at YES Institute. The rigid rules regarding femininity and masculinity we are taught from birth have profound, lifelong consequences. Each person is unique and has different experiences of gender, and so how can we all be expected to fit into two opposite and polarizing categories? Until we can think about gender beyond fixed and unforgiving notions of masculinity and femininity and live accordingly, these categories will continue to haunt us, and set men against women in a way that arouses fear, distrust, and resentment.

During my time at YES Institute, both as an intern and as a participant in courses, I have acquired the tools and knowledge to expand my own ideas about gender. I no longer think of gender as an oppressive binary structure in which my own sex always loses, but rather as a complex social concept which occurs differently for everyone. I have learned ways to create a world in which we do not allow gender to govern us.