Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I wrote this in response to something in nadinelet's journal, and the last bit is something I need to think about more, so I'm putting it here as a reminder and in case anyone has something to add:

I don't exactly perform gender, in a deliberate sense. But I don't take it as seriously as a lot of people do--I do a bunch of things, and somehow that combination of what I do and how I look is generally labeled "female" and people seem happy to use that label. I think a lot of that labeling is based on the physical (height, breast size, voice) and a lack of anything that conflicts with said physicality. I've passed for male online, without meaning to--back in the 1980s in contexts that were 80 or 90 percent male, using a non-gendered nickname--and assume I could do so again, were there a reason.

And now I'm thinking that this connects to performing certain family roles. I want to cogitate about this, which means I'm copying this comment into my own journal.

The roles I have trouble performing aren't, or aren't just, gender: they're anything that includes keeping quiet for reasons of status/power/relative position. I more or less know, by now, that people who ask for "any questions" don't always mean it--but I blurt them out anyway. That ties into cultural female roles, but in a hierarchical organization, most people are expected to perform subordinate at least part of the time.

Edited to add: Yes, what I'm describing is probably fairly close--certainly in actions and some aspects of appearance--to someone who really does believe strongly in gender. The differences range from the subtle and purely internal to a few practical things. For example, arguments that I should do/not do something because it's "unfeminine" or "what real women do" are almost certain to fail. Depending on how they're phrased, they will probably draw confusion, a blank stare, anger, or amusement.

This is expanded from a comment in someone else's journal (to a friends-locked post, so I'm not naming zir):

Two random thoughts:

•A person who my chosen-kin and I were most recently referring to as "that schmuck" was being condescending and aggressive toward one of said kin a while back, in a public place. This led to, among other things, my preparing to get between him and the person he was being rude to--because I'm not a trained fighter, but you don't mess with my family. I was being generous, caring, and loyal--but not "nice". And the only reason I'm eliding his name here is because my friend was embarrassed by the whole thing.

•"I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right"--Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods

Which is to say, or at least suggest, that "nice" isn't a virtue; at best, it's a style. In that sense, it's like using etiquette to say "Sir, I do not know you" rather than "get out of my face, you asshole", and thus not making trouble for your host if someone you refuse to deal with is invited to the same event that you are. At worst, it's the "don't make waves" that oppressors are always teaching us. "Nice" is something girls are supposed to be, far more than boys: "sugar and spice and everything nice." Sweet and harmless--though ginger and chili, cinnamon and garlic and cumin, aren't mild or innocuous. Delightful, often, but not "nice".