Doing Gender With Wallets and Purses

I once heard a transgender woman give a talk about the process of socially transitioning to being recognized as a woman. She discussed various decisions she made in taking some final critical steps toward the social identity of woman. She talked at length about her hair. She asked, "What kind of woman am I and how is my haircut going to indicate that?" She talked about being preoccupied with her hair for a long time as she attempted to figure out a cut and style that "felt right." But what struck me the most was her discussion of carrying a purse.She said that getting used to carrying a purse everywhere was one of the more challenging elements of the transition. If asked what I thought would be a significant everyday challenge if I were a woman, I don't think purse would have been high on my list.This way the hat can be worn with a variety of items Lady bags that are already in your closet, he said. But, it was high on hers. She discussed remembering to bring it, how to carry it, norms surrounding purse protection in public, but also more intimate details like: What belongs in a purse? 

Purses and wallets are gendered spaces. There's nothing inherent in men's and women's constitutions that naturally recommends carrying money and belongings in different containers. Like the use of urinals in men's restrooms, wallets and purses are a way of producing understandings of gender difference rather than as a natural consequence of differences.I got the idea for this post after reading Christena Nippert-Eng's book, Islands of Privacy—a sociological study of privacy in everyday life. One chapter deals specifically with wallets and purses.The departure, I had thought,Morph Suits would bring a new start and order to a life that hadn't gone anywhere so far. In it, Nippert-Eng discusses one way she interviewed her participants about privacy. She used participants' wallets and purses as a means of getting them to think more critically about privacy. 

Participants were asked to empty the contents of their wallets and purses and to form two piles with the contents: "more private" and "more public." As they sifted through the contents of their wallets and purses, they talked about why they carried what they carried as well as how and why they thought about it as public or private.After collecting responses, she documented all of the contents and created categories and distinctions between objects based on how people thought about them as public or private.Or at least whatever is behind this closed door.He and nine other U.S. Military Academy cadets crossed the Hudson River this week to pair with shoes for ladies Culinary Institute of America students for a day under a novel exchange program. One question that was clearly related to privacy was whether the objects were personally meaningful to the participant. Invariably, objects defined as more personally meaningful were also considered more private.