At one point in the novel, Bechdel recalls several moments of her childhood which piqued her curiosity and made her aware of her sexuality, in a more innocent sense.
Bechdel and her father sit in a diner and a rather masculine-looking woman enters. She is a truck driver, and young Bechdel can't help but stare at her in wonder and in awe. These are the years in which she's uncomfortable with her feminine roles and expectations pushed on her from her father. She refuses to wear dresses and partake in conventionally feminine roles, such as cleaning the house. She becomes interested in playing dress up and wearing her father's clothes, and at one point, insists that her younger brother call her "Albert". So, it is inevitable that Bechdel would hold such a close, fleeting bond with this rather "butchy" truck driver, and that it's a memory that stays with her so clearly throughout her entire life.
Interestingly enough, it would seem that Bechdel's father already sensed the connection from Bechdel's fascination with masculinity and her chance exposure to lesbianism in the diner. Surprisingly, in today's world, female truck drivers are not so uncommon. Although back in Bechdel's time as a child, women who were more masculine and, as such, not much of a threat to mens' sense of entitlement, now this isn't the case, and more women are seeking jobs as truck drivers. Here's
an article outlining the history of truck drivers and where gender comes into play.
The line that struck me most from this post was:
ReplyDelete“...a memory that stays with her so clearly throughout her entire life”.
I find human memory so fascinating. How can one “butchy” truck driver make such a long-lasting impact on a young, discerning Bechdel, while many other people in the restaurant would not even be able to recall ever seeing her? This made me think back to several moments from my own childhood that I remember surprisingly clearly, i.e. hanging over the upstairs railing while my parents and foster sister were shouting downstairs in the middle of the night. Even though I was only three or four at the time, I remember each sound and sight of the event as if they happened yesterday. Like Bechdel’s truck-driver memory, this must have been significant to a young, emotionally ‘absorbent’ Emily... and now I wonder why??
Check this out ! It's a video about "how our sense of identity relies on memory of personal history"... Which is especially obvious in Bechdel's memoir!