Remix

Module 5: Gender Remix and Bigger Fish to Fry

The Gender Remix project reminded me of a story that is told in sensitivity training concerning gender terminology and gender roles. A story of Baby X describes how parents of this child leave out gender biases in order for the baby to develop its own sense of identity without being concerned with what is "normal." As an adult, I now look back at how teachers in my elementary school treated my class in terms of gender roles. Though I don't remember much, I remember being taught that tolerance of everyone, regardless of gender, was our main goal.

Unfortunately, recently I was told by a mother that she was afraid to allow her 4 year old son to dress as Elsa from Frozen for Halloween. When I politely asked why, she replied, "Well, you know. He can't go out in a girl costume for Halloween, people will see him." I think the fact that most of us are told how to act our gender from almost literally day one effects how we push these same pressures onto future generations. Why should we worry about happy, healthy children playing with the "wrong" toys? I personally think that as long as those children are happy and healthy, let them live.

Additionally, I found this data on traditional gender roles and professions, and I was surprised at what I saw. This was published in April of 2013.

Six Word Memoir

Popcorn

Digital Essay: Social classifications effecting adolescence

We live in a world stratified and organized by many kinds of social categorization. These range from physical attributions that are deemed acceptable, gender roles that are subconsciously enforced and discrimination based on social class that effect adolescence. Adolescence is a difficult time in ones life, and the challenge of coping with these influences and feeling pressure of fitting in molds the future of finding ones identity. Throughout our history, the identity of individuals has been shaped through classifications of physical, social ranking and gender. The exploration of self-worth established throughout adolescence with the above classifications instilled in society is a crazy journey. 


In 5th grade, I remember that my classmates and I were sent home with a permission slip to watch a movie to explain to us how we'll be changing over the next few years. Though I don't remember the video, I remember the school nurse talking to us as an audience about how no matter what we physically looked like, we shouldn't evaluate our self worth based on such things. Of course, when I was 10 I didn't have the slightest clue what that meant. But now that I'm an adult, I really think about how so much of our thinking and energy nowadays go towards this false sense of credibility and value through how attractive a person is or how many "likes" they get on Instagram. I think I was about 16 when Instagram really became popular. I didn't have an iPhone though, so this first initial wave didn't effect me the way it did my friends. A girl in my class, let's call her Franny for arguments sake, came to school one day in tears. Franny and I weren't exactly friends, but how could anyone ignore someone in tears at 7:30 in the morning? After talking in the bathroom about why she was upset, she revealed to me that she had only gotten 16 likes on a selfie that she posted on Instagram the night before and thought she was pretty enough to earn more. Yeah, that actually happened. A mode of social media that is to connect us via common threshold contributed to Franny's feeling of social nonacceptance based on her physical attributes, and I know she's not the only one. I hope that years from now, we as a society don't use a number to define our worthiness through adolescence. 

Additionally, norms in terms of socioeconomic status forces pressures on our teen population to keep up a front to represent their class. There's this desire to work extremely hard to make it appear that an individual's family has a higher ranking of wealth than is true. Upon Google searching, "how to make it seem like you have money" I found articles like How to Look Rich. Even if some of such articles are sarcastic, when did it become so important to look like something you're not? Why are pages like these discussing repeating outfits as if it's on a list of "Top Crimes to Commit at Age 15"? The pressure adolescents feel to uphold this social class appearance plants deep-rooted thoughts of how money and class are a top priority of the future. 

I think the first time I ever thought about gender roles was when I was 7 and a family friend was due with a baby. I had asked my mom whether it was going to be a boy or a girl, to which she responded that it was a surprise. When we went shopping for a gift, I wanted to get the baby a pink sparkly hula hoop like I had just gotten for my birthday (This cracks me up now. A baby with a hula hoop?!). The lady at Target had told me that pink is for girls, and blue was for boys, and yellow was for both.

But who made up such rules and who enforces them? I didn't understand why the baby, boy or girl, would miss out on such a great hula hoop simply because of its color. This theme reoccurs in adolescence in the pressure to act in a particular way based on gender. What does it even mean to sit like a lady when you're having dinner at Aunt Gertrude's? Who cares if you're not wearing makeup to school today? What does it matter that Kevin from math class is on the dance team? In my opinion, none of these things matter except that you made an effort to go see Aunt Gertrude, you got out of bed to go to school, and Kevin from math class can really bust a move. However, not everyone agrees with this, and the biases from peers are strong during our teenage years.