Doing Gender
"...everyone "does gender without thinking about it" (Judith Lorber, "Paradoxes of Gender, p.13).When I was young I did not think about my gender role. I did not think about the day to day events in my life that effected my gender. When I look back I can find so many instances of gender in my life. So, I am taking one of the smallest instances because of the many ways it relates to not only gender building, but maintaining.As a child I remember very cold winters in Omaha. My sister and I loved to play outside in the snow. So, my parents bought us matching snowsuits. They were pink with lavender trim. My friend, Charlie, who lived up the street, had a snowsuit too. His was black and red with a logo of a racecar on the back. As a child I never thought of the implications of my snowsuit. It was functional and I suppose I thought the color pink was pretty at the time. My room was pink, my bike was pink, and Barbie's corvette was pink. Why should it be any other way? As I look back at the photographs of the three of us playing as children I see what implications the pink snowsuit had on my gender. Not only that but how we played together. All of us had hoods on our snowsuits to cover our e
Gendering starts even before a baby is born with the decorating of a room in light colors such a pink, blue and yellow. But, until we get to the root of the problem, which lies in political power and our environment, not much can be done to change the norm. Biology between men and women is different. Charlie was proud of his massive creation, and my sister and I were proud of the angels scattered all over the lawn. We are seen as masculine or feminine. individuals learn what is expected, see what is expected, act and react in expected ways, and this simultaneously maintain the gender order" (Lorber, p. On the other hand, boys should be described as strong, handsome, and alert. So how is it that by age four, that we were constructed to know so much about what was supposedly masculine and what was supposedly feminine? There are different theories about how children are gendered. They do it by the clothes we wear and the activities we are involved in. But, in the tradition of American culture, Charlie was building the snow fort to protect us. At the time, I did not feel inferior but it was inferior and we both knew better then to help with his big job of building the snow fort. In Sandra Bem's book, The Lenses of Gender, she begins with the first lens, androcenterism. Parents tend to want their new born baby girls to be described as delicate and beautiful.
Common topics in this essay:
Lenses Gender,
West Zimmerman,
Paradoxes Gender,
According Lorber,
snow angels,
building snow,
Gender Society,
bem p2,
snow fort,
building snow fort,
charlie building,
biological differences,
snow forts,
Sandra Bem's,
snow angels boys,
children gendered,
build snow,
biological essentialism,
charlie building snow,
|
Acceptance Essays
