Gender Roles

Topic:  Gender

Source: I decided to use my recent trip home and observe how my family interacts with one another based on their gender. Specifically I am using my interaction with my 4 year old baby cousin and my observations at a family gathering.

Relation: After reading the Robbins text on the ideas of gender, I was able to relate my observations in various ways, such as language, and even the way you dress. The roles of a male and female have been constructed and placed and oppressed those who may not seem to fit into these categories.

Description: I haven’t seen my family in over a few months, so being home was full of great emotions of the things I missed and some of the things I didn’t so much. My family decided to have a welcome home gathering at one of my uncle’s house. While there I began seeing and hearing things such as, “No, that’s for girls” coming from my 4 year old cousin. Afterwards I just began to watch and see how my cousin interacted with his mother and his older brothers.  On one occasion, my cousin began to cry because he wanted something that he couldn’t have. So I decided to go over to him and pick him up and console him, telling him why he couldn’t have that toy he wanted. Then my aunt came up to me and told me that I needed to put him down because he needs to learn how to toughen up. “Toughen Up!?” I repeated to her and she said, “Yeah, he is going to be a man someday and he need to stop crying all the time, like a baby”. The sad thing about it, is that my cousin is a baby, and already is learning that it is not okay to cry as a boy because one day you will be a man.

Commentary/Analysis: When looking into the Robbins text, you learn how the construction of male and female start and end. I talks about how U.S. Gender assignments start from birth, where boys are given gender –appropriate clothing and spoken to in a gender-appropriate way. In the Robins text it states, “Parents and other caregivers then teach male children that it is manly to be tough and endure pain. Male children are discouraged from expressing discomfort and encouraged when they can withstand it”. This is something that my observation made clear to me when I able to watch this scenario with my cousin with a different view. I would have, in the past, agreed and would have told my cousin to not cry and that he is a big boy. My family is continuing to teach these normalized roles that we have created. So what we may see as being normal is quite harmful to the ones we force to put in these roles. We recognize a lot of “isms”, but fail to recognize the ones that we play and enforce.

Sex in College

Topic:  Sex                                                                      

Source:  On April 13^th 2010 I observed an auction held here on campus, in which people offer themselves up for a bid to be taken out on a date.  The auction was held in the green and gold room in the Founders Hall building. Those being auctioned off where students of Humboldt State as well as those who were purchasing them.

Relation:  I decided to talk about the sex in relation to how it is played out in college. College is filled with a lot of lustful sex and sex that is overly casual. In the text we learn about how sex is played out in different parts of the world. In some families sex is considered open and talked about amongst each other and in some cultures and in others sex is considered extremely private.  How sex is seen in the eyes of college students can tell how it is seen in the overall general society.

Description: A yearly auction was held on Friday by a well known community service outreach group named Legacy. Here they have people volunteer to be auctioned off for a bid, where whoever was being bid off had a chance to “strut their stuff” across the stage to promote a higher bid. I decided to sit in the front to see exactly how the bidders and the “bid offs” responded and interacted with each other. It was interesting to see males come off stage to only be shirtless 99 percent of the times. Once out they would begin to rub their body in sexual motions and motion those moves towards a female in the crowd. After they have spotted someone of their “taste” they would then grab them and put them on a chair and began dancing on them only using sexual movements and dance moves, specifically the “humping” moving as if they are participating in sexual intercourse. This usually got the bids to go up and the crowd to cheer. To me, I felt it was uncomfortable and inappropriate, but it was what triggered the crowd and what was seen as appropriate, that not only will you have a date, but you will also have a person willing to show you “his” moves. Another one of the males began to throw condoms out of his pocket and at the girl he was dancing around. This move got the biggest reaction and laughs of the whole night; he also was the male who received the highest bid.  When watching the girls come out, it was those who were presented in a more sexual manner on stage that received high bids. The males would occasionally shout, “Turn around and let’s see what you got!” Seeing if their behind side was a piece of their body they could work with. The ladies would then shake their behinds or shake their breast to attract the audience and receive a cheer. Whatever they did to appear sexually attractive or anything that represented how they could perform would be a crowd raiser.

 Commentary/Analysis: After watching and listening to the crowd and those being auctioned off, I notice the continuous mood in every sale, lust and sex. Sex sells, and we know this because it is portrayed constantly in movies, tv and music. In the example of the male using humping actions in showing how he could show, whoever bids for him, a good time. Showing that sex is okay to do casually and just seen as a fun and enjoyable thing. On the somewhat positive side of showing that sex is guaranteed to be great on the date is the fact there will be protection used. When one of the males through the condoms out, he showed that we will be safe and a good time. This shows that in our society safe sex is commonly practiced and it even promoted, while it doesn’t have to be kept secret like those in the Chinese families. It is usually talked about and promoted.