Commercialized Gender Messages

Today my mom and I went shopping for my cousins in the toy department at a store in our local mall. We were both shocked by how separated toys are for girls and boys. It was frustrating because as much as I don't want to solidify the gender messages that society sends to kids, I don't want to be reactionary and I don't want to offend the kids' mom. I just want to get the kids a present that they'll enjoy. I talked to my mom about it and she said that when my brother was little, there was a big push to make more toys for all sexes and genders. There were dolls that could be for a boy or a girl and there was a greater emphasis on selling toys for kids rather than for boys or for girls. She was disgusted that society has moved away from this and gone completely in the opposite direction. This doesn't mean that toys need to change drastically, it just means that marketing needs to change. Having a girl aisle and a boy aisle is sad, especially when it's for little kids who just want to play with the shiniest thing they find. One of the things that bothers me the most with gendered toy aisles is the easy bake oven. No one can say that boys don't like easy bake ovens. At the same time, any boy that asks for one for Christmas either A) has to become a chef when he's older or B) is gay. When it comes to toys, I think guys have more rigid restrictions on what they're allowed to want. It makes me so sad and so frustrated thinking that we do this to young kids. Even if parents assure their kids that they can want whatever they want, society will continue to pressure kids to conform to the existing gender standards.

Thanksgiving

Holidays provide great opportunities to see how gender relations play out in family life. This Thanksgiving was my first time at home this semester. It was interesting to be able to apply what I have read about and learned in class to what happens in my family. My mom has always been the person who cooks in my house. During Thanksgiving, though, there is much more food and she can't make everything by herself. So who helps? The women. It's a classic scenario. The women are in the kitchen making food while the men are in the living room watching tv, relaxing, and waiting for the food to be ready.

Why is it like this? That's something that I always ask myself. It really is quite complicated. Societal expectations definitely play a huge role here. My mom told me that she taught all of the kids in my family to cook, but that my brother just wasn't interested. Maybe it's true that he just doesn't like cooking as much as my sister and I do. But I imagine that's based a lot on what he's been told he should be interested in since he was born. I don't think the central idea here is cooking, I think it's more about how we are taught to spend our time. I have always been taught to help my mom and to do what I can to make my family happy (not just by my family but by society in general). I don't think my brother was taught the same thing. My brother loves my family just as much as I do, but he hasn't been socialized to contribute to it in the same way that I have. It's interesting now to realize that things that I have always assumed to be personal differences may actually be much more gendered in their nature.

Gender Roles in Relationships

Relationships provide a great arena to examine gender roles and gender dynamics. Given the importance of individuality and the growing emphasis on feminist thought in our society, it is amazing to see the "old-fashioned" attitudes of US citizens toward relationships and the homogeneity of relationship dynamics.

At the end of class today, we started talking about the idea of "chivalry" and its role in egalitarian heterosexual relationships. This is something that has bothered me for a while, but I found a lot of clarity in our discussion. The basic idea of equality in a relationship does not have to center around specific roles or actions that each person does; rather, it is about reciprocity and mutual respect. A woman can clean and a man can chop firewood if that is what the woman and man desire and those are the roles that each one decides to fulfill. In my family, my mom brings in a larger paycheck, but my dad has greater job security and they have found a balance that appeals to them. In terms of housework, my mom does do more than my dad, but my dad has always been in charge of driving the kids around. A balance in contribution to the relationship and the family (if there is a family) is an important part of an egalitarian relationship. The other key part is the respect shared by the couple. A man can be chivalrous and open the door for a woman without demeaning her. A woman can iron a man's shirt without being oppressed. It is not the action itself, but the motivation that causes problems. A man should not open the door for a woman because women aren't strong enough or because "that's what men do". He should do it because he cares for her and because it makes her happy. A woman should not iron a man's shirt because as a man he is incapable or because it is her job as a woman. She should do it because she wants to do something nice for the person she loves and she knows it will be appreciated. The lines are blurry, but I think this is a vital point in studying gender roles and, more personally, for having a strong and egalitarian relationship.

Sex Ed

I was excited to see the presentation on sex ed this week because it's a topic that I am very interested in and have done research on. I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through high school and had a very incomplete sexual education. As a young girl, I remember being jealous of my friends who had more extensive sex ed classes, including division of their class into boys and girls to go over specific topics. All of my friends thought it was embarrassing and uncomfortable, but I was curious. I don't think my sexual education was awful, but I don't think it did nearly enough to prepare me and my classmates to make smart decisions regarding sex.

I think one problem with sex ed is that parents want to protect their children and don't want to expose them to sex when they are young. This is a reasonable worry because the job of a parent is to protect his or her child. At the same time, the job of a parent is also to prepare the child for his or her future and sex ed is an important aspect of this preparation. Teaching kids about sex will not make kids have sex. The truth is, kids are going to learn about sex, whether it's from their parents, their school, their church, the media, their friends, or some other source. From my experience, kids will have sex when they want to or when they think they are supposed to. A comprehensive sex ed program should prepare these kids to make good decisions. Going back to the discussion that we had during the presentation on gender and war, it's also important that sex ed includes the themes of sexual assault and rape. Boys and girls need to know what sexual assault and rape are. They also need to know that sex is a choice and should never be an obligation. Boys and girls need to know that there is no specific age when a person is ready to have sex. One of the biggest problems that I see with abstinence-only education is that it makes sex more important than it should be and it becomes a huge and exciting mystery that kids want to know more about, while at the same time it becomes a taboo subject.

It's impossible to completely shelter kids from sex without sheltering them from the world completely. I think the best way to prepare them for their sexual life is to be open and honest. Not all people make the right decisions and there will almost definitely always be kids that have sex before they're "ready". While having sex too early can cause harm, having sex without taking precautions (such as using a condom) can have even more harmful, permanent and life-altering consequences.

Presentations - Female suicide bombers

The presentations on human trafficking and gender and the military fit together really well. Even though human trafficking is not intrinsically tied to military activity, the themes of abuse, sexuality, and rape are central to both. The human trafficking presentation was eye-opening because it's something that I know about, but not something that I think, see or hear about often. I think it's something that's often ignored. Like many other gender issues, people don't want to think about it and by denouncing it, think that enough is being done.

Female Suicide Bombers

The reading on female suicide bombers was frustrating because it made arguments about social constructs, biological facts and cultural norms all at the same time. The idea of female suicide bombers in itself is driven by so many different factors that it's difficult to analyze it in a particular frame and negate that certain factors are important. I don't think it is valid to argue that the idea of femininity and the role of a woman is completely socially constructed and at the same time argue that suicide bombers are acting out of free will. I also thought it was interesting that the author criticized viewing female suicide bombers as victims because they are the ones carrying out the attacks, regardless of sex or gender. I think that both men and women suicide bombers are victims and should be seen as such. They are victims of war and of the society in which they live. Analyzing who is a victim and who isn't is another argument, though, and one that is also very complicated. The article does talk about victimization in terms of perception and that is definitely valid because the actions of people are perceived differently based on sex. However, if one believes that actions and the logic behind actions are driven by (at least in part) the perceptions of their actions by others, then it follows that it's reasonable to judge the actions of men and women differently.

Gender Perceptions of Conflict

I've recently been having some frustrating problems with my roommates and came to wonder why some of my roommates act the way they do and say the things they do. One thing that I often hear is: I hate conflict. I just don't understand why. To me, hating conflict is like hating change, hating developed relationships, and hating opportunity. It also seems completely useless to waste energy hating conflict when it's inevitable. Talking about this problem to different people, I often got the same response, that girl's are like that and that it's so much easier among guys. Why is that? Maybe women are in general socialized to try to prevent conflict since conflict is often seen as a masculine idea or quality. The problem is that really the only way to avoid conflict altogether is to never have any personal values or beliefs. Also, conflict is a very important mechanism for change and empowerment. Is the socialization of women to be nonconflictual also a way of maintaining a patriarchal power system? I don't think that men are necessarily taught or socialized to deal with conflict well but women are often not taught to deal with it at all.

Chris Ivey

This past week Chris Ivey came to Juniata and showed part of his documentary on East Liberty, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Both the documentary and the talk that he gave were very eye-opening and inspiring. I actually went to the talk for a class I'm taking on social deviance and criminology, but there were many things that he presented that apply to our discussion on gender. One facet of gender and conflict that he talked about was the idea of security. This was especially interesting because we had just been discussing it in class that day. In the documentary, one of the men interviewed talked about girls that dated "bad" guys when they really would have preferred dating other guys. Why did they do this? Because they said they felt safer with those guys and they felt like they would be better protected by them. The man who was talking about it went on to say that he didn't think they were actually safer. In this case, it was the perception of security that was most important. In class we touched on the idea that women sometimes sacrifice a lot for the idea of security and I think this is another case in which that happens.
Another thing that Chris Ivey talked about was the idea of male gender identity in the black community but more specifically in East Liberty. Violence and agression are promoted in many ways as important values and aspects of masculinity. This is one way in which men are both harming and limiting themselves and other men. In this case, not following these norms brings about a threat regarding a loss of both masculinity and race. Gender identity becomes more complex than simply a question of male or female. Music was shown as one way that this particular concept of masculinity is perpetuated which made me wonder if music could also be a powerful force for changing these gender perceptions.

"Mom Caves"?

http://www.shine.yahoo.com/event/lifeslittlepleasures/5-steps-to-make-your-own-mom-cave-2406034/

Man caves have become popular recently and are seen as a sign of true masculinity, freedom, and escape from life's troubles (especially a nagging wife). Now someone has finally come up with an idea for women - "Mom caves". I'm not sure if this title is simply meant to play off of the word "Man", but this article blatantly ignores all women that are married or have a partner but are not moms. Whereas a man needs to escape his wife or girlfriend, a woman apparently only needs an escape when she has kids. This isn't the only issue I have with this article (actually, I think it might be easiest to just say what I don't have an issue with). The article states that man caves are usually transformed "basement alcoves" complete with "A mini-fridge, a La-Z-boy and a universal remote control". When it comes to mom caves, "anywhere from an unused closet to a guest room" will do. Why does this article assume that a woman must fit her space into a small corner of the house while a man is granted a bigger and more comfortable space? Following this article's definition of a mom as the main caretaker of the household and a matriarch, I would think that a woman would have more need for personal space than a man would.

This article was more upsetting to me because of its overall comment on society than on gender roles. I understand the importance of personal space and I commend the idea of finding a way to reduce stress and increase tranquility, however the idea of "caves" disturbs me. The whole idea seems to center around shutting oneself away from not just the outside world, but the family. There is so much emphasis on the need to get away from everyone else, that the idea of being with everyone is construed as stressful. It seems that the moms and men that have the resources to create these caves must have the monetary recourse to have their own rooms. Why can't a bedroom be a personal space? Why can't a relaxation space be shared? I worry that this article accepts too readily the idea of man caves and fails to adopt a more positive point of view. Maybe mom caves seem to be progressive or feminist, but they really follow the lead of what men have done. I think women should instead be working to reintegrate the family. Personal space and time is important and sometimes necessary, but family integration and shared time is also vital to for children's advancement and the development of relationships.