I do not think that we are making a war between ourselves through gender. I mean yes, there are gender differences and yes, gender is a socially constructed theory but personally, if I am competing with another I will not look at their gender. There may be a time where one would look at gender as a factor in competition, such as physical ability but many women are stronger than men, it just depends on the training. I really liked the part in chapter one when they talked about gender not being your only identity, but part of what makes your identities. The thing about that now is that people who don’t feel as if they are the right gender have construe another identity and it is hard for them to not get looked down upon in society.
As far as growing up, I had two little brothers. I would say I enjoyed playing with both “girl” toys and “boy” toys. My mom did home daycare so we had a chance to play many games. We would play sports, imaginary games (house, CSI, other occupations), etc. but there was never a difference between who got what role. If anything, age made the difference of who got what role. I honestly do not think there was a difference between who did what roles until I got older. I had a friend who loved football and she was good but of course, she could not play because she was a “girl”.
Using the word “war” in gender wars makes me think of survival of the fittest. Obviously, both men and women are here on this earth still so the word war does not fit right as far as gender goes. I am not sure if there will always be a separation between genders, obviously in sex but I do believe that more and more people will be more in the middle of masculine and feminine. Right now there is a huge stretch as of what is masculine and what is feminine but I think that by socially talking about it and thinking about it that will be less of a stretch.
1. Do you think it is inappropriate to dress as a "typical girl" when you are a boy or vv?
2. Is it that mortifying if someone mistakens you for the wrong gender? If so, why?
I really liked what you had to say. You had a lot of great points and I agree with a lot of them. When I was growing up I played with both "feminine" and "masculine" toys because I had an older brother and a sister. I found myself always playing with my brothers toys because they were so much cooler than mine, he had race tracks where we'd race cars, and all this other really cool stuff so some days I'd play with my Barbies and dolls and other days I'd go race cars with my brother. I was also outside ALL the time and often with other boys around the neighborhood. So I don't think there's anything wrong with mixing the two.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your questions, I really don't think it matters what you want to dress your child in. If you just love the color blue and want to dress your girl up in it I think it's great, but at the same time if you're going to do that don't get offended if someone mistakes your child for the wrong gender. Babies generally all look alike and I don't see anything wrong with someone accidentally getting confused.