Gendered Treatment by Professors

While reading my textbook, I was able to relate with several of the examples of ways in which male and female students are treated in the classroom. Especially during elementary school, we were often split up into boys and girls for activities, and boys were asked to perform carrying tasks. I remember being in PE and watching the boys game of flag football, wishing that the girls game were more competetive. The  girls didn't try as hard, and there was no contact. In fact, I was afraid to play sports with girls ever since I accidentally broke my tiny gymnast friend's collar bone by bumping her too roughly. I was asked to be gentler, while the boys were egged on.
When I recieved the class prompt for this weeks blog, I was stumped at first. I was asked to write about how male and female students are treated differently by professors. I scanned my memory, and felt like I had never really noticed being treated differently in any significant way by my professors.Since beginning my college education at metro in the fall of 2009, I've done pretty well by doing my homework and studying for tests. I had recieved fair grades and had never thought about it. But when I started thinking about the non-academic side of the question, I noticed the subtle ways that males and females are always treated differently that I normally take for granted. In my Interpersonal communications class last semester, we often had class discussions about our experience in communication. The topics always seemed to veer towards our romantic relationships and communication struggles, which I think the teacher did on purpose because she liked to hear the gossip. One day, we were asked questions like whether friends with benefits was possible, how we feel about cheating, and dating friends exes. I noticed that the boys answers tended to be more ambiguous, with mixed opinions, while the girls responded more strongly and consistantly with each other. I learned in a psychology class that men are less likely to become attached after sex, and are more casual about it... and if that's true, it would explain my class's division. lots of the girls had had bad experiences with trying physical relationships with friends (because they felt more connected after sex?), that cheating was unforgivable (because for them to cheat they would have to have feelings for the other guy?), and dating their exes was not okay. Actually, the guys thought exes were off limits too. But some of the guys thought cheating didn't have to mean anything serious, and friends with benefits could work. All these statements were accepted casually by my professor. When my friend and I both talked about having had successful casual relationships with friends, I noticed a skeptical/ judgemental reaction from the teacher. My friend and I also had similar stories about forgiving boyfriends for kissing other girls, and she commented that she "didn't understand us", and responded with her opinion as if it were more valid. I talked about how I didn't have a problem with my friends dating my exes, since i had good relationships with them, and dated my friends exes pretty often, since we're all friends. When I finished my thought and mentioned that it wasn't a big deal to me, she responded jokingly "well thats enough information for me", like i was divulging personal secrets about my sex life.
In the textbook, a text box on p. 198 talks about the rise of "hookups" in colleges, sexual encounters without commited relationships. The factors identified as causing this trend  include the disporprtionate male to female ratio, supposedly causing women to lower their standards. Also, females wanting to quickly launch careers are proposed to more often than in the past seek out sex without the distraction of love. The third reason given stems from the fact that women are trained from a young age to view themselves as sex objects, sources of pleasure for men rather than for themselves. This is said to result in females engaging in sex not for personal desire, experience, or pleasure; but to fit in with their peers and be well liked.
This explained to me the probable explanation for my teacher's strange reaction to my friends with benefits story. She had assumed  that I was describing my random hookups, rather than my occasional physical relationship with a friend,  was something to share with all of my classmates. Though I did describe this while I spoke, my teacher made a point to state that she 'always had to have a boyfriend so that she could make sure he treated her right', and that she was 'only with guys that had worked for it". I think she was trying to give me advice, like she felt bad for me.  Basically, my teacher was perpetuating the image of women as sex objects by talking about the idea of men "earning" sex. What about us girls? Can't we have sex for enjoyment? She, like so many do, assumed that my behaviors indicated low self-esteem, and a need to be validated by the serving of men. Automatically, people assume sexually liberated females are just looking for attention.
Why don't males get treated like this? It's ludicrous to imagine a guy being pitied for having sex with different women, regardless of the relationship. Does male promiscuity invite the designation of his having low self-worth? Not in my experience. I wish that it were more widely acceptable for women to have active, safe, responsible sex lives without being labeled a slut and having people pity your pathetic self image. Contrarily, I feel that the reason that I am open about sharing the details of my relationships is because I know that I have a healthy self-image, and want to share it with others. Until awareness of female sexual empowerment spreads, it will not be widely accepted as normal and healthy.

Gender in Childrens Books

I have for a long time noticed the gendered messages found in children's books, television shows, and other media. Often, "girl" books are stories about princesses, dolls, and playing nice with others. Looking back to my own childhood, my strongest memories of books and movies are not gender specific. I feel that this could be due to my parent's lack of pressure for me to be girly, as my mom is not stereotypically "girly" herself. Having had an older brother, from whom I acquired most of my playthings, I learned more about superheroes than barbies, and had more ninja turtles in my life than princesses. However, as I grew up, more gendered messages were conveyed to me as I started school, and was exposed to more traditional female roles through my peers. Growing up well-rounded, I feel that I obtained valuable knowledge that it was okay to play with "boy toys", and recognized that I didn't relate as well to female characters in most books.

However, I do realize that my experience is probably not the norm. In the book that I analyzed, Anamalia, there were few gendered characters, as most were animals. One of the pages that contained specific gendered characters was rather violent, in my opinion. Kid Kookabura and Kelly Kangaroo were depicted as mobsters, kidnapping Kitty Koala with automatic weapons in hand, with police rushing to the scene. The scene represented Kitty as done-up, with lipstick, heels, and pearls on. Her Captors held her at gunpoint, while she has an expression on her face of surprise. I believe that this scene conveys a message of female weakness and masculine strength. Kitty does not fight back, and is at the mercy of Kid and Kelly.
While this scene in my book is rather discriminatory, I would still recomend this book to children of preschool age and above. I learned a lot of vocabulary from this book, as each object on the indivicual pages starts with the same letter of the alphabet. I feel that parents can use this page to start a discussion with their children about safety, and what the child should do in a situation such as this. Children are exposed to the "damsel in distress" stereotype unavoidably, and at least this book was not all about this image, as are books such as rapunzel and goldilocks. Other depictions of female animals within Anamalia contain healthy messages.
While many childrens books are, in my opinion, sexist and harmful to children's psyches, Anamalia is not one of these books. It is a fact that females are more vulnerable to kidnapping, and it is unwise to shelter children from this reality. I feel that instead of hiding from it, parents can use the opportunity presented in this book to teach their children about the dangers of strangers, and how best to defend themselves.

COLOR

Over the rest of the semester, I'm going to be performing my service learning volunteer hours with COLOR, which stands for Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights. It took a while to arrange our first meeting, which I now know was a result of my contact abruptly having to take time off for personal reasons. It was a happy accident that I called in this afternoon and was invited to an event honoring Lorena Garcia, COLOR's new executive director, and I feel like I definitely can see myself enjoying the rest of my hours. This experience ended up being extremely informative regarding the history and mission of COLOR, and I got to meet many of the members and even some of their families.
        
While COLOR wasn't initially my first choice of organization, I think that I ultimately ended up in the right place. The event that I went to tonight was located at Rosalinda's Mexican Cafe, and the atmosphere was cheerful and welcoming. I met a woman named Mimi, who introduced me to the other board members. My initial thought was that I was surprised how young they all were. On second thought, I wished that I hadn't been surprised to meet a group of  successful, driven, intelligent young women running an awesome organization, but I'm not sure I've ever personally experienced any groups like it.  Learning about about all of their achievements was intriguing, I found myself agreeing with many of the objectives of COLOR, and these womens' level of commitment was inspiring.

My task during the night was to bring around the guest book/ scrapbook, which was a perfect first time job. Not only did I get to meet everyone and introduce myself, but I was also able to look at the pictures of COLOR's past activities, and learn more about their objectives. I am definitely a supporter of increased sex education and contraceptive availability, as well as pro-choice. COLOR is also active in the lgbt community, which is awesome!  I stayed for almost 2 hours before catching the bus home at 8, and feel more secure about the fate of my volunteer work, having made official contact.

Ecofeminism?

I had never sought out to learn specifics about feminist theories, much less the distinction between the different waves or belief systems, until today. Having read chapter 3 and 4 out of my class textbook, I found that there are many distinct branches of gender-based ideologies associated with various womens and mens movements throughout history. On one end of the spectrum is liberal feminism, an ideology which describes men and women as equal, and deserving of equal opportunities and rights. Cultural feminism, on the other hand, is the belief that women and men are "fundamentally different", and therefore should have different expectations and rights.



Herein lies the reason that I've never researched more into types of feminism prior to this point; I knew that there were different belief systems attatched to each type of feminism, as with any political system, but the extreme views put me off. I believe that all people are fundamentally similar, and without this belief who is to say how far is too far? Different rights for different people sounds like a dangerous direction to go in. Dividing and categorizing people only distracts from the bigger picture, the fact that everything lives together on the earth as part of an interdependent system.


The movement which I identified most closely with was the ecofeminist movement. I appreciate how it emphasizes finding common ground, rather than focusing on differences and oppression of others. Responsible consumption is highlighted, and men and women are believed to be equally important in the grand scheme. My favorite aspect of ecofeminism is the fact that its main intention is essentially to educate. The book talks about bringing "themselves and others to a new conciousness of humans' interdependence with all other life forms", which to my knowledge is a fact... Food web, right? ( I learned it's not food chain anymore). The book describes ecofeminism as a branch of cultural feminism, but the section that i read didn't really explain that. I felt that ecofeminism was more liberal, which is a good reason to look further into it.


Now that I know about the different types of womens and mens movements, I feel more educated. I'm probably going to do more research about ecofeminism, to figure out why it is labeled as cultural. When I find out, I'll come back and let you know.

The Name Game

In past classes I have taken, as well as in my current gender and communications class, the imprecise nature of language has always struck me as fascinating. Slight alterations of speech pattern or word organization allows for meanings to  be switched, reversed, hidden, or implied. By being limited to the words officially recognized in dictionaries with which to express nonspecific feelings, desires, and experiences, we are restricted to understanding our experiences only as others have before us. In class on Tuesday, we had a discussion about how language allows self- reflection, amongst other things, and I felt that while this is true, it sometimes forces us to define ourselves with insufficient vocabulary. When someone or something can't be described or named by an existing word, then does that person or thing exist?
In Julia Wood's text, she observes that as a culture, we name only what is important (cite?). As culture and society change around us, new names and words are added to the human language to reflect these changes and developments. It is indeed interesting to ponder this delayed reaction. How long does something, such as the existence of transgendered individuals, have to exist before it is granted acknowledgement? Apparently, quite a while. I have a hard time believing that education about the various gender identities and sexual orientation hasn't gained momentum until relatively recently has anything to do with the length of time these issues have existed. In fact, I know that this is untrue. I truly believe that all types of people have always existed, and hope that our language will catch up to our culture soon.
I had an interesting experience in my art history class on monday, my professor was making a comparison between Olympia, an 1800's prostitute preserved in time in a painting by Eduardo Manet, and current day "hookers". She seemed to be making the point that while Olympia was a high-class working girl, there is a world of difference between her and the present day "crack whore trannys". I was shocked that a young professor would say something like that, it made her sound really ignorant. I didn't want to call her out and embarrass her in front of the class, but I'm going to tell her today that we don't use that word anymore, and you never know who you could be offending, not to mention perpetuating ignorance, intolerance, and stereotyping. Hopefully she'll say something to correct the error. Whats worse, she got laughs from most of the class! Maybe I'm hyper-aware of these issues right now, and maybe I would have laughed a few months or years ago, but after meeting several transgendered individuals I don't find it funny anymore.

Gender Expectations: In Youth 'till the Present Day

         Since childhood, I have been inundated with subtle messages about how I "should" act, an inescapable obstacle of growing up for most. Expectations about what is "appropriate" for a girl to play with, dress like, behave, and speak went mostly unnoticed, but I remember certain instances in which my parents and family became vessels for transmitting the cultural norms of the society we live in.

        As a child, and up through my adolescence and early adulthood, I have never quite fit into the exact mold of "ideal femininity", according to our culture. I played in dirt with my older brother, roughhoused wearing skirts, and got covered in scratches and bruises from playing outside. I think that sometimes, though my parents were very accepting and open to my desires, were frustrated that my "potential" for being a "respectable lady" was being squandered. It was possible for me to look pretty, and be nice, and play with dolls... but i didn't.

       My earliest memory of gender expectations- in fact, this became a theme throughout my life- being imposed on me was centered around my fashion sense. I mostly liked to wear my older brother's comfortable hand-me-downs. When my parents would dress me up, I would cry because I wasn't allowed to play in the grass. I also would constantly be reprimanded to "SIT LIKE A LADY!!". This was the one area which my parents pushed for me to act "appropriately"... in public. I can see why it would have been awkward for them to have a young girl in a skirt sitting cross-legged, or like a frog... but I wonder why they didn't put me in shorts underneath. I was supposed to act "proper" in public, and I never understood why. To this day, I don't really understand why... and now understand that I have no reason to accept these gender expectations.

           More recently, I have become more aware of the plethora of culturally constructed gender ideals. In my adolesence, I rejected many cultural standards of mainstream style, music, and other standards. I had my hair in dreadlocks, dyed bright orange, pink, and red, with trinkets and charms tied and woven into it. It was visually appealing to me, however it did not exactly adhere to traditional views of femininity such as softness, shininess, or cleanliness. Also, the attention I drew was not in the form of submissiveness or daintiness. The aggressive, unconventional styling of my outfits and harsh colors and structure of my hairstyle drew criticism from my uncle at a family gathering. He asked me why I make myself unattractive, because I "could be" so pretty, if I only tried harder. I was confused, but his words didn't hurt me, because I understood that not everybody has the same open-minded viewpoints as me.

         I found it very interesting in the text for class, Gendered Lives: Communication, Culture, and Culture by Julia Wood, when she states that societal standards can be adjusted as people choose to accept or reject them. By rejecting expectations of femininity, I can help others to question those norms which don't sit right with them. I hope that many others will choose to form their own conceptions of their genders, and free themselves of the confinement brought upon us by societal constraints.