“Learning to be Gendered” is an essay written by Penelope
Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet which introduces the topic gender. The essay
talks about why gender norms exist and how we use them in our everyday lives.
Eckert and McConnell-Ginet says “At birth, many hospital nurseries provide pink
caps for girls and blue caps for boys, or in other ways provide some visual
sign of the sex that has been assigned to the baby.” This is just one of the
examples they talk about in the essay about how we classify people into
genders. I personally believe that when a baby is born, we shop for pink
clothes for girls and blue for guys because it would be awkward if we bought a
pink frilly dress for a baby boy. As they grow up, a guy can wear a pink frilly
dress if he wanted to. I guess we were just used to the idea of things being
this way for a long time. It is what we grew up thinking and knowing. Every
parent wants their little girl playing in dollhouses wearing their pink dress,
and their son playing with toy trucks and running around being manly. As the
kids grow up and start to have a mind of their own, I believe that they should
be able to do what they want to do. Gender norms are just there between the gap
of a kid knowing what they really want to be. Gender norms stop playing such a
big role as we grow older because then we are shaping into the person we want
to be. I’ve never really paid attention to the gender norms parents put on
their kids because I don’t really think it matters. In the end, the child wont
even remember much of their childhood anyways.
I agree with you, since as long as we can remember blue goes with boys and pink goes with girls. That mindset has been engraved into our minds from the start. Boys are supposed to wear overalls, play with cars, be tough, have deep voices, and not be too emotional. Where girls wear the pink frilly dresses, play with dolls, have sweet soft voices, and are very emotional. That is what just happens we don’t think about it we just do it. But once that baby is able to think for itself like a normal human being, that is when it can thinks for itself and choose whether they want to me male or female. As long as we don’t put people down for what gender they chose to be when they do chose that it what is important. I think an important quote the author said was “Gender is so deeply engrained in our social practice, in our understanding of ourselves and of others, that we almost cannot put one foot in front of the other without taking gender into consideration.” Once we break this mindset we can start seeing people as other than their gender, like other characteristics that include, intelligence and personality.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment also. I do believe that Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet made good points when talking about the process in which males and females are classified. Even in before birth children are given blue and pink room decorations, colored clothes, names putting the two sexes in binaries. I don’t think they did a good job defending their idea that men and women are socially structured to behave in their separate ways. I wished they would’ve explained their thought a little more. I do believe that tradition is a driving force in the world and since it has been a tradition to separate men and women explains why we feel so compelled to put men and women in these separate groups saying men should do the dirty work and women should take care of the children. That’s only at its basic level. Hormones are defiantly a factor because you know, science. But a huge amount of people have adapted with these hormones, but many people don’t fall into those categories. And that is why gender norms are harmful.
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