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how our gender is imposed on us

how our gender is imposed on us What makes us who we are? Is it the clothes we wear or the toys we played with while we were children? Maybe? Or maybe it’s the people and the environment we grew up around? Most people would say that all these characterists would be true, and I’d agree. But if you really think hard about what makes you, YOU, then you’d realize that there is so much more than what meets the eye. Let’s take a look into my life to see what made me the “masculine” person I am today. I can remember back to when I was about five or six years old. Outside playing in the dirt in the front lawn of our house. My pants would have holes in the knees; I’d be surrounded by toys like cars, trucks, and little action figurine models (G.I. Joes). I even had a toy lawn care set that came equipped with a rake and some other tools. When my dad would mow the lawn I would always use my toy rake to rake all the grass clippings into neat little piles and once I was done I would bag them all up. This is my first memory of something that would define the “masculine” gender. I mean honestly, how many girls do you know that played with toy lawn care sets. Now I know there are a few exceptions, but for the most part boys played with cars, trucks, action figures and things like that while girls played with dollhouses, dolls, and make-up kits. Even the holes in the knees of my pants are something of the masculine nature. Where we lived there was this big old red torn down barn. Like, one half of the barn was up, while the other half had collapsed years ago. Anyways, I can remember wanting so badly to go into the barn and explore to see what was in there. But I never did. It was supposedly too dangerous. I was always an adventurous person. Going hiking, swimming in the water hole, or just wondering around in the woods were always something I would do. This, in my belief relates back to the male instinct. How men long time ago would go hunt and gather their food out in the woods or where ever they could find it. Not that I’m hunting, but it’s the adventurous instinct I’m after. I used to get into a lot of trouble while I was young. I got hit with a belt quit a bit. One time I did something and lied about it to my father, and he asked me a question; he said, “well you can either stand in the corner or you can take it like a man and get the belt.” So I decided to take the belt. I’m not really sure why, I guess I thought that it would’ve looked better on my part. It was a way of showing that I could take it like a man and hold everything back. I’ve always hidden my emotions. I think I was always somehow encouraged not to show any emotions. It’s like my parents were subtlety telling me to not show any emotions, because that’s what guys do they show no emotion. While I was in elementary school, I can picture all the events the boys would do at recess. Most of us would get together and make up teams to play kickball or football. It was either that or play on the monkey bars or something like that. While the boys were doing those activities, you could always find the girls huddled around the benches, sitting on the swings, or going down the slide. It’s like there was this international divide. All the boys did the rough and dirty events at recess while girls did things so that they wouldn’t sweat or get dirty. In the classroom I can remember being the quietest person. In third grade I sat next to the most talented drawer in the class. His name was Michael. I always wanted to draw like he could. That always seemed like the thing boys did, was draw. Girls doodled and boys drew. It’s even like that today. While I was in high school, all my girl friends would always doodle and draw little stuff on their folders. I would always make fun of or ask, why they were always doing that. None of my guy friends just sat around doodling little things on their notebooks, so I’m convinced that this is mainly a girl thing. While I was growing up I always had to do chores. Most of the time it was something like take out the trash, do the dishes, pick up the yard, or fold laundry. I never got a choice of what chore I wanted to do. It was already picked out for me. I never got a break and did simple chores; I always had to do chores that made you stink and took a lot of work and effort. So in high school I started dating girls. Now this was something I never did until high school. As for the whole who calls whom and who visits whom things, I never really thought about it, but a couple weeks ago it was brought to my attention. While over break I met this girl from back home. We started seeing each other a lot and calling and things like that. Well I wanted her to come up here cause I was living here. So she asked her father and his response was this, “well I think he should come here, but…..” I never honestly thought about it, but it is usually always the guy’s job to call the girl or go see the girl. If two people go out on a date who is it that drives? It’s usually the guy. When you’re with a girl and you’re about to go out, they never think of where they want to go. It’s always left up to the guys to decide what they do. Now, on the other hand, once things go beyond dating and into the bedroom you’re not really going to hear a guy tell a girl to stop if things go that far. Girls are the first to say, “stop” or “I don’t think we should be doing this.” These aren’t things that are taught to us, it’s just something that we’ve learned through television and society. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize some of the things that seem to be the guys “job”. Now I guess I say “job” because there are things that guys just have to do, but go without saying. If I’m with my family (example) and our car breaks down on the side of the road, I’m not going to expect my wife to get out and fix whatever’s wrong. That’s something that I have to do. Another great example that goes back generations among generations is who brings in the money. Men are supposed to be the providers for the household. In contrast, it’s the women job to stay home, take care of the house, and care for the children. Now days, things that might have been a woman’s “job” years ago are now open to both sexes and the same goes for the men. But I think that the bottom line is that there aren’t any restrictions as to who does what. Bibliography:

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