Earlier
this month, I, like many others, got together with my extended family for our
annual Independence Day barbecue. “Long time, no see,” I said upon greeting my
four- and seven-year-old cousins. “You’re a girl,” the older one abruptly
responded, leaving me a little perplexed. “Yeah, you’re a girl,” the second
confirmed, pointing to my shirt. “You wear pink.”
Given the Martin
piece, it made sense that they’d say this. Their father, a high-earning
businessman with strong interests in sports and cars, was the kind of guy who’d
tell his kids that “boys don’t cry” when they got stung by a bee, and had once
before in my presence yelled at his eldest son for walking on his tiptoes.
Although Martin
focuses on the preschool setting in her study, it’s easy to see how “doing gender”
could emerge in practically any situation where western culture plays a role.
As children, we look to adults to show us the appropriate ways to do gender—a
concept exemplified by the preschool girls who put on high heels and dressed
like the older women they hoped to become as they grew up. For my cousins,
then, being a boy (and consequently, not a girl) meant being like their father,
who I’m sure has never worn pink in their presence.
Knowing all
this, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I caught myself defending my
masculinity to a couple of elementary school kids after their comment. “I
bought this in the men’s section,” I told them, emphasizing that the only thing
that made my decision to wear pink permissible was that it didn’t break the
gender barrier in any radical way. Even I, a self-declared feminist and proud
homosexual, needed to justify the color of my shirt in order to associate
myself with a form of social normality in light of what they’d said. I too was
guilty of doing gender (and thus promoting heteronormativity).
Not only is
Becoming a Gendered Body relevant for
showing the origins of gender performance then, but it also explains how and
why girls and boys tend to “create, shape, and police the borders of gender” (pp
509). Whether it’s the way we move or the way we look, I’ve learned the hard
way that children won’t hesitate to tell us when we’re not adhering to the guidelines.
The problem with your young cousins already categorizing gender based on colors is that it is normal in our society. At a very young age children begin to learn what is common with each gender, boy or girl. They grow up learning such as in your case, that pink is associated with the female gender and blue more typically of boys. This is because they see everyone in society following that "gender code." Whether it be the parents, teachers, or friends, gender specific activities and objects are always being relayed.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you had to justify yourself to your little cousins also shows how significant gender differences are integrated into our society. Your gender identity felt threatened so your felt the need to defend yourself and there is nothing wrong with that. That is how society is.
I feel as though a lot of things you said were very relevant to the idea that we live in a gendered society that is indeed socially constructed. I like the example that you used about how even you made a slip up and conformed to the notion that colors play into the idea of our society having set ideas of what each gender should wear, and what is considered to be masculine and feminine colors.
ReplyDeleteI also remember during my childhood how my favorite color was pink and I have reason to believe that our society being such a gendered society had some type of influence on that, because my mother always dressed me in pink and majority of the other female children in my elementary school wore the same color. I always assumed that every girl's favorite color was pink, how naïve of me. What do you know ...my favorite color is orange now.
Through the readings and your own personal account, it is clear that gender is the product of interaction. I think it could even be argued that gender is a performance in the social world that makes up that very world. Or more simply, gender is a process that creates social order. Yet, the social construction of gender goes beyond the simple learning of "male"and "female"roles as it produces and maintains hierarchical structure in society. Preexisting norms about gender have the appearance of being essential and innate, but they are historical, cultural, changing, made, and made relevant in the social world. Gender is made very real but what we do, and thus there are consequences for doing it wrongly.
ReplyDeleteI was born and raised in a family with two brothers. They are both older than me, so when I was born my parents were so excited to have a girl. They tell me stories about how the only thing I wore until I was 7 was the color pink and that I loved wearing big bows in my hair. It is funny looking back at pictures, because I truly did only wear pink. This idea of gender was so engrained in my head because it was engrained in my parents heads. It is interesting to me how color tells so much about a person. Why does a color define gender?
ReplyDeleteWhen i was in middle school, the cool thing to do was wear the "real men wear pink" shirts. They were kind of a joke, but at the same time, maybe this really did make the men stronger. They were stepping out of their comfort zone and wearing a color not usually associated with men. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but it is funny that they had to put a label for everyone to see on their shirts. I also wonder about the color yellow, because it is thought of as the "neutral" and people tend to buy things in yellow if they are unsure about the gender of their baby.
It is unbelievable how much influence society has on our behaviors and our perception of what is normal behavior from as soon as we are children. We at a young age began to associate certain behaviors to its appropriate gender. As in only boys wear blue and play with fire truck and girls love dress up and pink. It is ridiculous that kids are being taught, almost programed, at such young age to profile and categorize the people they encounter.They learn that certain behaviors like being a nurse or owing a truck belongs to a specific gender. And this can be seen when little children react and judge when they see someone not "follow the rules" of the genders like Jordan just mentioned. Its almost as if that person is breaking a life rule. Like "mommy look why is that boy wearing pink its only for girls". Kids at this age are learning to devalue a persons masculinity or femininity. In return this people judged have to defend themselves by being extra manly or extra girly like the male nurse ad. It like "yeah I'm a male nurse but I lift weight too. People constantly have to justify and defend their behaviors like Jordan with his little cousins.
ReplyDeleteThis reading made me reflect upon my own childhood upbringing and gender socialization. After looking back, it became clear that my parents, teachers, and religious mentors all raised me to be what they considered a "normal" girl. Even as an infant, my mother outfitted me in tights, dresses, and sparkly shoes and consequently reinforced that there is a particular way young ladies sit and play in church clothing. My church is a formal setting that previously met three times a week so dressing up became the norm, our way of life. Martin mentions an example of the teachers from the study placing more emphasis on female appearance. She writes that the instructors were constantly adjusting the girls' clothing and lifting up their skirts primarily without asking. This is quite familiar to my childhood, because adults were always smoothing out the wrinkles in my dress, fixing my hair bows and telling me to straighten my appearance up. I thought nothing of it at the time, except that they must know better and were only seeking to help me out in kindness. However, years and years of this turned me into a "gendered female". I liked the same games the boys did, but these historical and societal prevented me from fully integrating. I think our society feels the need to categorize and when something doesn't fit it makes us uncomfortable..but gendering these children at such a young age seems like it can be detrimental.
ReplyDeleteThe reading does make a clear point at how even early in life, human beings begin to differentiate between masculinity and femininity. While I was home this past weekend, I visited my 7-year old nephew and 5-year old niece. While I visited, my nephew wanted to go outside and play basketball, so I did. When my niece wanted to join, my nephew said, "No! She can't play because she's a girl and girls are suppose to play with dolls!". I laughed about it at the time and just thought "Kids say the darnedest things," however, now, I wonder how he got that idea. At school? His parents? This is bad because sometimes children may not be able to express themselves in the way that they want without being judged or perhaps getting into trouble with their parents.
ReplyDeleteGender performance suggest that man-aged, adorned, fashioned,properly comported and moving bodies establish gender and gender relations(495). Like pink in your cousin's eye simply represented a girl's color. In the reading, girls are more likely to choose pink dress in preschools. The reading also points out there're following practices gendering children in preschool: bodily adornment, formal and relax behaviors, controlling voice, body instructions, physical interaction between teachers and children and children themselves(497). It's interesting to see that girls are required more quiet and more disciplined than boys. It can be one of the reasons that girls perform academically better in school. The reading also shows that gender difference is inherited in our mind from very young age. Society defines what a boy suppose to do and what a girl suppose to do, which perfectly indicates gender is socially constructed. However, sometimes boys are quiet, gender, caring, disciplined and girls are active, noisy, ambitious. Everyone has certain traits of masculinity and femininity.
ReplyDeleteLike the reading points out, children learn their gender roles as young as preschool; I realized that I was very influenced into my gender role as a young girl. When I went to kindergarden in China, my teacher put the female students in dance class and the male students in martial arts. I asked her if I can do martial arts instead, and she told me that all the girls had to be in dance class. I also was a tomboy; I had a boy hair cut and I always wore baggy tomboy clothes. I was pressured by adults and my classmates to dress neater and grow out my hair. Because of these historical and societal integrated practices of gendering, I was not able to participate in a lot of "male activities" and dress in boy clothes all the time.
ReplyDeleteGender is taught through a young age, to be 2 categories. Though today this is not true, it is displayed by the media that boys must be masculine and females feminine. We are taught to separate the two genders and flag than as blue for boys, and pink for girls. However not to long ago pink used to be a boys color. In the 1920's surprisingly pink was used in labeling boys and was more widely accepted, and blue for girls.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up as young infants children play with both genders generally (well knowing the difference), and it is not frowned upon. Like your personal story Jordan, the socialization of color is there, and your cousins put you into a category because of the color shirt you were wearing. As children get older and near puberty the genders are more separated, and less interaction occurs.This holds true for me, thinking of middle school when gender is becoming more prominent as children are growing up and becoming adults the boys and the girls barely talk at all. They can't be considered to be friends unless romantically involved. It is not until high school that boys and girls can actually become friends.
I enjoyed the reading in that the examples Martin gave of how children, how we make it so easy to put gender into two categories and the way specifically we socialize them.