As we grow into the person we are today, we learn how society wants us to act or behave “naturally”. But what is a natural behavior for any individual that does not relate to gender, race, ethnicity, etc? Martin asks “how do adult gendered bodies become gendered, if they are not naturally so?”(pg 495). This is all beginning from such a young age. Kelly Martin’s Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools, shows how there are certain ways preschool teachers are influencing three-year-olds and five-year-olds to behave in a certain way that society thinks is acceptable. For example, we want the girls to play with dolls and the boys to play with toy cars. If we see a boy wanting to go play with the doll, it doesn’t appear to be correct for his gender, and vice versa with the girl.
In addition to the behavior of an individual, Martin also introduces the idea that it is also about how we present ourselves, i.e. posture and how we walk. “According to Connell, gender becomes embedded in body postures, musculature, and tensions in our bodies”(pg 495). If you were to view a girl and a boy walk side by side, you would probably describe the girl as more graceful. It is the way we “form” our bodies to the way our gender perceives us. “For example, women take smaller steps than men, sit in closed positions (arms and legs crossed across the body), take up less physical space than men, do not step, twist or throw from the shoulder when throwing a ball, and are generally tentative when using their bodies” (pg 494). Is this because women are taught to be tentative or does it become natural? It is partly both.
Because we start being “molded” into who we should be at such a young age, it becomes very natural the older we get. After a certain amount of time, we don’t remember viewing the world without behaving that way, so it appears to be a natural thing that you have always done. However, as the adults that raise the children to be that way, we can now see how we influence them to behave the way society thinks they should behave as a boy or girl. Due to this influence at such a young age, by the time we get to our careers, we are already built into the person we are choosing to live as.
This brings us to the blog “Are you man enough to be a nurse?”. According to Tristan Bridges and Sarah Mosseri, “the takeaway message seems to be that, unlike women who are believed to make good nurses because they are women, men make good nurses in spite of being men”. As shown in this blog, the men have an “active” or “manly” identity that over rules the fact that they are a nurse as well. In the first image given in this blog, they don’t have any degrading jobs for the men. They use an attractive surfer, a base guitarist, and a rock climber. They must have these identities as well, because, otherwise, they will be downgraded in society, in relation to being a man, because they have a women’s job as a nurse. It is more socially accepted for a woman to do something that is more masculine, than for a man to do something feminine. For example, Danica Patrick is big in the racing world, which is very male dominated, but a man wouldn’t want to be known as the “stay-at-home mom” who also knits.
Another example relating to this blog, is from a Grey’s Anatomy Episode called the Time Warp. In this episode, they are “going back in time” telling some of their case stories, one of which involved a woman being a surgical resident. The men come into the room and one tells her to move aside because defibrillating the patient is not a nurse’s job. She pushes him aside and saves the patient herself as a strong women. During this TV show, in all of its seasons, there are several demeaning comments of calling a surgical resident a nurse. It is a clear insult and is usually aimed towards a women. Why does this happen? Men see themselves as too good to be a nurse, so it must be a women’s job. Can this be changed in the near future, or will women always be just a step below?
As stated by Karin Martin in Becoming a Gendered Body, “social scientists and feminists [suggest] that …differences [between men and women may be consequential” (Martin 494). She argues that “Gendering of the body in childhood is the foundation on which further gendering of the body occurs throughout the life course (Martin 495). This can be seen in the way in which male nurses are viewed in society. Nursing which has become gendered as female reflects how males who enter this profession as seen as less masculine, perhaps even more feminine. Just as is the case with the Grey’s Anatomy episode, when my sister (who is a doctor steps) in a room with a male nurse, the patient assumes the male nurse is the doctor, and refers to him as such.
ReplyDeleteI am also reminded of the Friends episode, where Rachael and Ross hire a male nanny (a “manny”), and Ross suggests that perhaps it’s the nanny’s sexuality that has led to him to this profession. This is mainly due to “underlying gender structures that positions masculinity as inherently different that…femininity” (Bridges). Thus, a result of this many people assume that men shouldn’t occupy work that is set out for women. It would be interesting to examine this belief and find out if people think that these “pink collar” jobs are also ‘too easy’ for men to do or mainly just too ‘foreign in concept’ for men to be able to complete.
I want to touch on something you said in your second to last paragraph, specially, "it is more socially accepted for a woman to do something that is more masculine, than for a man to do something feminine." As soon as I read this I immediately thought of the TV show 'Scrubs'. For those of you that havent seen this show (it's hilarious) it is a comedy in which the main actors are nurses (specifically two male nurses). A tremendous number of jokes are about them being nurses and how that effects their masculinity and downplays there standing within the hospital.
ReplyDeleteBesides scrubs, I also wanted to agree with your statement completely. For a woman to do something more 'masculine' it is looked up upon as brave and almost noble. But for a man to be more feminine it is greatly looked down upon. i think it is such an ironic difference that I am not really sure will change within the near future.
I would like to comment on the statement, "[women] are generally tentative when using their bodies". When I initially read this comment, my first reaction was to disagree and use all of the sports that I have done as qualifiers. Thinking back on it, I might actually mostly agree with this statement, I played softball for a couple of years and I was never able to throw the ball quite as hard or as fast as my teammates, and most of my teammates would not be able to throw a ball with as much vigor as a male player. And the problem that my coaches always pinpointed was that we did not throw from our shoulders! Looking back at another example, I polevaulted and I was rather successful and proud of my accomplishments in that sect of track, but what I was never able to successfully conquer was bending the pole (bending poles gives you more momentum and power when you attempt to vault over the crossbar). Even though I had trained myself to be an aggressive vaulter, using the bend in the pole properly required the next degree of strength and confidence in your body, a confidence that I never acquired in high school. It is almost frightening to connect athletic talent with gender roles influenced on children by academic institutions. The toys you play with and your trained mannerisms stemming from preschool and elementary school could be the determining factor in your athletic skill.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I noticed was that, even if women are confident in using their body and have sharpened their athletic ability to a professional skill level, why aren't women's sports as popular as men's? Women's basketball is exemplary of women appearing more tentative than men. The statistics for men and women in this sport are relatively equal, but why then is the sport of women's basketball viewed as a joke? Why is LeBron James such a common name and not Brittany Griner? It may be attributed to the fact that women in basketball make more layups and shots compared to men who generally play more aggressively and engage in more dunks. Would women's basketball be more exciting if the girls were permitted to engage in more aggressive behaviors in their rearing?