Gender Views

Adults, in a subtle way, have sent the message that girls should be feminine, pretty, into clothes and makeup, emotional, and soft-spoken. Boys should be masculine, athletic, tough, and unemotional. These messages of gender stereotypes have come from adults such as aunts, uncles, and grandparents with traditional views. However, most adults have encouraged me and my sister to be who we are, whether or not we fit the female stereotype. But over the years, some relatives have made subtle suggestions about how girls should react to certain situations while telling my male cousins the opposite.

Going to an all-girls school has slightly blinded me to gender issues, but in a positive way. It has allowed me to be who I am without worrying about being the “right” kind of girl. Meeting girls with different hobbies, different ideas, and different personalities has kept me from developing a specific idea about who girls should be and how they should act. As a result, identifying myself as a woman doesn’t mean anything specific; it means being able to do and be anything I want.

I think the influence of adults and the media has made me subconsciously expect that men will hold the “traditional” role in a relationship: holding doors, paying, and doing physical chores. However, I don’t necessarily want that or believe that’s the way it should be. I also don’t expect that women will fill the “traditional” feminine role of cooking, cleaning, etc. I believe a lot of these expectations and stereotypes come from what I see in the relationships of my older relatives and from TV, movies, etc.