Gender and Sexuality

This week in class we talked about gender and sexuality. I remember talking about the same thing in High School and reading articles about the Toys R’ Us gender aisle debate. You also see video’s floating around the internet about a boy picking a Barbie or dancing to ‘Frozen’. There is nothing inherently bad about those things but we as a society tend to attach unneeded sexuality onto those actions. Just because a boy chooses to play with a Barbie instead of kicking a ball around doesn’t necessarily mean that they are sexually attracted to males. This is the kind of thinking that is going on in our society. It is weird to me that based on the simple decision on what to play with we (as a society) can then decide who they will grow up to be and who they will eventually date for them. As soon as we label something and put our opinion out there then that person, most likely child, will then have the opportunity to blindly believe that they are those things. Example, you tell a kid that they are gay, and they have a better chance of just believing it. Now I am not saying that there aren’t those kids that do turn out to genuinely be attracted to those people of their same sex but those may happen to be the minority in this case. For example, my brother is a straight male. He is seated number 2 on his varsity tennis team, does weightlifting, competitive swimming, skateboarding, etc. When he was younger it was a different story. He wore my Tinkerbelle costume everywhere and sang karaoke to High School Musical and Kelly Clarkson. He was sensitive and creative and had a lot of attributes that people now days would label as gay. But he had another side, he still loves pirates and baseball and running around everywhere. Childhood, in my opinion, is just to have fun and find out what you like.         

Gender plays a really important role in our roles in families and society. The men usually take on the roles of protector and provider. Now this is not to say that women couldn’t be strong or capable in fulfilling any of these roles, this is just what is typical. Men usually take on these roles because it is scientifically proven that they have better upper body strength and are more single minded. They typically do really well at focusing on one thing at a time, which in the case of a home invasion would be good because they would have one goal/task and have the focus and head space in order to achieve that goal. Whereas women normally are better at multitasking and figuring out multiple things at once, which proves more beneficial in other situations. Women tend to be more of the nurturer and teacher. Typically, moms stay home to help with the kids which means that they get the pleasure of teaching them the majority of the time. This includes, but is not limited to, spelling, colors, weather, noises, animals, reading, etc. This is a lot of responsibility but also has a great reward. Their responsibility to teach as well as their natural talent of emotionally connecting means that the journey and experience of watching your children grow up is extremely rewarding but also very difficult at times.

I have seen gender play huge roles in my family and its structure. I have seen how grateful my mom was that she was able to have the experience to be a full-time mom, that because of my dad she was able to be more hands on. I have seen the differences that balance my family out. Gender overall is not just a social construct as some may suggest rather it is a part of our spirits, it is something we had before this life and something we will keep after this life.