First Post

Another class, another journal. :( It was fun at first for the first class, but now three classes this semester require journals. Two are women's studies classes and are so similar that it's hard to keep them separate. At least the third one is on a different topic. :-/

So this one is about women and diversity. Each week I am to write about something in my real life experience and relate it to the assigned readings.

This week we read about hetero/homosexuality, gender marking, the concept of compulsory heterosexuality, and the stigma associated with crossing socially constructed gender roles. The article by Gorelick especially stood out because she is writing about sex marking in children. I have tried to be a gender neutral parent. My daughter never wore pink or dresses unless gramma put her in one; my middle son loved dresses. All my kids played with dolls, wore them in slings and breastfed them. They spent most of their time with me and their play reflected the things they saw me doing. Because I kept house, used tools, sewed, used the computer, worked in the garden - basically because I didn't limit myself to traditional female gender activities, my kids didn't realize (until they went to school I think) that such things really did mark the outside world.

Gorelick talks about the need we often feel to know someone's gender, and the discomfort we experience when we get it wrong or cannot decipher their markings. Even still at 7 years old with a short 'boy' haircut and strong and visible muscle tone my middle son is often called a girl. He doesn't get upset because he says he knows the truth and what other people think is still irrelevent to him, but I find myself often at odds that it isn't obvious to people that he's a boy. It's not that I really care, but I don't think he looks at all like a girl. Okay, so obviously I must care at some level. Even though I'm not marking my kids as outrageously as some people do they are marked to some degree: they follow socially acceptable methods of dress and appearance. He's got long dark eyelashes and when I've discussed this with friends that is what they come up with as the thing that confuses people. His gender neutral name probably doesn't give anyone a clue either. I wonder when he gets older if he'll wish his name marked him more strongly by gender or if he'll continue to be confident regardless of what other people think.

Gorelick's article (The Gender Trap taken from Ms. Magazine) ends by giving me some hope. I'm glad women's studies is more open than sociology to the concept of gender neutral parenting. When I talked about this trend last semester with my soc prof it was considered very (developmentally) important that children be able to identify themselves as male or female by a very young age. I'm of a different philosophy though: I'd like to identify as a human, my genitalia and sexual persuasion immaterial.