In the military women experience gender harassment from their male counterparts. This could be based on men who prefer traditional roles or hate the invasion of women in non-traditional roles. Male soldiers would protect female superiors but doing a “half-ass” job. The men will act like they don’t know how to fully do the task or act like the instructions were not clear enough. What’s worse is how the superiors of the female superiors will critique every single thing they do. Those superiors critique the female superior’s work done to the very last detail to protest women in the military. Women also face things like rumors/gossip and invasion of personal of their personal life.for example, a women in a decently high ranking position will have rumors of “them sleeping around to get that position”. There also seems to be trend of men complaining about the unfair treatment against men. The men go on to say how women have less strict standards, and can get away with doing less work or less physically demanding work. For example, men were saying how their female counterparts would use their womanly problems to get out of work. Some even said how women had less demanding standards to get into certain specialties. I don’t know if the statements made by those men are true, but I can see where inequality takes place. For me, I had to register to be drafted when I turned 18. In the U.S, only men have to sign up for the draft when they turn 18. If a man does not sign up in a timely fashion they risk getting fined and/or jail time. Women on the other hand, have a choice to sign up or not. I just feel like there is some inequality with the drafting requirement in the U.S.

4/24/2019

This chapter was about beauty and how it affects our life’s. Starting at birth, parents are more likely to give attention to beautiful babies then ugly ones. From there, teachers and fellow children will treat that person based on their looks. Teachers see beautiful children as well behaving and smart. Other children see beauty as friendly and socially acceptable. There was a study mention where they gave teachers a scenario and asked to rate the child. When teachers saw beautiful children, they would say that the child’s general behavior is fine. The teacher would go on with saying how everyone has a bad day now and again. Teachers who got uglier children to rate said how they seemed to misbehave, repeat past transgressions, and even called them a brat. In college, beautiful people can turn in work that would warrant a F and get a passable grade. Our entire life is base on if we were blessed with good looks or not. Me personally speaking, I can’t recall a time when an important matter’s result was based on my looks. I have been bullied a little bit for having at best an average face and a fat body. Those times were more in elementary, and it seemed to happen only with girls.

4/24/2019

When it comes down to how we speak, problems will start appearing. Man and women speak different, this causing some kind of miscommunication. The first miscommunication is women apologizing to much. The reason why many men say that a women apologizes to much is that it’s seen as putting oneself down. Not all cases of female apology is actually an apology. I’m another cause, when a woman says they are sorry they are trying to keep equal footing. What happens is that both parties take half the blame rather than only one party taking full blame. The second is criticism, ok which women use softeners. I’m this sense, softeners are a way to make the criticism less harsh. I’m the case of a man, he will get straight to the point. Doing so may make him seem a little aggressive, even mean. The third miscommunication is a Thank you. This is normally used with women as a conversation starter or closure, they are actually thanking someone. The problem with this lies with the receiver, they could make the giver feel like they are having a favor done. The fourth miscommunication is verbal fighting. What is expected by males is to put an idea out there and have a heated debate over it if any faults are pointed out. What happens when a woman is involved is that it is seen as a wrongful attack against them. This can cause them to appear weak and be questioned more; they start questioning their knowledge as well. The fifth miscommunication is praise, which is reversed for males than woman. What I mean is that for a woman to be praise someone has to say something. As with men, being praised is when you are left alone to continue doing that same kind of work. The sixth miscommunications is complaints, which women see as a conversation piece. Women will make complains to each other has a conversation topic, and to release some steam. When a complaint is made between men, they see it as something that needs fixing. The seventh and finale miscommunication is jokes, which for men, are kinds that are seen as attacking. Men will makes jokes that may attack one’s character or is seen as taboo. Women, on the other hand, will make jokes about themselves, potentially as a complaint as well. For example, I have a dark sense of humor. I will laugh at jokes that make light of serious events like 9-11. These type of jokes will only make my mother, for example, angry with me. When I am with my friends they will either laugh or tell me it’s a bad joke. When they say it’s a bad joke they mean it was poorly constructed. 4/22/2019

This chapter is about sexuality and gender in social interactions of children. When we are children we are prepared for our assigned gender roles. Looking into play, boys will participate in rough, violate, and competed games. Girls will play turn taking, more gentle games like jump rope. For this reason, play will normally be separated based on sex; it being the same sex. Boys play typically take up bigger areas like sport fields, while girls take up the jungle gym and blacktop. The groups will vary depending on what sex is being looked at. Boys are typically in big groups, which are more pervious to trouble. Girls tend to be in small pairs, normally getting in trouble easier or not at all. Boys will try to break the rules at any given point. For example, some fifth and sixth graders will bring a playboy to skill to share along the group. They try not to get caught, girls would either get caught easier, or not attempt it at all. What’s interesting is that boys will share sexual stuff like playboys but won’t become homosexual from it. This can be contributed to slang like faggot being used as an insult. This suggests that there is something wrong with them and isolated them from others. Girls won’t be as sexual as boys, the girls normally are romantic then sexual. Girls will do use words like “love” or “like” to describe someone’s feelings. The girls may also spend time talking about boys or say that someone likes another that is of lower status as an insult. When reading this I remembered a girl using me as an insult towards another girl. I am not a very popular, or handsome guy so they would say that someone likes me. This would be an insult as I am not seen as attractive, thus embarrassing both the girl and I.

4/22/2019

Normally toys are targeted for a specific sex/gender. Normally pastel colors, along with toys like easy bake oven, were meant for girls. Guy would get dark colors like blue or green, and the toys would be cars or weapons. When I went to the toy section of target near the college I was surprised. The toys aisle was not labeled with a sign depicting a sex/gender. Also, the toys that seemed target for girls were with toys meant for boys. There was a sub-aisle where it was all pink toys that were mean for girls. When looking at toys you would see toy cellphones with stuff animal toys, cars and puzzles. There were action figures, and rock ’em sock ’em robots. Some toys did depict actual humans on the box, which were either only female or male. Other then that, normally the toys that seemed gender specific were mixed up together.

4/19/2019

This chapter was about femininity and how it’s ties to appearance. Even at a young age girls are taught that appearance is what’s important. They are looked upon by boys and other girls; adding social pressure. If a young girl does not have the right clothes or a naturally pretty face they get bullied. Guys will judge the girl, even going as far as announce their opinion about said girl. The schools help push this feminine standard on it’s young female students. A school called Woodview wanted all the cheerleaders be very attractive all the time. Cheerleading is a very gymnastic sport that can put a lot of physical strain on a person. When the school was hosting tryouts they informed the girls about the scoring. The students had to keep a smile at all times, not be fat, and keep their hair neat while doing the cheerleader performance. The school did allow some fat students on the team, but told them that they had to go on a diet to stay on the team. The school was perpetrating sexist stereotypes that made females seem as objects. This type of message would stay with them, making them very anxious about their appearance. This kind of treatment only prepares them for the time when men will view them as sex objects. For me, I had a friend who didn’t care about femininity. She was a tomboy, and her parents showed no concern for it. She also seems fine social wise at school; or it was hidden well.

4/19/2019

This chapter is about sex, gender, and social expectations. What is sex? Sex is a social construct based on biological factors. Gender is similar to sex, but is based on cultural factors. I’m today’s society gender comes with expectations/rules that are expected to be followed. For example, a color is assigned to you based on you sex/gender. Blue is normally for boys, and pinks is normally for girls. What a child is mislabeled by someone, the parent(s) will correct the person in a somewhat aggressive way. The parent(s) will assume that the person is stupid or the clothing/activity that cause the misconception is at fault. What eventually comes for us all is masculinity or femininity. The chapter talked in a view of a young boy growing up. The chapter went over how boys are suppose to be tough, loud, rude, dirty, and violent. While girls had to be dainty, clean, quite, and polite. Boys are suppose to have it easier than girls since there isn’t as many restrictions. Even when the mother tells them to not do some or to be safe, the boys get a pass. The only time a boy gets harsher treatment is when the parent(s) want to show them off. The book goes on to describe how boys have to eventually put on a kind of “act” for girls. This “act” normally takes place during teenage years; being hormonal and all. Goes on into adulthood, and how they use outlets as escape methods. Since men have to act more “feminine” around women, they escape through sports, or other “manly” activities. That’s pretty much the entirety of the book, I feel like the book was a little biased. I’m the chapter, a male seems to be a stereotypical male from the 1950s/60s. The male described was a tough as nails male who didn’t want to “act like a woman” would. They would do manly things, and criticize other males who didn’t meet the masculine expectations. The representation of the mind of a typical male seemed to have been picked out of biased views. Yes males did think like that at one point, but it’s roughly been decades since that stereotype was true.

4/19/2019

There is only one time that I can recall when I was socialized into my gender. I was in third or fourth grade, and I was at some event in the library. What happened was my friend Nathan notice the game I was playing. The game was a Dora the explorer game, which is considered as a “girls” game. He announced what game I was playing, and I received ridicule for it. The ridicule was so bad at the time I mostly stopped playing it. The game wasn’t my favorite, but I liked it because it was a simple game to waste time on. On the rare occasion that I would play it I would hide it to not been seen. What really pushed me to that length was the embarrassment I received back then. To this day I will not play it, I may have even thrown it out in the past.

4/17/2019

What is beauty? Beauty is a social construct based on racist and sexist norms from the past. When searching up “beauty” you will mostly see pictures of thin white women. Beauty is normally associated with feminist, even though handsome, attractive, etc mean the same. What’s interesting about beauty is how some traits may seem good on one race but not another. For example, a white man who seems strong is very attractive. While a man of color would be seen a criminal/hooligan. That racist ideology gave birth to skin lightening produces; normally market towards women. Another characteristic of beauty is a person’s body shape. The beauty norm is normally a white Woman who is very thin. That is considered beautiful because of the time we currently live in. Right now you have multiple media outlets advertising those beauty standards. Originally dove would shown white, thin women on their advertisements. More recently however, dove has started a campaign where they show more realistic standards of beauty. They started that kind of advertisements to simply make money off of a movement. What they are doing is feeding into the movement, saying how their products will help people achieve their standard beauty. Dove won’t try to make you into a model, but maybe that’s a good thing. I’m today’s modeling world people of color are still discriminated against. Just like beauty, the modeling world sees people who are white and extremely thin as “true beauty”. What happens is people of color are seen as uncivilized or improper. The results in the modeling industry being composed of mostly white women. In 2014, 80 percent of models were white, only 20 percent were nonwhite. This type of discrimination is what pushes movements like the standard beauty movement. I haven’t experienced any type of discrimination for beauty, but I am a man with a light brown skin tone. Like said before, discrimination normally happens towards women of color.

4/17/2019

This chapter is about sex, gender, toys’ socialization of gender, and parents control over toys. Some people get confused when it comes to sex and gender. They think that it’s one in the same, but they are different. Sex is a social construct that’s based on biology. Gender is a social construct based ok culture. For example, humans normally have genitalia found on a specific “sex”. While for gender, some cultures like the Native Americans will have more than two genders. Next comes the socialization of said sex/gender. Socialization of sex/gender is loosely being stereotyped based on your sex/gender. For example, a boy’s parents might tell him that playing with dolls is a girls thing and to play with trucks. The reason why he should play with trucks is because it’s a boy thing to do. In society we learn many things from our parents like manners, but we also learn sex/gender from them. Some early signs of gender socialization is what toys you can play with. Normally they tell boys they can’t play with toys that have pastel colors, or are seen as feminine. This means that the toy is nurturing/caring, or has any other “feminine” characteristic. Toys are also advertised by sex/gender, either by color or by the actors themselves. Parents also play a role by allowing the kids what toys they can play with. For example, a boy was playing with his sisters dolls when the dad came home. The dad saw it and was disgusted by the sight. He immediately made the boy stop playing with the dolls and bought him trucks to play with. We all experience sex/gender socialization at one time or another.

4/15/2019