Society's Expectations

For years I've heard about how girls are pressured by the media to look or act a certain way, but I never thought boys were under the same kind of pressure. All we hear is girls have to be skinnier, taller, prettier, have straight hair, have curly hair, have this, have that, do this, do that. But honestly how often do we hear these kinds of things about a guy? A lot less often, but its still there, we just don’t recognize it as much. Girls always talk to each other about how they feel and what they hate and want to change and magazines even show us how to do that, but you never hear guys saying "I need to be tougher" "I need to be stronger"....they think this and act on it, but it isn’t as noticeable because they have been taught from birth that it isn’t ok to show weakness or sensitivity even in the form of words. So why girls make their fears much more obvious and show that they are miserable by peoples expectations, guys are much more quiet about it and so the effect on them is subtle, but its there. They are constantly told they need to be tough and that has so many negative connotations. If you watch today’s media you see boys portrayed as violent criminals, but always with respect. They fight and go to jail with the admiration of their peers, because in movies their actions are always justified. So in real life guys try to find justification for their actions too. Is it ok to have a gun? Yeah of course because that’s an action of a man! What if it’s not safe? A real man can handle it. There is always an excuse for everything because just like us girls have been taught that everything is ok in the pursuit of beauty, guys have been taught that everything is ok in the pursuit of respect. It starts for them from birth as well. I have a three year old brother and since he hit two every time he cries, while trying to appease him, I hear my mom, dad and grandparents saying, "Come on now, you're a boy, boys don’t cry". This bother’s me because he's little and also because I know how dangerous it can be for guys to bottle up their feelings because they don’t think its ok to share them, I have a friend who kept everything and it blew up in his face, I cant say more, but it ruined so much for him, just because he was taught to keep everything inside. It’s not always possible for a guy to be extremely strong, smart, active, and brave, all at the same time anymore then it is for all girls to be a size 00, it is for some, but not all.

Gender Roles

This week in class we talked about many different aspects of today’s society, but I found gender roles to be one of the more interesting ones. A chart was put on the projector of what girls and guys are expected to act like. It said girls should be dumb and weak, but pretty. Guys should be strong and smart and attractive based on their achievements.  It looked like something made in the fifties. Because back then the girl stayed home and cooked for her husband and did nothing else with her life. These were the values of society back then. I didn’t think that they were society's values now but we were told its still sometimes speculated that they are. I hate that I really do. Because thoughts like these are the reason women still make 15 cents less for every dollar a man makes at the same jobs. Not only that but they lead to the objectification of women, because they supposed to be protected by men, so men can do whatever they want. It all infuriates me because I am a Krav Maga fighter and in being so I am by no means weak. I don’t need to be protected and in Krav I get the same respect as a fighter as any of the guys there. So labels like weak bother me because they are so far from the truth. I have guy friends and not all of them are strong or extremely smart, but no one cares. Just like no one should look to girls to be weak, pretty, bimbos.

Socialization

So far this unit we have been talking about socialization. One lesson that really intrigued me was the one about isolated children. I already knew that we are shaped by our environment, since that was the main focus of most of our lessons so far this year, but this lesson stuck out to me. I didn’t think that without nurturing children could come out to be mentally disabled; never did it cross my mind that a child could be born normal, and due to not being given proper attention would change mentally. If asked before I would have said that these children are probably handicapped socially, but I would think that they are fully capable mentally. Environmental factors, in all our lessons, seemed to only affect social behavior (like that lady that left her baby outside in a stroller in a restaurant in New York). That is why this whole idea of idea of isolated children stuck to me so much. It’s a scary fact to think that there are people out there horrible enough to ignore the basic needs of their children, much less that these people could end any hope their child could ever have of leading a normal life. It’s horrifying that because they are who they are, they can ruin the lives of what would be normal, healthy human beings. I babysit a lot and I’ve never been ion a house where a child didn’t have heaps of toys and books; everything possible for the child to develop into a healthy member of society. Obviously I knew that abuse existed but this is so far beyond child abuse it’s almost sickening.

The Art of Doing Nothing

We had an assignment this week that asked us to go to a public place and just stand there and try to clear our minds. Doing nothing didn't seem like it would be too bad since most of us associate doing nothing with relaxing or being lazy. We are just supposed to stand there and think and do absolutely nothing. This proves to be excruciatingly difficult because it has become a part of our culture to use every minute to its optimal potential. Even relaxing requires setting aside a specific slot of time that we know we will relax in. While i was doing the nothing assignment i had trouble clearing my head, it just proved so hard not to people watch. I was almost tempted to look up at the sky just to stop my thoughts, but that would be counterproductive to the assignment. After doing the assignment i thought about how it reminds me of my little brother. He's 3 and he doesn't care when he's supposed to do what. He has spur of the moment decisions and just acts on them. I know this is because he's little, but it just seems to be such an easy and carefree lifestyle. Its the complete opposite of any American adult life, so consumed with time that the idea of putting something off or not doing it at all is far fetched because they just don't have the time to do it later.

Culture Shock

Of all the ideas we've learned this week the one that I took to the most was culture shock. This is when a person is submerged into a different culture and everything is strange to them and they aren’t sure how to act. The reason this stuck to me is because I experience it on almost a daily basis with my grandma. We moved from Ukraine 13 years ago and she lives with us. Everything I do she has to criticize because it seems weird to her. When I went to homecoming and had to get my date a flower for his lapel she was so beyond confused she thought was making it up. I used to think that because of globalization American culture had spread to most of the world, but that’s not completely true. The former Soviet Union and China would never have accepted such ideas and so some people will never understand us. So just like that lady who thought it was perfectly normal to leave her baby outside in New York, many people will experience culture shock as it is natural when you move from place to place.