Challenging Gender Roles and Categories

THIS WAS FOR A CLASS. The pervasive idea that males are inherently more dominant and aggressive, while females are naturally more docile and emotional, has been considered a fact for most of Western society's history. This conception of sexual parts being connected to personality is pervasive in our culture today, as it was in the past. People who deviate from this norm are scrutinized and often have trouble being accepted. All of this is contained within Western culture; stepping outside this bubble can lead to the dissolution of all those ideas which within Western culture are seen as facts.

In Western culture, men are viewed to be naturally dominant. This idea that being a woman somehow made me inferior, and that my penchant for non-traditional behavior made me even lesser of a woman than most, was chiseled into my brain at a very young age. The older I get, the more aware I am of how much these gender role ideals were forced into my own ideals through the hegemony of our own mass American culture. These ideals often conflicted with my very own life, and my sense of the people around me. My mom never shaved her legs, and when I was little I often felt shame when I saw her hairy calves sticking out from under her skirts. I also felt conflicted about the people who challenged gender roles within my own life. My parent's have always had many friends in the GLBT community, and although I loved them all and thought of them as wonderful, natural people; I still often took Ned's (my Mom's roommate when I was a toddler) heels and put them in my Mom's closet. This was hilarious for my mother and for Ned, since my mother has never worn heels and he wears them daily.
One way in which I have taken charge of my own ideals is through self-education. Yes, the higher education system too, but I believe it is through self-education that I have challenged my own pre-set ideas the most. Outside of institutional learning I have always been a student of life, and it is through the immersion in foreign places that I think I have grown the most as an individual.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• sex
• gender
• roles
• categories
• glbt
• gay
• rights
• liberation
• feminism
• women
• men
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• agta
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[GrimSoul66]

I would like to know who does this song aswel

[clockworkapol]

the group is called The Coup. They have a MySpace you can check out.

[GrimSoul66]

I wish i was a lion, I think they have it the best. :) I also think we inherit a lot of our veiws on gender from animals, if you understand evolution it makes sence.

[collegeguy2009]

i agree with the message on 3:03.

[jalil124]

man that was great.

[cherriesandicecream]

what is the song? very interesting!

[MartonoWinter]

good show

[DemystifyLife]

My Favorite Mutiny by The Coup ft Talib Kweli and Andre 3000, Black Thought...

[DemystifyLife]

Loooooved this

[DemystifyLife]

"My Favorite Mutiny"

by the Coup (feat. Black Thought & Talib Kweli)