There
has been many times where I have heard or even witnessed with my own eyes
people being scolded for doing things outside of their gender. I myself have
dealt with it from my own parents but more so my dad.
I
am the youngest of three, and my older siblings are two girls. So growing up I
saw a lot of things that they would do and would want to do it myself. If I
came down to either playing outside with my sisters and their friends or either
doing some of the activities they were doing. As a child I didn’t see a gender specific role or activity
being preformed I just saw my sister having fun and I wanted to have that same
fun! My dad had no problem with me playing with my sister but when it came down
to doing other things like cheerleading and things like that my dad was so
against it.
I
will never forget this one time I went to my sister’s football game where she
was cheering her first game. I was so excited to see her on the field having
fun and apart of me wanted to be down there with her. I wasn’t paying that much
attention to the actual football game I just noticed that my sister was having
so much fun on the field with her squad.
When
we left the game I asked my mom could I join the team and she gave me the
strangest look and laughed it off. When we made it home I went to play with my
toys as usual then my dad came to me and told me we were about to take a ride.
As we were driving around the neighborhood my dad gave me a talk about how
cheerleading was a girl’s thing and I couldn’t be apart of it. I asked him why
and he just told me that it wasn’t made for me. So as a child I just understood
that cheerleading wasn’t for me and to just let it go. A couple weeks later I joined
a baseball team and loved every minute of it.
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ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting to read because it is a perfect example of socialized gender roles. I find it interesting that your father took you for a ride to tell you these that cheer-leading is not for you. This is an evident sign of the humanistic way of thinking all of us mostly have. Do not feel alone because my dad would have done the same thing to my brother. I like that you wanted to join the cheering team because it was outside of the social norm. When something is outside the social norm, it is interesting to see how people react to the shock of abnormality. You dads reaction is exactly what is expected in today's society. He could have been afraid of how other’s perceived your sexuality this early in life. Also, he could have been afraid of how something like this could have made him and your mother look. Unfortunately people have in their mind that it is strange for anyone to step outside of these male/female social constructions and binaries. Maybe you can change this social construction if you one day have a son.
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