Class 2: Influencers of gender in society

During the class today we talked about the various factors that influence gender roles in society. Things like parents, school and church influence and tell us what kinds of gender roles to undertake according to our sex. One of the most interesting things we talked about was how parents force certain roles onto their children according to their sex and keep them from performing certain activities based on the gender stereotypes.

Males feel inferior or judged as being gay if they want to do certain activities that are stereotypes for females; whereas if a female does a male activity, she isn't judged as being gay but still is looked at as not as feminine or girly as other females. Also, while controversial, it is interesting to talk about how certain religions promote gender roles for the sexes and many times say that it is because that is what God wants. It would be interesting to look at these issues after having researched these religions further back in time.

First class thoughts

After finishing the first meeting as a class, I am very excited for the rest of the semester. The topics discussed in just the first day were very interesting to talk about and it was good to hear various opinions on the topics of gender, race and the media.

One of the topics that struck me as one the most interesting was the discussion of sex and gender and also about race and ethnicity. As far as sex and gender are concerned, I've always known there was a difference, but wasn't always necessarily sure what those specific differences were. It makes a lot of since that someone can be born physically a male (sex) and identify as a female gender. And vice versa.

Also, the topic of race and ethnicity is something I've always been very interested in. I know that race is more of a physical or biological classification and ethnicity is more of a culturally formed identification; but, in recent years the two labels have become more and more interchangable to many people. Most people don't even know there is a difference. I would be very interested in finding out more about these differences and how people of certain backgrounds and heritages identify themselves both racially and ethnically.

I have several friends who are slightly offended to be labeled as "Hispanic" in a racial category when it is actually their ethnicity. On a similar note, I know several people who identify as one sex but the opposite gender than society would stereotype them to be. So I think it is extremely important to learn and be informed as a media professionals about the differences in race and ethnicity and sex and gender. These topics are some I know I will be very interested in learning more about over the semester.

For the first assignment in class, we were instructed to go home and execute or perform an activity in the reverse gender stereotype than the gender we are. So, for my masculine gender stereotype, I grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom and told my boyfriend that I was going to go change my oil. He looked at me like I just said I was going to go fly to the grocery store instead of taking the car. He seriously thought I was insane. After I explained I was kidding and what the assignment was about, he laughed and said he knew something was up because he knew I didn't know how to change my oil (which is absolutely true). He also remembered that we had just changed my oil about a month earlier (which I had forgotten and goes to show how much I pay attention to when my oil even gets changed). It was still a very fun exercise, and the look on his face was totally worth it!