This week's readings focused on gender norms, socialization, and gender identity. I found the readings to be very intriguing. The articles that I would like to discuss are: What's So Bad About A Boy That Wants to Wear a Dress? By Ruth Padawer and Forcing Kids To Stick To Gender Roles Can Actually Be Harmful To Their Health by Tara Culp-Ressler. As well as the research summary provided by Barrie Thorne, “Girls and Boys Together... But Mostly Apart”.
I have always viewed gender as a confusing element of our society and know that it is something that is very socially constructed. I never thought of people that fit into the gender binaries as performing or not actively wanting to fit into a particular role until the information was presented …show more content…
It was never assumed that the boy was a bully and it was also always assumed that the individual teasing me was heterosexual. Society not only creates heteronormative rules but creates stigma for biological males that wish to gender bend. Padawer (2012) shows the stigma that males experience in the article What's So Bad About A Boy That Wants to Wear a Dress? In the article Alex a gender fluid child experienced great stigma, as Alex wanted to wear a dress to school. Alex's parents seemed aware of this stigma, so much so, that they emailed the parents of Alex's school to attempt to reduce it. They informed the other parents that Alex "has been genderfluid for as long as we can remember, and at the moment he is equally passionate about and identified with soccer players and princesses, superheroes and ballerinas (not to mention lava and unicorns, dinosaurs and glitter rainbows)" (Padawer, …show more content…
If Alex chose to wear masculine clothes as we have the title of "tomboy" which heterosexual cisgender females often identify with Alex would be fine (Padawer, 2012:4). As Thorne mentioned, "boys are more stigmatized for crossing gender binaries". Males that are gender fluid or cross gender binaries are assumed to be homosexual, even when that's not always the case. Padawer states," The studies on what happens in adulthood to boys who strayed from gender norms all have methodological limitations, but they suggest that although plenty of gay men don’t start out as pink boys, 60 to 80 percent of pink boys do eventually become gay men. The rest grow up to either become heterosexual men or become women by taking hormones and maybe having surgery"(Padawer,
I have always viewed gender as a confusing element of our society and know that it is something that is very socially constructed. I never thought of people that fit into the gender binaries as performing or not actively wanting to fit into a particular role until the information was presented …show more content…
It was never assumed that the boy was a bully and it was also always assumed that the individual teasing me was heterosexual. Society not only creates heteronormative rules but creates stigma for biological males that wish to gender bend. Padawer (2012) shows the stigma that males experience in the article What's So Bad About A Boy That Wants to Wear a Dress? In the article Alex a gender fluid child experienced great stigma, as Alex wanted to wear a dress to school. Alex's parents seemed aware of this stigma, so much so, that they emailed the parents of Alex's school to attempt to reduce it. They informed the other parents that Alex "has been genderfluid for as long as we can remember, and at the moment he is equally passionate about and identified with soccer players and princesses, superheroes and ballerinas (not to mention lava and unicorns, dinosaurs and glitter rainbows)" (Padawer, …show more content…
If Alex chose to wear masculine clothes as we have the title of "tomboy" which heterosexual cisgender females often identify with Alex would be fine (Padawer, 2012:4). As Thorne mentioned, "boys are more stigmatized for crossing gender binaries". Males that are gender fluid or cross gender binaries are assumed to be homosexual, even when that's not always the case. Padawer states," The studies on what happens in adulthood to boys who strayed from gender norms all have methodological limitations, but they suggest that although plenty of gay men don’t start out as pink boys, 60 to 80 percent of pink boys do eventually become gay men. The rest grow up to either become heterosexual men or become women by taking hormones and maybe having surgery"(Padawer,