Gender Roles.
One of the benefits of being a non-traditional student is that I take a lot of online classes, and online classes often have online discussions. This gives me a great opportunity to work on my writing and communicating effectively through my writing. (It also gives me the opportunity to critique and rip apart other students' lack of writing skills. Is it really that hard to write "are you" instead of "R U"? For God's sake this is a college course!)
Tonight I had to answer the question: How did you acquire your gender views, and to what degree are you satisfied with them? Here is my reply:
Wow. Um. My parents have very traditional gender roles to some extent. My mom stayed home, made meals, changed diapers, cleaned, went to school conferences, etc. My dad worked, and disciplined once in awhile. I was lucky to have two college educated parents who saw value in teaching their six kids critical thinking skills. Dinner time was family discussion time and I learned at an early age to examine my limited boxed view of the world and discard anything that didn't work. This fostering of openness to challenging myself was the foundation for later change in my view of gender roles. When I went to college right out of high school I got a work placement in the University Women's Center. This position opened my eyes to a whole new sea of views about women and gender and sexuality. Without this experience it may have taken me a lot longer to get to where I am today. I dropped out of college and eventually went to massage school where I met a lot of modern day hippies and empowered (and sexual) women. After massage school I met my husband, a liberal feminist who studied women's studies in college. All of these things helped to collaborate my view on gender and gender roles. AND with that, I am very satisfied with how I stand on gender roles.
So, are "Wow. Um." just as bad as "R U"... not sure. I guess I was going for the communicating effect. Like I just was asked this question in an interview and just had to follow it with "Wow....um...." ...Touche.
Tonight I had to answer the question: How did you acquire your gender views, and to what degree are you satisfied with them? Here is my reply:
Wow. Um. My parents have very traditional gender roles to some extent. My mom stayed home, made meals, changed diapers, cleaned, went to school conferences, etc. My dad worked, and disciplined once in awhile. I was lucky to have two college educated parents who saw value in teaching their six kids critical thinking skills. Dinner time was family discussion time and I learned at an early age to examine my limited boxed view of the world and discard anything that didn't work. This fostering of openness to challenging myself was the foundation for later change in my view of gender roles. When I went to college right out of high school I got a work placement in the University Women's Center. This position opened my eyes to a whole new sea of views about women and gender and sexuality. Without this experience it may have taken me a lot longer to get to where I am today. I dropped out of college and eventually went to massage school where I met a lot of modern day hippies and empowered (and sexual) women. After massage school I met my husband, a liberal feminist who studied women's studies in college. All of these things helped to collaborate my view on gender and gender roles. AND with that, I am very satisfied with how I stand on gender roles.
So, are "Wow. Um." just as bad as "R U"... not sure. I guess I was going for the communicating effect. Like I just was asked this question in an interview and just had to follow it with "Wow....um...." ...Touche.
posted by Rachel at 10:08 PM
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