Post #7: Gender

Hello out there. It's Justin back again, and I've been thinking a lot about gender for the past couple of weeks ever since we started the new unit in sociology. To me, gender is a lot more than just outside looks or behaviors. I think that gender should be seen as more of a choice of lifestyle. When I think of gender, my mind goes immediately to a person I work with, who happens to be gay. While some people may be uncomfortable with this, I find her to be one of the nicest girls that I work with. This just shows an example of how some people may not be totally secure with their own gender, which in turn influences other people about their gender. Another problem that was shown through sociology was the influence that the media plays on gender in America, both male and female. The video Killing Us Softly really showed me how much pressure is put upon girls to look and dress a certain way. Being a man, this really gave me a new perspective on what it is like for the women to go through their daily lives. We also saw the video Tough Guise, which opened my eyes to how much I as a guy am influenced by what I see in the media. I do play some violent video games and watch shows with mature content, but I never realized how much I am influenced by my surroundings to engage in that kind of media, but when I watched the video, I came to terms with how much of my media comes from a predetermined stereotype. This unit in general really opened my eyes to the plight of how some people face their gender, whether they be male, female, gay, straight, etc. I found it to be not only powerful, but also made me think more about how I go about my own life.