taking off my face

From the time that I was very little I have always been known as very girly. When given this assignment I began to wonder is this something that I had chosen or was this something that was forced on to me. My mother always instilled in not only myself but my siblings as well that we should always try to look our best and always look presentable. I grew up with a fear that if I didn't look my best I would feel insecure and ashamed about myself. For the assignment I decided to take the way I present myself to the outside world down a notch. Everyday I'm use to wearing makeup, straightening or curling my hair, and making sure that my clothes are ironed. When I woke up Saturday morning I brushed my teeth and proceeded to take a shower once I got out I threw on some over sized sweats and put my hair up in a messy bun. Before I left my bedroom I looked and myself and I felt a bit disgusted without the makeup on looking in the mirror I seen an exaggerated image of myself. I seen the dark circles from not getting enough sleep at night, I seen the marks acne left on my cheeks, without my hair fixed I felt like a mess and with out the clothes I'm use to wearing I felt a overall nakedness. As I proceeded to go down stairs both my mom and sister gave me a odd look it's not like they had never seen me like this but because they were in shock that I was going to go outside looking like I was. Walking around I felt very uncomfortable like I didn't belong. I was hoping that I wouldn't see anyone that I knew because I was ashamed of my appearance. When my boyfriend seen me he was a bit surprised but also happy in a way because he said I looked comfortable and it must be so easy to just throw anything on but in my mind it wasn't it took a lot to let go and try this out. I noticed that as the day went on I felt a little anxiety from this activity and I had to go home and change my clothes only then did I feel comfortable. Reflecting on this I realize that some things need to change and even though it will take time hopefully I will get there one day.

-Janaine

Gender Norm Activity

Gender Norm Activity

Pamela Murillo
September 9, 2009
Gender activity

Gender Activity Behavior

A behavior that I chose to change which is not normative to my gender is the way I sit down. I usually sit with my legs crossed like most girls do, but this time I chose to sit down with my legs open wide, and if I was not physically doing something with my hands, I would put my elbows on my knees while sitting down with my legs wide open. This is a normal behavior for most guys; therefore it is totally acceptable by society seeing a man sitting this way. I practiced this behavior while I was at work, and all my coworkers kept on looking at me in a funny way, some of them asking me if I was ok. I tried to act normal as if I always sit that way, but every women and men thought it was weird and kept looking at me in a strange way.
Doing this made me feel so uncomfortable since I don’t normally sit that way. I did it for a whole day at work, and it was very interesting seeing people’s faces while passing by and seeing me sitting in that position. I guess society is already used to seeing a women sitting with their legs crossed and in a more fashionable manner, so when they see the opposite happening they start to feel uncomfortable.

Gender Norm Activity

*Names used in the following post have been altered very slightly in sake of privacy.

Since the assignment was "gender norm" as opposed to "self norm", the task was pretty easy. I'm the biggest lady dude you'll ever meet. I could walk around in a little dress, heels, and make up, while spitting and burping in public. I have no shame in releasing whatever I have to, to maintain homeostasis haha.

So for the most part, I'm usually hanging out with guys and for class, I experimented on a fairly new group of friends. I always pop a squat whenever the circumstances need me to, but this group hasn't seen it yet. The first time I did it, we were all walking to my soccer mom minivan and I yelled, "Is there anyone around? No? Good. Look out for me." They were all confused and walking towards me. At this point, I already had my pants and undies down, watering the grass. Once they reached me, I was done and they had dumbfounded looks on their faces. One of them, Mikael, said "Did you just pee here? Ew, I'm more ladylike than you." I just giggled.

The second incident was another night, when I took one of them home to Brooklyn and bought Philly Cheese Steaks. Once we reached the neighborhood, I ran in between two cars, pulled Alex and Jack together to block the view from traffic. "Stay there! Wrap your arms around each other! Don't move!" I yelled. Once again, they were confused, and I assumed the position and let it rip. Haha, this time, I splattered and they got my urine on them. I wasn't done, so they had to stay there and they were shrieking like little girls. Eric, who was a good 10 feet away from me walked back and asked, "Did you just pee?" "Yup" "Damn girl I heard that shit from the corner, I thought it was a hose." "Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go." "Good job."

This assignment was fun because I took something I always do, and for the first time, actually analyzed the reactions of those around me. When me and my close girlfriends gotta go together, it's nothing new. We "do as boys do" like compete with duration and quantity, we try to write our names and stuff like that.
-Jeunesse

She's a Man by Oluwatoyin (Grace) Mabadeje

“Girl, are you okay? What are you doing with that jobless loser? Look, if you're having trouble finding a good man I can hook you up"........ These and many more despicable words were the words coming out of my girl friend's mouth because I decided to trade places with my boyfriend. It was the first time my friends were meeting him and boy, was he not the one for me because his behavior towards me was normative for his gender.
Last Saturday, my girlfriends told me that we needed to make time to hang out since we had not seen one another since school started. So we decided to go to the movies with our boyfriends. The last time we saw each other I was the only one who did not have a boyfriend among all of them. But we talked on the phone and I told them about the guy I was talking to who became my boyfriend about a week before we went to the movies. They were all eager to meet him but to their surprise, he appeared to them as if I were his babysitter.
When we got to the movie theater, while their boyfriends held the door for them, I held the door for my boyfriend. When we bought the tickets for the movie, I paid for him and myself. They were shocked but they could not say what they had in mind at that point in time. After the movie, we went out to eat at a local restaurant. Once again, I paid for our food and even pulled out the chair for him to sit down. At this point, my girls could not take it anymore and one of them sarcastically said, “Grace, you‘re such a gentleman I didn’t know your boyfriend was a woman”. I just giggled because I did not want them to know my game plan. One of my friends suggested that we cut the date short because she just could not stand my boyfriend.
When I got home, I had nine missed calls all from my friends. They couldn’t wait to tell me all about how much of a jerk my boyfriend was because I paid for our date. They assumed he did not have a job and that was why I was paying for everything. I had to break it to them that it was just an assignment and that my boyfriend actually gave me the money we spent. We ended up laughing about the whole thing.

"Feminism Is for everybody"

Despite the general muttering of the class how the book is so very repetitive, I personally found it rather revolutionary. It is kind of like Marx’s The Communist Manifesto. Only that instead of “Workers of the world, Unite!” it is more like “Women of all races, classes, religions and sexuality unite into a one strong sisterhood!”
When I was reading this Hooks’ sentence:
We all knew firsthand that we had been socialized as females by patriarchal thinking to see ourselves as inferior to men, to see ourselves as always and only in competition with one another for patriarchal approval, to look upon each other with jealousy, fear, and hatred.
I became aware that this type of stingy sentiments and behaviors are the lot of the dominated. I was reminded how my grandmother and mother pitied the comportment of their compatriots, who were busy harming and jealousing their neighbors’ success. They would only compete against each other, instead of the foreigners that were in reality exploiting them. Only now I understand that these people were socialized in such way, so that their collective spirit was completely destroyed. This is a sad thing to become aware of, but there are multiple levels of insecurities and deep ingrained misguided beliefs that occurred through wrongful socialization, and which keep on getting more pilled up with each additional matrix of domination. We truly need to change the whole system our society is based on. Maybe the thing to start the change with is something we give immense importance to, money and capitalism. Without wanting to sound socialist or anything, I feel that in this society we don’t have time to be kind or caring, because we are busy making money to survive or just to collect as much as wee can. We just don’t have time to stop and look around; we are constantly in a race against one-an-other.
This book is good not only for the feminist cause, but also to eliminate colonialist spirit of exploitation, racism and social injustice, and it calls people to lead lives of more mutual care and understanding. I really liked it. Michelle

gender norm

Since I had some free time on my hands, this Labor Day morning, I called up a friend and asked her if she wanted to join me and my daughter to a trip to the Central Park Zoo. It appeared to me as a good opportunity to try out that gender norm activity assignment. I remembered that one of the female gender norms I was constantly nagged with while growing up, and which always seemed to be so unreachably eluding and painstakingly difficult to attain, the one that claims that women are supposed to be sweet, graceful and nurturing. I could challenge this stereotype with some added exaggeration and embellishments, and at the same time try to forget that I am often lacking these expected feminine traits, which is pretty much on a daily basis. So I put my most “manly” looking pair of pants and a rather large t-shirt. No makeup of course, and we were ready to set off to the park. The exterior had to match the inner convictions. To avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings I decided to avoid keeping my intentions secret from my friend. I made her aware that I was going to behave in an authoritarian manner, and she only had to go along with it. I was going to be the undisputable boss this day. Since we are in New York I was sure that people were going to be unsurprised to this kind of extravagant displays of strange behaviors. So… despite the fact that no one seemed to be raising their eyebrows I was feeling as if I was doing something criminal, as if I was a fraud. I was pretty much sure too, that the old lady sitting across of us in the subway was thinking we were a lesbian couple which came by a child in some doubtful manner. I guess in general peoples’ reactions and responses to us were rather nonchalant and non-involving. It was rather the way I was judging myself that made me think that it was me, who despite my perceived openness of mind, was still looking through a lens of gender socialization. It was I who judged women, sometimes correctly, sometimes wrongly to be more feminine or more masculine, but kind of always within the norms of this society. If I had seen a couple of females, in a similar situation I was trying to replicate, and one of them was more feminine and the other had been displaying masculine characteristics I would have most probably speculated similarly like the lady in the subway that we must be a couple. Furthermore, without being able to restrain myself, I would have broken my head trying to figure out how this unconventional couple came to have a child. On whether it was adopted or conceived by either of one of the women. It was a lesson for me to be aware of stereotypes and preconceived ideas that might quietly sneak up into our minds by the unformulated radiations of social norms.
Dolgoon (Michelle)

Gender Norm

I always had a conflict with the word gender norm. Is their any true gender norm in today’s world? Isn’t sex enough to make a distinction among the two type of human being? Why is it that we have to have a significant gender role?

I was never in my gender norm because I have always been a tomboy. Since as far as I recall, my school memory, I have had pants and shirts on all the time. During my junior high to high school period I was a complete tomboy.

I still don’t understand how men could be so different than women by their gender!

When I started to wear skirt and blouse I received comments like, “Now she looks like a woman,” or “Now finally she is a she.” My reaction was something like I have always been a woman. When I wore pants and shirts I was a woman and when I started to wear skirt and blouse I am still a woman. I don’t think a woman could get more woman than what she is biologically born with.

This weekend I put on a dress and some makeup and went to hangout with my friends. Their reaction was, “nice Saima, you are looking nice.” I said, “Thanks ladies,” but in the back of my mind I knew what they were really commenting on. They really wanted to say, “Girl you look like a woman.” I think the image, of an ideal gender norm, for a woman is to catch a good man whose slave she will become later in life.
I enjoy wearing a dress as much as wearing pants. I usually wear pants because I could move around in it more quickly and carelessly. In a dress I would have to be a little gentler with myself. I have to admit that the easy breezy air is something I don’t get when I wear pants but my reactions of wearing a dress is; I guess as the society labels as lady like. For me attire is something that gives me comfort and for that if I am labeled as deviant in the society then let it be. I think that age has passed where a woman would be beneath a man. In today’s time a woman is as equal as a man in every way; unless whatever is our boundary biologically.