Being a millennial, growing up in my generation has put us in the situation where we had an extensive understanding of what a man “should” look like or what a woman “should” look like. We also grew up in a time where it was learnt later on that there are people in our lives that love women, men, or both regardless of our genders. In university, we are now learning more prominently about how gender actually works in our society today and trying to disassociate it with what we had been taught about the subject throughout our childhoods. Some of the narratives we tend to apply to society would be the idea that the mother is to stay home with the children, cook, and clean while the male is to go out and work. As well as the idea that hard labour jobs are primarily a man’s job. Watching the film Straightlaced gave an in depth perspective on how gender roles are dominantly shown through outlets such as how people dress, what sports they play, and what kind of hobbies they like to do.
It is incredibly important to disrupt these gender binary ways of viewing our society in order to create a diverse and safe environment for everybody living within. If the environment is somewhere we can celebrate diversity without fear of backlash or discrimination, it will support a happier and higher quality of life. The world is evolving everyday whether people like it or not so I believe it is our jobs as future educators to practice disrupting these binary to allow ourselves to create a welcoming and accepting learning space for all of our future students.
To undo gender in my daily life would mean that I would be presented with all of the same opportunities and treated with the same level of respect from other men. Undoing gender would also leave me with the opportunity to explore different fashion or hair styles that would stray from my “girly” look. Undoing gender in our society could potentially give non-binary people the feeling of equality, and also present them with the all of the same opportunities they may feel they are restricted from due to how gender affects our society. The gender binary myth can be unsettled in our community by creating a curriculum that is available to the public explaining how non-binary people can be potentially effected by unwillingness to adapt to new social norms, and give people who are not in school a general understanding of how they can help undo these gender specific actions or roles.
12 Comments
jdr198
Good morning Christia, first off I want to say how much I love your blog and how much work you must have put into it. It is very appealing to the eye. I think you executed your blog post, so well and it was a very educational read. Growing up with a very traditional dad, in my household it was “pink” and “blue” jobs. But as a Gen Z I fought and still fight for that equality in my house. I refuse as a women to stay home to cook and clean. I also wanted to go into welding but I got told many time that it was a “mans” job and so I gave into the social norms and went into something else. I love education but, sometimes I wish I would have beat the social normative of women. The more times I think about how people told me I could not do something because of my gender the more mad I get at myself for just following what society said I had to do. How you said “The world is evolving everyday whether people like it or not” is such a powerful statement. I know in some elementary schools if the teachers want to educate their students on the LGBTQ+ community they have to get a parents signature, do you agree with this or do you think that this should just be written down in the curriculum for students to learn? Wrapping up honestly I just wish our society was more educated on these types of topics to help the world, I think people would be better citizens if they were more accepting and had the will to learn.
cfj986
Thank you so much for visiting my blog, I am so pleased to hear that you like my set up. I want to start by letting you know my opinion on careers. You can always change! Humans were not born to only follow one path their whole life. You need to find something that fuels your passion and if that is welding I believe you shouldn’t put that one to rest. You can always try it in the future after teaching for a few years!
I completely disagree with needing a signature to participate in the education regarding the LGBTQ+ community. I agree with wishing our community was more educated on this topic, and that is why I believe that there should be an integrated curriculum, teaching children in health class.
I am in great hopes that with our generation’s approach to teaching, we will have a better handle on how to appropriately teach children of all ages about gender and sexuality.
Khol Williams
I enjoyed reading your article, it was nice to see how you used our generation as a comparison to older ones. It allows a reader to take perspective on how the world changes with each generation to come. It was also nice to see you compare sexuality restrictions alongside gender restrictions. Both still play a major role in a lot of people’s lives, from religion to even the area of the world they live in. The mention of clothing is also good to bring up since we are seeing a lot happen over social media outlets in regards to men wearing dresses (this is massively disrupting the gender norms). I urge you to explore any clothing style, even if they are more “boyish”, girls can rock anything, and a lot of male clothing is nicer material (and comfier!).
cfj986
Hi Khol! Thank you for reading my article.
I completely agree with your statement regarding fashion. I am more recently seeing a ton of new trends to be more gender neutral. The trends I am seeing now have a lot of models wearing baggier jeans with baggy graphic tees- fanny packs instead of purses, and more sneakers instead of heels. I am hoping with these new trends entering the women’s sections of clothing apps or online stores, it will make people transitioning less nervous to ease into buying clothing from those particular sections.
Jordan Hibbert
Thanks Christa for posting this! I think it is essential for teachers now and in the future to disrupt the gender “norms” of living. People need to feel safe in the environment they are living in without the fear of being judged because of what society deems as normal.
When you talked about how you wish you were presented with all of the same opportunities and treated with the same level of respect from other men made me think of a current situation happening in the world. I’m not sure if you heard but in the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament that is currently happening, the women teams are being treated unfairly compared to the men’s teams. The women were only given 10 yoga mats and a tree rack of dumbells, while the men get unlimited squat machines and all the weight they could wish for. In addition, the women are served a small plate of food at mealtime compared to the men’s teams who are getting served platters of food. It is absurd how poorly women get overlooked compared to men as even these big organizers are showing clear evidence of this.
In regards to your writing and creativity, I thought your post was fantastic. You had me engaged throughout the whole read. I made personal connections with your first paragraph because I also grew up where I was taught what a man “should” look like, and what a woman “should” look like. It was always, “boys go play with cars”, “girls play with barbies”. It was exactly following the “norms” of what gender “should” be. Furthermore, it was also university for me where I got a better understanding of how gender actually works in our society, and the ongoing issues people face. I appreciate how you wrote from sort of a teacher’s perspective of what to do. We as educators NEED to continue to disrupt the binary to enable our students a warm, welcoming, and accepting environment.
Overall great post! You will have to teach me how to add cool lettering such as your first letter “B” in the post!
cfj986
Hi Jordan! Thank you for reading!
I am a full believer that creating a safe, all inclusive learning environment for all my students is the key to their educational success. In order to create this desirable environment, it has to start with us as educators! There will always be struggle to fit in with society, however I have full hopes and dreams that with our upcoming generation of educators we will be able to start properly educating the younger generations on the topic of gender identity. I also have to believe that high school can be a crazy place where people want to fit in, but not with who they really want to be. I am hoping that as a future secondary teach, I can encourage students to pursue their own identity, and not what they think society wants.
Brandon Brown
Hi Christa you mentioned being a Millennial, but your bio would indicate that you are gen z. I grew up in-between the millennial years and gen z. During my schooling binary gender was obsolete, you were free to represent and be who you were born to be. In my high school we had LGTBQ social groups and pride celebrations all year. I agree with you that intensive labor jobs are primarily geared towards men. As someone who has worked in the trades before I know that if you can do the job no matter your gender you can have a job. But I also know how intimidating and uncomfortable it would feel to be only surrounded by men in a typical mans job. Since your high school do you feel that society has improved or gotten worse in regards to the acceptance of non binary gender? what in your eyes would it take to be completely undo gender?
cfj986
Hi Brandon! Thanks for visiting my page.
That is amazing that your high school was able to freely celebrate pride! Unfortunately, my high school made the efforts but students were still considered “outcasted”. Since my grade twelve year, coming from a place of privilege, I believe that society has gotten increasingly better at accepting each other, and standing up for one another. My younger sister who is now in grade twelve, seems to be able to hangout with who ever, dressed in whatever, and drive whatever without being judged. Just seeing how drastically different her high school years have gone compared to mine, gives me a glimpse of hope that things are evolving.
I believe that it is just very important to normalize the thought of there being more than just two genders, and breaking the stigma around the diverse community of genders.
Renjie Lu
Thank you Christa for your article. I enjoy this article very much. You mentioned breaking the social view of gender binary. I feel the same way. In my personal case, as a man, I was told by people around me that I should not spend too much time in the kitchen. Although cooking is my hobby, they think it should be a woman’s job (Fortunately, I did not agree with this social view of gender binary and chose to continue learning to cook as a hobby). You mentioned “undoing gender in our society could potentially give non-binary people the feeling of equality”, I think that is true. Because today, diverse genders have been integrated into life. We should not label a gender and tell you what to do. Thank you for your article, it was a great inspiration to me.
cfj986
Hi Renjie! Thank you for visiting my blog. I am glad that you enjoyed my article and that we can see eye to eye on many of these points.
AJC706
Hi Christa,
Very well written piece! I enjoyed reading your thoughts and opinions about this week’s discussion. As I was reading, you mentioned many intriguing points that are both an eye opener, as well as feelings of sudden realizations. As a future educator, you definitely have very direct thoughts regarding undoing gender binaries and I definitely agree with them. I believe that disrupting gender norms could be a part of our job description. When you said: “If the environment is somewhere we can celebrate diversity without fear of backlash or discrimination, it will support a happier and higher quality of life”, I couldn’t help but think of the future — how happy and better it would be if this could happen, so here is to hoping! In a couple of years from now after we graduate, your statement: “practice disrupting these binary to allow ourselves to create a welcoming and accepting learning space for all of our future students”, will definitely be part of my practice. Finally, you mentioned creating a curriculum that would be available to the public. I’m intrigued by what kind of curriculum you have in mind, especially regarding its accessibility. What kind of topics would be included and emphasized in the curriculum? Any specifics?
Great job!
cfj986
Hi! Thank you for reading my post, I am so glad you enjoyed.
I personally think that with the amount of education I’ve received regarding gender and sexuality over the past few months in ECS 102 has over come everything I ever thought I knew about the LGBTQ+ community. Prior to university, I struggled to even google find proper information regarding the topic of gender and diversity. I think it would be incredibly beneficial for the older generations that are raising children in this era to be able to access quality resources on the LGBTQ+ community that is credible indefinitely, and not just a random article they found on the internet. I think that having resources available for parents and adults to educate themselves could contribute to a more sensitive, accepting community.