Do clothes make the person? or how we feel by what we wear

When I was growing up I believed that boys only like things that can be violent or have people fighting and hurting each other like in sports or movies while girls only watched movies and shows that supported being friends and being nice and loving and sharing is the greatest thing in the world.  Now I realize that that’s not the case anymore, boys can watch shows that support love and sharing too if they want and some girls actually like seeing an action movie where a guy can just walk into a room and kill everyone in there. In Katrin Benhold’s article toys start the gender rift “Girls’ toys are often about beauty and the home, while toys for boys are mostly about being active, building things and having adventures,” I believed that and I followed that form of understanding and it turns out that boys can play with toys that deal with being at home and girls play with toys that deal with having adventures.

                Some boys also like to wear girl’s clothing too which is great because they are not segregating themselves based on their genders they are exploring the realm of the other gender, just like how some girls like to cut their hair shorter and wear t shirts and jeans and not wear a dress or a skirt every day.  When I was a child boys had their own lifestyles and girls had their own lifestyles and both were relatively different from each other. I went to school and wore more dark shades of blue, red, green, and black and mine had pictures of things I enjoyed like Spongebob and TMNT, while girls wore bright colors like pink, purple and yellow dresses with skirts and had flowers and ponies on them. Kids are now trying out new things that their gender doesn’t regularly do in Jan Hoffman’s can a boy wear a skirt to school? States that “a gay male student at a Los Angeles high school was crowned prom queen” which proves that it’s ok for someone to be different even if it’s not the standard way of things.

There is now a new group of boys to teenage adults who watch my little pony, they are called bronies. Bronies is a new growing fad that’s been causing more boys and teens to break the gender barrier, I know from experience I know at least 2 people who are self-proclaimed bronies. When I first found out one of my friends was a brony I was astonished that it hit so close to home. I was ok with it to the extent that they didn’t try to get me to watch the show which they didn’t. While guys are watching my little pony girls are expanding their horizons by reading comics, watching horror movies for the single purpose of seeing their favorite murderous villain kill people. My brother’s girlfriend enjoys horror movies for that exact reason.

Guys and girls are each exploring the activities, hobbies, and fashion styles of the opposite gender. Some guys and some girls feel that they should be the other gender so they get sex change operations and truly explore the other gender’s lifestyles. That’s for the people who go to the most extreme measures to truly feel happy and live a fulfilling lifestyle that appeals to them and those that feel just like them.  As a child I felt that my gender was part of who I am and my identity, now though it’s just a word, I am a boy but I like what I like although none of it happens to be associated with the female gender like when I was 8 I used to play with army men, star wars and superhero action figures and now I still do like star wars and superheroes but for other people it means a lot more to them.

In Benhold’s toys start the gender rift she explains that at a young age we are taught that boys have their own clothes and their own hobbies and girls have their own activities, and throughout the rest of our childhood and adolescence that perspective grows and becomes normal to us, and some stores like Hamleys in London have begun to peel back the gender segregation, and have their floors and their employees refer to the formerly labeled the boys department as the blue floor and the floor formerly known as the girls department is now the pink floor. It also explores how gender segregation expands into adulthood and shapes modern society in the areas of occupation and until a few decades ago rights. Benhold believes that if men take up careers in more women dominated areas then the salary for those jobs will surely be brought up to support the men in that career. Before reading the article I didn’t give it a second thought but now as I read it more and more I realize that she is onto something and may very well be right.

In Hoffman’s can a boy wear a skirt to school? She talks about how over the past few years teenagers have been either breaking through or at least pushing the boundaries of the standard perception of genders. I used to believe there was no point in challenging the boundaries because I was happy with the way I was living but more recently I have seen several of my friends challenge those norms they wear clothes that are more on the feminine side and are not excluded or exiled from the social groups as I had originally thought. I used to believe that boys would and should only wear pants or jeans or shorts but now it has become apparent that they can in fact wear skirts dresses or whatever feminine believed clothing that they choose for the sole purpose that it makes them feel happy and like their true selves.

What is Normal?

I’ve never thought a lot about the topic of gender. As society views it, I’ve always thought girls are one way and guys are another. In kindergarten, the girls would always play in the pretend kitchen or with the dolls and the guys would play with the trucks. That was the norm and it was how things always were. I have never been interested in anything outside the norm for my gender. I’ve always been interested in what girls are supposed to like, so I have not felt uncomfortable growing up. As I grew up I was given “girly” toys and that was what I would be interested in. I’ve never thought about what it would be like to not want to follow those norms and how that must feel. If you do not want to act how society assumes you should, you are automatically different. After studying the topics of gender, I’ve realized how much pressure society puts on you if you do not feel comfortable following your gender norm.

The article, “What’s So Bad about a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?” really made me think more in depth about the topic of gender. The approach of Dr. Kenneth Zucker is much harsher than that by transgender advocates and sympathetic clinicians. Dr. Zucker recommends parents to discourage any of their child's abnormal behavior. If parents followed his opinion they would have to take away any girly toys from their son and force him to play with trucks and masculine toys. I remember growing up I had two toys I could drive: my Barbie jeep and my truck. The truck was my favorite, but I would only drive it in front of my parents. If I was with friends I would drive the Barbie Jeep. I never realized what I was doing at a young age. I knew it wasn’t “normal” for me to like the truck better so I would only drive it in front of parents because I knew they wouldn’t judge me. If parents followed the second method, they wouldn't try to change who their child was, but they would teach him or her ways to deal with the reactions of other people. This method allows a child to be who they are, while teaching them how to manage people's reactions and opinions (Padawer 3). Even though people naturally want to protect the people they care about from difficult situations, you should never hold someone back from being who the truly are. Clearly, my parents made me feel comfortable being who I wanted to be, while society didn’t. It must be so hard for parents to decide how to approach the situation with their own child. Since trained professionals do not have a definite recommendation as to support your child's abnormal behavior or to discourage it, the decision as to how to react to your child's non-conforming traits is even more difficult. (Padawer 4)

There is a specific role you are expected to have in society based on whether you are a male or a female. Once a person is born, he or she is supposed to play with certain toys, act and dress a certain way depending on their gender. A lot of people are not accepting of obvious differences that people have. This makes it extremely difficult for parents, as the author believes, "tension between yielding to conformity or encouraging self-expression is felt by parents of any child who differs from the norm." (Padawer 7) The reason this tension exists is simple, parents want to protect their children. The only question that remains is: are parents doing the right thing? You can protect someone from society, but that also prevents children from being themselves. The author claims, "As much as these parents want to nurture and defend what makes their children unique and happy, they also fear it will expose their sons to rejection.” (Padawer 5) Often, parents that are open to gender non-conformity fear the effects it will have on their child's life. Society does not readily accept people that are considered "abnormal" and parents are hesitant to knowingly expose their children to that. My mother has always supported my brother and me, no matter what we were interested in. My brother is a college basketball player and I remember an instance that occurred last year. His team wore a lot of pink for a breast cancer awareness game. My grandmother had breast cancer and my brother really wanted to show his support and he bought pink basketball sneakers. The breast cancer game was over, but my brother wore his pink sneakers during another game. My mom was in the stands and overheard another parent making fun of his “girly” sneakers. My mom stood up for him and expressed it was for breast cancer and she immediately apologized. It amazed me that even though he was playing a masculine sport, he would be made fun of for what he was wearing. It also amazed me that the fact that it was for cancer made it justified. If he simply liked those pink shoes it would be socially unacceptable. My brother has always been masculine, but this instance really made me realize how harsh society is. If people avoid encouraging people to accept differences amongst each other, they will never be accepted. The best thing to do is to encourage difference in order for it to become the new "norm".

Society has cut out certain traits that pertain to gender. There have always been gender norms to follow and if one doesn’t, you are considered abnormal. I have never put myself in the situation of the people that feel that way. It must be unbearable to live in a society that doesn’t accept you for who you are. After reading more about the topic, I am much more sympathetic towards those who feel like they don’t belong.

The Unwanted Horse Problem and Why It’s Dangerous to Human Health

Sarah Balboni

Writing I, Gordon

Monday, December 17, 2012

The Unwanted Horse Problem and Why It’s Dangerous to Human Health

            When most people think of horses, they think of the pony rides at a childhood friend’s birthday party, the sport of king’s, or perhaps a childhood wish. If I were to say right now that somewhere in a quaint French restaurant a horse steak is being served, you may find it a little odd, but it wouldn’t upset you terribly. But if I were to bring up a street dog being served as dinner in Korea, you might find that barbaric. But horse slaughter is not just cruelty to horses, its cruelty to humans, plain and simple.

The Unwanted Horse Problem is what abandoned horses have become known as in the US. Since the closure of US slaughterhouses in 2006, horses have been turning up and deemed abandoned by authorities. Some pro-slaughter enthusiasts claim a correlation between the closure of slaughterhouses and abandoned horses, but Eckhoff offers a different solution.

There is no proof that anyone has released even a single horse because of a lack of slaughter… Horses may indeed be showing up, unaccounted for, across the U.S., but it’s just Jim Smith’s—and the pro-slaughter lobby’s—guess as to why. There could be many reasons: Job loss? Skyrocketing hay prices? Hole in the fence? The argument tying abandonment to slaughter is being used specifically because nobody knows where the horses come from. Nobody ever mentions the more likely motivation that someone might wish to avoid taking them to auction because they are afraid they will go to slaughter, or they are afraid their sorry condition will be seen and reported (WSJ serves up tainted journalism, 2012).

The pro-slaughter lobby uses the Unwanted Horse Problem (if there is one) as justification to lobby for the re-opening of US slaughterhouses to horses. Rescues may have full barns, but what rescue doesn’t? Perhaps if such people were more educated as to the future the slaughter pipeline holds for horses, they might be more opposed to it.

            Even non-horse lovers should be disgusted, the transport and slaughtering practices for horses are inherently cruel. Firstly, let’s discuss the transport of horses destined for slaughter. In 2006, slaughterhouses in the US were forced to close their doors to equines. The Mexican and Canadian borders remained open however, and thus transport practices for the horses were affected. Horses are often transported in double-decker cattle trucks, for over 24 hours at a time without food, water, or rest. The result is disturbing:

The livestock trucks were not designed to accommodate horses’ longer necks and legs and higher center of gravity. Put a horse in a cattle car, and it can’t stand upright. Imagine stallions packed in next to mares (in foal or with foals at their sides), the sick next to the healthy, all off balance, banging their heads, slipping and falling as they become more agitated, exhausted, dehydrated. Much of the resulting suffering—gouged-out eyes and gruesome head injuries, open fractures, broken legs and severed hooves, trampling and bleeding to death—has been documented by USDA photos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (Racing industry silent, 2011).

The cruelty stemming from transport could be easily regulated if the government were to step up and do so. Making the transport of equines in cattle trailers would be a start, as would mandated rest periods. The reason that horses suffer so much during transport is because it is cheaper for the kill buyers and slaughterhouses to treat horses as if they were cattle. And if the transport isn’t enough to cause outrage, the slaughtering methods will. Horses are not only transported like cattle are, they are killed as cattle too.

The kill boxes and stunning methods, too, ignore horses’ slimmer bodies and longer heads as well as their instinct to flight. Cows aren’t built for speed. Herd one into a kill box and they don’t have room to move. They’ll basically stand still. But kill boxes built for cows’ wider bodies leave horses room to thrash around, and, because they’re wearing shoes and the floors are slick with blood, there’s plenty of slipping and falling, making it very difficult for workers to get a clean shot. This is documented in nearly every hidden video [Warning: video is extremely disturbing] on horse slaughter now accessible online—and there are many.

Complicating matters, horse brains are located further back in their skulls, making them harder to knock unconscious even when a clean shot is delivered. Many regain consciousness within 30 seconds. As a result, too many end up getting shot repeatedly in the head and many are still conscious when hoisted by one leg, bled out and butchered. This is only how they do it in Canada, by the way. In Mexico, the horses are repeatedly stabbed in the spine with puntilla knives to disable them, then butchered fully awake.

They do this to all the horses—even foals, which is illegal. Compared to the slaughter of cattle, horse slaughter is relatively unregulated, and even the attendant laws to protect humans are routinely ignored. I’m talking specifically about those banning the use of carcinogenic drugs in livestock used for slaughter, such as Phenylbutazone (or “Bute”), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that racehorses are given as a matter of course…(Racing industry silent, 2011)

Screenshot from one of the undercover videos mentioned in the articles. (Retrieved from Forbes.com, see Appendix A)

            Any horse owner will argue that horses are vastly different from cattle. Dairy cows, while curious and endearing with their big brown eyes, lack the companionship qualities of a horse. Horses are used for therapeutic riding programs, and many horse owners will testify that even the most ornery of horses becomes gentle in the presence of a child or special needs person. How many of you would be willing to walk into a stable and pick out a child’s favorite lesson pony for your dinner? At some point almost every horse has been loved by a little girl, can the same be said for cattle?

            Gone are the days where horses are used to pull buggies or plow fields, today horse racing is referred to as the ‘sport of kings.’ The sport of kings they call it, with people making millions on expensive race horses that are treated as athletes. But how many of you recreational racing fans think about what happens to the horses after their racing careers are over? The trainers don’t make money by keeping has-beens as pasture ornaments, and thus many thoroughbreds are funneled into the slaughter pipeline (see Appendix B). With trailers arriving every Thursday to pick up the non-competitive horses to be auctioned off at auctions with misleading names, New Holland, Sugarcreek. Any horse can end up at an auction, but most have one thing in common

            Phenylbutazone, known as Bute in the horse industry, is a common non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. So common in fact, that 90% of American horses are treated with it at least once in their lifetime, race horses especially; race horses are often given Bute before and after each race. But the drugging of race horses has further implications within the slaughter industry.

This is alarming from a food safety perspective due to drugs that are banned in animals raised for slaughter but are regularly administered by horse owners and veterinarians, including common wormers, vaccines, diuretics and analgesics… Bute is a known human carcinogen. With no acceptable withdrawal period, even a single dose in any animal sold for meat is banned by the EU, FDA and USDA. And Bute is only one problem drug, among many (Horse slaughterhouse investigation, 2012).

Equine slaughterhouses were closed in the US in 2006, but that has not prevented horses purchased by kill buyers to be shipped over US borders. Recently in slaughterhouses in Canada were closed to US horses for a brief period of time because of this issue. But the lack of regulations in Mexico means that horse meat is not safe for consumers if purchased from Mexico. And until recently, Canadian horse meat was not safe either, and probably still isn’t.

            Racehorses are the only US horses required to have complete medical histories, but finding a race horse that has never been treated with Bute is nearly impossible. With all the thoroughbreds that end up on kill-buyer trucks heading to Canada, most horses are deemed unacceptable for slaughter. However, even the requirement of medical histories experiences its failures:

The CHDC’s report reveals troubling discrepancies and missing data on Equine Information Documents (EIDs), forms that are required by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to track the drug history of horses sold for slaughter, including more than 59,693 trucked in from the U.S. in 2010. (USDA figure)

EID documents examined by the CHDC contain missing and incomplete information on the horses’ previous owners or agents and misidentification of horses in accompanying photographs (Horse slaughterhouse investigation, 2012).

            Slaughter is not a solution for the unwanted horse problem; slaughter ideally requires horses to be drug-free. But for this to happen it would require horses to be bred just for slaughter, which leaves horses unfit for slaughter in limbo. It’s not as if horse owners will stop allowing their pet’s medial care just in case they end up on a slaughter truck one day. Not everyone considers horse slaughtering practices to be cruel, but even an idiot would agree that selling tainted meat is immoral. When most people think of cruelty to humans they think of domestic abuse, war crimes, etc. But you need to consider what you’re putting on your plate and the implications of doing so. “This one should be clearly labeled for what it is: unfit for human consumption (WSJ serves up tainted journalism, 2012).”

References

Ekhoff, V. (2012, December). Horse slaughterhouse investigation sounds food safety and cruelty alarms. Retrieved from Forbes.com.

Ekhoff, V. (2012, May). WSJ serves up tainted journalism on horse slaughter plate. Retrieved from Forbes.com.

Eckhoff, V. (2011, November). Racing industry silent about slaughtered thoroughbreds. Retrieved from Forbes.com.

Appendix A

 

This image shows a screenshot from one of the undercover videos mentioned in the articles (Retrieved from Forbes.com).

Appendix B

This image shows “Princess Madeline.” A former racehorse rescued from a kill buyer (Retrieved from Forbes.com).

Born and Raised

All my life I’ve been exposed to different types of people with different personalities and different outlooks on life. Growing up in New York, being exposed to a wide range of people who were straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, the “differences” amongst people, didn’t seem so different to me. Yes I thought it was strange but it wasn’t some foreign act I hadn’t seen before. I grew up in a household full of woman: my mother, my aunt and my sisters. Sharing a room with my sister, colors like pink and purple and pictures with ballerinas and princesses dominated our room. My mom wouldn’t have it any other way because that is how her parents raised her. Not noticing at the time, I was slowly getting shaped into the gender role game. 
   

Guys hear “man up” and girls hear “act like a lady”. Now, what does that really mean? What does “man up and act like a lady” really mean? Even though I never paid much attention to “gender roles”, I am now aware that sexism and stereotypes play a huge part in these roles we are so accustomed to see. Before reading articles such as, “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story” and “Toys Start the Gender Equality Rift,” I didn’t really think about gender issues. However, I now understand that these are serious issues people face everyday.

Such a story is told about a child who is brought up with the twist of not being born into a specific gender. In the story, “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story”, the child was known as Baby X. Baby X’s sex remained unknown to “society” throughout the whole story. Of course, with not knowing what sex this baby was, came many problems. While buying clothes for Baby X a problem occurred such as “everything in the store [being] piled up in sections marked ‘ Boys’ or ‘Girls’. There were ‘Boys pajamas’ and ‘ Girls underwear’ and ‘Boys fire engines’ and ‘girls housekeeping sets’”(Gould 1). In this instance, gender roles seem to come out. Boys are being related to have engines and girls are being related to having housekeeping gifts. These items are being bought for the child meaning that gender differences are started way before the child even knows what is going on. Although parents buy these items and blame society, I feel that the only people they should be blaming are themselves because we as a whole create society.

Another problem Baby X encountered was at school and the activities it wanted to be a part of. Baby X asked the boys to do “girl things” and vise versa. Because “It seemed as if other children would never want an X for a friend” (Gould 4), Baby X felt alone. The reactions of the other children were normal because that was not what they saw as “normal”. At the end of the story people become more accepting of Baby X and not knowing its sex although they did have many questions as to what it was. “ By the time X’s sex matters, it won’t be a secret anymore”(Gould 6). Just like the kids in the story, I too used to find it different seeing someone taking part of something usually seen by the opposite sex. When something isn’t of your norm, it strikes a thought in your mind because that is what you’re used to seeing. Seeing how the students in the beginning were not accepting of Baby X to changing their mindsets about it shows you how people adapt to change and just because something is different does not mean it is out of the element.  Gender gaps are the main problem in this. Just because one sex is seen to do something more than the other does not mean that that sex should not do what it wants.

An example of this can be shown in the newspaper article “Toys Start the Gender Equality Rift” by Katrin Bennhold. The article is about an incident that occurred in London at the famous Hamleys store when a woman was looking for a present for her niece in the new gender-neutral store (Bennhold 1). The article continues on about a neuroscientist named Laura Nelson who advocates about the gender differences in the store. “Girls toys are often about beauty and the home, while toys for boys are mostly about being active, building things and having adventures,” said Laura Nelson (Bennhold 1). I agree that most stores are based on gender and sex, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people do not believe that this is an issue more especially to those that do not associate themselves with a specific gender based on their sex. What I agree most with what Ms. Nelson claimed was that “some things have changed. Most girls these days do play with Lego, and some boys love their play stoves”(Bennhold 2). As a child I never really saw children playing with toys  “outside” their gender. Even if girls did ride on trucks, the trucks were pink and had Barbie on it. Back in the days, it was typically wrong to see a male with a toy stove just like it was wrong to see a female with a toy truck. Nowadays, it seems as if we are becoming more excepting of gender differences. 

Now, leading into the “man up” and “ act like a lady” aspect, Nelson has a better outlook on how this problem can be made soluble such as attracting women into engineering jobs and breaking down and making space for the caring male such as a nurse or a caregiver (Bennhold 3). In reading this, I learned that gender variances are not easily broken apart but if we gave the situation a chance to show that gender does not prove the abilities of what someone has to offer then we could all learn from each other and the differences would soon dissipate and will no longer be a rising issue.

In learning about the different standpoints on how gender and sex are perceived, I now realize that just because a correlation may exists between each other, does not mean that they must cause each other to do specific things. Just because you are born male does not mean you must love to play with toy trucks just as if you are born female that you must love to play with dolls. At first glance, I didn’t seem to know about how serious this issue might affect some people because it did not directly affect me, but on closer inspection I noticed that gender variance is an important issue that should be taken more seriously.

Cattle Imprisonment: The CAFO Industry revealed

Meats of all kinds to some people are considered to be extremely delicious. Although meat is full of great protein that our bodies need to grow, do people ever stop and think, “Where does the meat come from?”. Of course the meat comes from the animal itself, but what goes into the animal takes affect on the animals body, affecting the meat that people consume. What is everyone really eating when they emeat? More than what they may believe.

Normally when people think of Cattle and other farm animals, they picture them grazing the luscious land or in a spacious barn running around free. In some cases this is true, but in most, the actually sights that are seen on some farms are not only shocking, but completely and utterly absurd. Prison, is a better way to describe some farms for cattle and other animals such as swine and chicken. This “prison” is also known as CAFO or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (Porter, Tinker, Wieberg, Medley & Heitmann, 2012). In CAFO’s animals are raised in confined areas. Instead of grazing land and eating natural grasses and other plants, cattle are kept closely together and fed whatever the workers may decide to feed them. 

AFOs congregate animals, feed, manure and urine, dead animals, and production operations on a small land area. Feed is brought to the animals rather than the animals grazing or otherwise seeking feed in pastures, fields, or on rangeland(Porter, Tinker, Wieberg, Medley & Heitmann, 2012).

These cattle are confined to feed them and make them gain weight, hence why they are not allowed to roam around, because that would cause weight loss. Feeders want the animals to be fat for when they slaughter the cattle. What the cattle consume is very important, but the feeders do not care about the longterm affects of the feed, they just want the cattle to be big enough to slaughter and sell to the next meat market. 

As grain replaced pasture as a primary feedstock, farmers also turned to twentieth-     century industrial technologies such as synthetic fertilizers, toxic pesticides and herbicides, and hybrid and genetically modified crop varieties to boost feed harvests. 

Photograph of Cattle in confinement. Source: http://www.epa.gov/region7/water/cafo/index.htm 

There are toxic pesticides and other dangerous chemicals that are put into 

making this feed for the animals that people eat.  These cattle live in a place surrounded by all of their waste and most cattle die well before they even get to the slaughter house.  It is not only bad that these animals get slaughtered in the first place, but the fact that they die before they can even be slaughtered because of CAFO is completely rediculous and bad for our health on top of the animals health. 

People need food to live in this world. Everyone needs to be aware of what really lies underneath the processing of all of our food. Even more so what happens before the food even gets processed. Many americans love meat and with more knowledge on what happens to the meat before eaten, it will help people have a better understanding of how bad it really is for us and how awful the animals are treated in the process. 

References 

Porter, D., Tinker, G., Wieberg, C., Medley, T., & Heitmann, D. United States Environmental Protection Agency, (2012). How do cfao's impact the environment. Retrieved from website: http://www.epa.gov/region7/water/cafo/cafo_impact_environment.htm

Imhoff, D., & Clearly, A. (2010). Cafo- the tragedy of industrial animal factories: The issue. Retrieved from http://www.cafothebook.org/theissue_3.htm

Kessler, B., Blake, H. L., Williams, C., Bass, S., Phillips, A., & Saadi, S. (2010, October 20). Cafo-the story in pictures. Retrieved from http://www.greenrightnow.com/boston/2010/10/20/cafo-the-story-in-pictures/2/

Appendix A

Why Does it Matter to Me?

I never really thought in depth about people that did not seem to fit into society’s gender boxes. Sure there were some times that I saw someone that I couldn’t label as a male or female and would whisper to my friends, “was that a guy or a girl?” Gender variance is a term used to describe people who can easily flow between society’s ideas of male and female. It doesn’t really matter if you’re male or female, as long as you’re happy. Children that are gender variant are usually very confused, and feel pressured to figure out where they stand. The best thing that we can do as a society is to not force these gender variant children into any sort of molds; this can have a negative effect on the children throughout their lives.

                Children that like to wear clothes that do not fit the scheme for their gender do not seem as different as children that are obsessed with clothes fitting their gender. Padawer points this out when she states, “was his obsession with particular clothes really any different than that of legions of young girls who insist on dresses even when they’re impractical?”(5). Although I cannot really remember how I preferred to dress as a child, I can recall that when my older cousin was about six, she refused to wear anything but dresses. It did tend to be rather inconvenient, but she insisted. Even at the age of four, I could clearly see the ideals of how girls should dress.

I personally feel as though children should be allowed to wear whatever they want, or play as whoever they feel like. I’ve always felt this way. I tend to be a rather laid back person, so as long as it didn’t directly affect or inconvenience me, I didn’t care. Padawer states in her article, “Relatively little research on gender-nonconforming children has been conducted, making it impossible to know how many children step outside gender bounds — or even where those bounds begin” (3).  I have a touch of personal experience with children feeling out gender roles. A few years back, my mother had a home daycare. A little boy, who was two, came daily to the daycare while his parents went to work. Now, he had a tendency to wear the dresses for pretending, and say that he was a girl. He also, on multiple occasions, would put on the Spiderman costume, and then finish it off by putting on a skirt, and calling himself “Princess Spiderman.” This very much bothered his father, and if it was his pickup day, we would have to make sure that his son was out of the dress before the pickup time rolled around. If he was still wearing a dress when his father came to get him, his father would make a face, and turn his back to his son. His father also told us that he did not want him wearing dresses. This would make the child upset, and he would get out of the dress as quickly as possible. This situation never really struck me as odd. I don’t really know how this little boy acts now, as my mother’s daycare has been closed down, and no contact was kept.

                I do not see the point in directing children away from how they want to play. This could harm the children mentally or emotionally, and make them angry at you. If the treatment continues as they get older it could cause permanent damage “More parents,” Edgardo Menvielle declares, “decide that making their child conform to a gender will damage his self-esteem, and I’d agree” (qtd in Padawer 4). Children tend to be very fragile when it comes to their developing minds, and challenging how they want to play can be seriously detrimental to their mental health. Padawer discusses a case of a woman with a gender atypical son. When he was little, she brought him to a doctor, who told her to encourage- or even force- her son to do “boy” things, and not play with girls. Her son became angry, and she told herself she would not let another child sit through this sort of abuse. (4)

                In Tempel’s article, she explains her personal experience with a gender variant child as a teacher, and how she helped her students to realize that it is okay to not fit into the stereotypical gender box, like they have been taught in their young lives. This changed the way that many of them thought. One of the boys even asked for a doll for Christmas, even though it was a “girl” toy.

                However, not all gender variant children are boys. It just seems that way because it is a much bigger deal for a boy to act like a girl than a girl to act like a boy. When I was little, I used to aspire to be a fire fighter. My uncle, who is a fire fighter, thought this was a great idea. The rest of my family thought it was cute. I would play with trucks, catch frogs and worms, and do things that society would consider a boy activity. That is not something that is atypical. Girls can do activities like these and more and are not seen as having something wrong with them. One example of how girls can be accommodated appears in (ARTICLE). Like Allie, many have to face the questions of their peers when they realize that their classmate is different. When Tempel addressed Allie about her gender, she replied that she wanted to be talked about as a girl. Tempel admits, “It became evident that I would have to address gender directly in order to make the classroom environment more comfortable for Allie and to squash the gender stereotypes that my first graders had absorbed in their short lives” (1).

                I don’t think we should judge anyone – especially children. Children have enough problems to deal with as they grow up. Worrying about their gender should not be one of them.

College Unnecessary

       Growing up as a kid I have always been told by parents, family members, and teachers to stay in school, get good grades, then go on to college. They made me believe that to live a happy life you have to go to college. In order to get a good job you must get degrees and have a great education. On TV there are commercials saying that people with a college education make on average one million dollars more a life time than a person that doesn't have one. My entire life I been having this pressure on me to get into college or I would not have the future I want to have.

  I understand that it is important to get a higher education and be able to get a job that pays well. Although, I don’t think that the pressure on kids while they are young is necessary.  I’m saying that college is not a must to be a successful person and to live a comfortable lifestyle.

Seems like parents see college as being the only way to being successful in life. I feel like kids that don't get into college feel like they disappointed their parents and feel like a failure. Every parent wants their children to have a bright future but the pressure that the put on kids is too much for some to handle. Parents are kind of forcing their children into the kind of people they want them to be in the future instead of letting the kids themselves decide the type of life they want to live.

Most parents believe that by going to college you will be getting a well-paying job and live a happy life. In reality, there are some people with degrees and is still having trouble finding jobs in their field of study. College is a great way to get a job that pays well but it is not guaranteed that everyone in college will get a job right after they graduate.

             Some people go to college only thinking about getting a job that pays well. A few years later they are unhappy because they don’t like their job. There are many people that love their job and have never been to college. For example, my mother works in a hospital and she is very happy that she has a job that she has always wanted since she was young. In my eyes she is successful because she wakes up every day doing what she loves to do, and she didn't need a college education to achieve that goal. On the other hand my neighbor Paul just graduated from college with a degree in education two years ago and is now teaching in an elementary school. He likes teaching and helping kids but it still was not what he has expected and is now not liking his job.

Yes, there are many college graduates that are now living very happy and have a really great amount of income to live a comfortable life. However, I think that there should not be so much pressure on young people into going to college because it is kind of telling them the type of life they should live. Not everybody likes to sit in a classroom and being lectured. Even if the person does not use the degree they were still pressured on going to college for four years to work for that degree. Young people should live whatever kind of life they want to as long as their happy.

People should only focus on college if they really want to have a career that requires a degree. The problem is that people are being pressured into doing something that they don’t want to do and end up miserable when they are older. I personally do not find anything wrong with people choosing not to go to college. Technical schools are popular and offer great careers that most colleges don’t offer.

College is good; it gives people the chance to get a degree to help them get a well-paying job in the field that they are interested in. It also, gives people a higher education and that is something nobody can take away for another person. College is very useful but my statement that it shouldn't be viewed as a must in the United States. I believe that college should be viewed as a useful tool to have a good living income wise. However, it shouldn't be viewed as the option to living a happy life.