Gender: Males Take All the Heat

Source: transitioning.org

My whole life I have heard it said that gender is boy and girl, and no in between, but now I am starting to feel that there is so much more than the two genders. It is a very touchy topic, and not so clean cut as I thought it would be. From the articles I have read, the ideas in them have completely changed my point of view on gender. No one person should be looked down upon because they act of the opposite gender.  Also, the role of the man being the “bread winner” in the family isn’t always the case. Personally, my Mother has always brought home the money in my family, and I never even thought anything of it. For a long time I have always thought men were just as equal, but now I am seeing a whole different side.

My cousin who is six years old has to hide who he is because of what society expects him to be. When he’s in the comfort of his own home he likes to play with dolls, and play “kitchen”, but when he’s at a friends house or at school he plays super heroes with his friends because that is a typical boy game. He is only six years old, and he can’t be who he wants to be, because he knows that he’ll get made fun of. We all know that he is different than the other boys, but he just can’t accept himself because he knows that others won’t. In the article “It's OK to Be Neither: Teaching That Supports Gender-Variant Children” by Melissa Bollow Tempel she talks about situations that remind me of my cousin, my aunt always says that it is perfectly okay to be different (Tempel 3).

The article “What’s So Bad About A Boy Who Wants To Wear A Dress?” really surprised me. I had no idea that children acted this way.  Gender-variant children “…wear dresses, paint [their] fingernails and play with dolls; other days, [they] roughhouse, ram toys together or pretend to be Spider-Man”(Padawer 1). Typically, you can tell when a child is going to turn out homosexual later in life, but with this type of behavior no one will know until very much later. I also think that it is very interesting that “…no one would raise an eyebrow at a girl who likes throwing a football or wearing a spider-man shirt”(Padawer 1). So, it is perfectly okay in our society for a girl to be a tomboy and roughhouse like the guys do, but if a boy acts girly in anyway then forget about it.

My father has always stayed home with me and my sister; made the dinner, washed the dishes, drove us to where we had to be, just as the stereotypical role of a mother would do. I didn’t think this was abnormal because it was just something I was used too. My mother is fortunate enough to have a really well paying job, which makes her the breadwinner of my family. My father is a wonderful man and rocks the “stay at home dad” stereotype. I personally think that the male gender is put under way too much pressure, and I never really thought about it before. Society says that it is not okay for a male to wear a dress, a skirt, or anything frilly with flowers on it. Why? Why can’t they wear whatever they want to wear? Why should they be criticized and made fun of for something that is beyond their control. They did not choose to like dresses or skirts; they just simply like them just like some girls like to wear basketball shorts and baggy t-shirts everyday. They also did not choose to be so badly judged by society. Even though only “…2 to 7 percent of boys under age 12 regularly display “cross-gender” behaviors...”(Padawer 3) they should still be treated equally, because they can’t help who they are.

In “Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?” it states that: “this generation is really challenging the gender norms we grew up with…”(Hoffman 1). When it comes to really traditional people, like our grandparents, they hear of a boy wearing a skirt or a girl wearing a tuxedo and have a fit because it is not their form of the word “normal.” I think that it is really sad that the older generations come down so harshly on people who are different from the way that they are. Back in the 20^th century, boys could wear dresses no problem, but today for some reason it is a sin. Sometimes genetics come into play with gender (Hoffman 6) and the older generation just doesn’t understand why this could be.

Hoffman expands on how a mother “…paid for a full-page ad in the yearbook that is to include a photograph of her daughter in a tuxedo…”(Hoffman 3). This makes me think of last year a girl in my school wanted to wear a tuxedo to prom, and her girlfriend was going to wear a dress, and my principal wouldn’t let her into the prom. I felt horrible because all she wanted to do was go to prom feeling comfortable in her own skin and all my school did was make her feel horrible. I think that everyone should be treated the same way.

Gender is not black and white. Before reading the articles, I didn’t even think about my father and his role in society and what the “norm” is. There is so much more to it than one would normally think. Just because a boy played with dolls when he was younger, does not necessarily mean that he will become gay. I think if everyone were to become more educated on gender then they too would understand. I never knew that there was a special camp for boys who like to dress up like a girl, because that is the only place where they won’t have the fear of being judged. Cross-gender shows how there is no such thing as “boy” and “girl”. There are so many things in between. My father enjoys cooking. So what? He is still the best dad a child could have.