women 313 discussion board 1

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I grow up in a single mother household. My mother had to play both roles. It was quite complex because at home, it was more of that stereotypical “emotional” societal standard, however she was raising two boys on her own, she had to move up in her work environment to make more money. She firmly believed in equality in the workplace. She would come home and talk about it, she never accepted the agenda that society has had set. But in the house hold , she did. The paradox was that she taught us, that women are strong and equal to men but at the same time women are submissive to men in relationships and so forth. She would reiterate the fact that me and my brother had to men. Through the years as I was growing up, she made several comments she feared that me and my brother would turn out gay if she didn’t try reinforce our masculinity. In the article, by Karin Martin, she says that, “mothers are particularly under scrutiny concerning their children’s sexuality , give the long history of blaming mothers for children’s homosexuality”. She worked a lot , me and my brother really were more transformed by the streets rather than at home. Moreover, we had taken the idea of our mother’s idea of masculinity and applied to our experience was in the street. The part about being loving and respecting women and the way she believed wasn’t accepted on the streets and me and my brother learned that quite fast. We were bullied for a short while, called soft etc because we didn’t have that “savage” man charisma that the other kids had in the streets. Just an F.Y.I , the streets, does not mean I was homeless, we grew up in Detroit, and we spent a lot of time in the “hood” and poorer areas with the other neighborhood kids due to my mom having to work long hours. Nevertheless, it took me awhile to change my ideas on the relationship between men and women because I was shaped by my environment that women were second class citizens. Women do not share an equal playing field unfortunately and being raised by solely a women and the effect of growing up within the neighborhood, it distorted my view on how should men and women be equate. Now that I have a daughter and wife, I try to always think before I give “life advice” to my daughter or a show a life lesson. I do not gender police her, I take her to the gyms with me where I fight, I buy her dolls, I don’t give her just one option of being a woman. Her mother isn’t as open minded as I am when it comes to this subject ,as I am the one studying it. However, we do try alternate ways of doing our mundane activities. We like to avoid racial and social barriers. The idea of showing my daughter different ways of being a girl opposed to the Barbies only path, I would like reference the article The Girl Project by Kristen Myers and Laura Raymond, she mentions, “we know that children as young as 1 year old creatively appropriate gender from the adult world to fit their own needs rather than passively accept adults versions of manhood and womanhood”. If we continue to show my daughter various ways of what being a womanhood is, she wont limit herself to the idea to what society else gives her. 
Myers, Kristen , and Laura Raymond. “Elementary school girls and heteronormativity .” The girls project , 24 , no. 2, 19 Mar. 2010, pp. 167–188., doi-org.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/10.1177/0891243209358579.
Martin, Karin A. “Normalizing Heterosexuality: Mothers Assumptions, Talk, and Strategies with Young Children.” American Sociological Review, vol. 74, no. 2, 2009, pp. 190–207., doi:10.1177/000312240907400202.