Women

With a title like the title of this post, anything can be said. But this week in class we talked about how genders are shaped. Even as little kids boys and girls are distinguished simply by their clothing but also in ways less obvious like which toys they play with. We had our own little show and tell and we observed that the girls' toys were typically soft and cuddly with warm colors while the boys' toys were about action and were typically bright colors. We looked at a kids' toy catalog and we saw that girls were typically seen playing indoors, a subliminal message about gender roles. Boys, on the other hand, were seen playing outdoors.
I see these gender gaps everyday. Even in our class, Jeff mentioned that guys don't go home and look in the mirror and degrade their body image while girls do. We learned about the images that magazines put out and how fake they are but that we still strive to be like that. I lift weights and have track practice everyday, while I love running, I know that because I work out, I'll have more of an athletic build. Before going on spring break, I worked on my abs more knowing that I would be swimming a lot and that it's important to look good, but these ideas are shaped by our society and thr idea that men should be muscular. I think it's important to be comfortable and happy with who we are and how we look.