What is gender to me?
No matter what gender you are, it comes with some stereotypes. What people expect you to be, or want you to be. Many young girls play with dolls or stuffed animals. I think the idea that came from girls playing with baby dolls was that when the girl grows up, she will , or will be expected to have children. So when she is young, she is given a doll to "practice" feeding and dressing it. I had many dolls when I was young. My parents didn't expect me to grow up to take care of kids, it was just a fun toy to play with. That wasn't the only toy I had though, I loved building things, with blocks, but I also found things around the house to create stuff. And that was probably my favorite thing to do. At a young age I was also introduced to soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, which brings me to the boys stereotype.
I think that boys are given legos, blocks, trains, balls, and cars.. I absolutely loathe that boys are expected to make things happen in the works, to be engineers and scientists. Boys are also expected to be much more sporty than girls, which is not true because girls are also very athletic. Boys are almost never given a doll to play with because the woman is supposed to take care of the family. I asked my mother what my brother played with when he was young. According to her, he played with trucks and blocks, but he also really liked to sew things. So I asked my brother what he played with, and he said cars, boats and legos. As you can see, he basically just stereotyped himself by saying what he assumed he played with, not mentioning that he spent a lot of his time sewing. Once, not that long ago, all of my cousins and my family went over to my grandmas house. My Aunt had brought over some toy Nerf guns for us to play it, but for some reason, there were only enough guns for the boys. When I asked if there were anymore guns, she was very surprised and said, "Oh, I didn't know girls liked to play with guns!" I was very disappointed when I walked inside with my fellow girl cousin to draw. This happens so much to girls and boys. Boys at school have protested when I wanted to play basketball because they thought I wasn't good enough, even though I knew I could beat some of them.
When my siblings and I were younger, we listened to old tapes of my mother when we were bored. In one of the songs, a boy named William wants a doll to play with, but his parents won't get him one. In the song, girls mock him because they think that they are the only ones who play with dolls, and when William asks his grandmother for a doll she asks if he's sure he wouldn't be happier with a baseball bat. In the end, they learn that he wants a doll to practice caring for because he wants to be a father when he grows up.
For the record, gender by dictionary is: "Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities that a given society considers appropriate for men and woman. I always assumed that gender was just a matter of being biologically girl or boy. In my opinion, whether you are biologically male or female, you can be whatever you want, and play with whatever you want to play with .
So what is gender to you?
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