Annamarie Bailey
9/11/06
Women & Gender Studies
When I think of my gendered self or what it means to be my gendered self I see the unique and honest personality, behavior, thoughts, and ideals that make up who I am. Yet the definition of gender has a whole other meaning to me than gendered self. Gender is a category in which you and society place you in from the second you are born into this world to the time you die. One may put themselves in a different light than others, but it is still an important part of a human being's way of life. Gender is more of what you are than who you are. Its purpose is to serve ideas for self-identity given what society expects from you. For example, I am a female. The majority of the society I live in today would expect me to have feminine qualities, such as wearing makeup, having an innate sense of motherly care giving, enjoying a good cry now and then, and unfortunately dealing with nature's monthly gift of menstruation. This last quality, or torturous displeasure as it may be to some, is basically unavoidable to womankind. Yet the others are more measurable in an individual female's persona. When I apply these feminine stereotypes to myself, I know I am not the most girly of girls but I would not define myself as “manly” either. I do have some extreme emotional tendencies but comparing myself to other young women I know my age, and given the situations that caused the outburst of sobs, I would say I am very normal. I do not cry very much during sappy movies, but I cry a lot when I feel bad about myself or when I have hurt someone I love. As for the makeup, I do wear makeup, almost everyday. But I don't wear a lot; in fact I wear just enough to make it vaguely noticeable, unless I'm going to a party or a formal event. I guess I might as well not wear makeup at all because most people say I look the same without it. It's just so hard to suddenly drop a habit you've been doing all through high school and half of middle school. I'll just blame it on my friends for growing up so fast because of the influential media that focus on tweens and subconsciously tell them what's cool and what's not. So maybe I'll just blame it on society as a whole for being naive and giving in so easily to it. No matter whom I blame or what the cause of this disgruntling ploy is, society makes up a standard of what it is to be female.
A gendered self is how you see yourself as a person and the identity you make for yourself. Ultimately, you control your way of life and how you carry yourself. What it means to be a male, female, transgender, or anything else is up to the individual. What one chooses to be is their decision, though society may have an opinion on it. I, like most people, can be easily swayed by peers in order to fit in or feel better about myself. But I want to be stronger and develop more tolerance for the fear of difference. Right now I am trying to become more comfortable with who I am as my gendered self. I have not yet learned everything about myself but by using the tools I am so lucky to bear I hope to one day become the person I want to become. Who I am today is the product of the characteristics I have developed throughout my life, whether they come from the knowledge I’ve acquired through education and work, the influence of friends, family, media, or the inheritance of traits found in my genes.
My gender has affected many of the experiences in my life because it is a vital part of what I am. One example of this is with my friends. Most of my friends here at PLU are male. This can be considered a good thing to some females because it can come as an advantage, such as knowing what guys think about girls, or it can be seen as a great detriment in a female’s social life because most boys can not relate to makeup, being emotional, sensitive, motherly, and all boys can not relate to having a menstrual cycle. Before entering PLU as a freshman last year, I always had more girl friends than guy friends, so it surprised me when I evaluated my Facebook friends at the end of the year and found that the majority (the ones that were my friends not just acquaintances) were guys. Then I looked back at all the pictures and memories we had together and concluded that it was a great experience. I learned a lot about things I probably would not have learned if I hung out with girls all the time; things like video games, shows like SouthPark and the History Channel, and how to fix things on my computer. I’m not saying they completely changed who I am and what my interests are, but they did and still do give me a new perspective on things. By having more guy friends than girls I think I have become more open minded about certain issues. Like relationships. I have learned, through my own experience and through the helpful shared information from my guy friends, that when a guy likes a girl but isn’t sure if the girl likes him back in the same way, most guys will most likely resort to either childlike taunting, shy awkwardness in conversation with the occasional awkward blush and smile, or ultimately ignoring the girl but secretly thinking about her all the time and where he can see her next time even though he’ll still ignore her. These are all codes of flirting. As dumbfounding as they sound, I have found them to be true. Even I got wrapped up in one of these so called flirting tactics when I first started hanging out with my boyfriend. It was the childlike taunting that made me fall in love. Actually, it really wasn’t love at first sight, in fact most girls don’t believe in love at first sight (I read that in a teen magazine somewhere) including myself. Boys however, believe in it more than girls do. I think in general many believe in fate and love having an intertwined relationship. But the consistent effort of making fun and playful yet almost torturing poking and punching really did grab my attention. After a short while I learned his intentions and began to unmask the true innocence that lied beneath the immature, annoying cover up. And they say girls are the ones who are difficult and play games.
Another way my gender has affected me is in a more blatant way than the example I shared before; my body. Besides the fact I have different private parts than one of the male gender does, I also feel different. This brings me back to a reoccurring topic in this essay; the menstrual cycle. When Aunt Dot arrives for her monthly visit, I am forced to undergo certain preparations. This includes making sure I have the proper feminine products available and with me everywhere I go, making sure I actually get my 8 glasses of water a day, and trying to keep my personal mini frustrations and annoyances more to myself. Unlike males, females are given the monthly chance to vent and blame our bad behavior on nature’s doing.
I am confident to say that I am comfortable being a female. It is what I am and what I know. As for my self-identity, I am proud to be what I shaped myself to be. I am still working on developing a more redefined self, but I know I have time and I will use it to acquire a better sense of who I am and use it to become someone I’m even more proud of in the future.