Every individual has his or her own identity. People’s beliefs are shaped by the environment they grew up in, the way they were raised, and the way they were treated. In this paper I am going to discuss about my belief in regards to gender, gender roles, race, sexuality, and social class. I will also discuss about the different experiences I had encountered in life that has determined my beliefs and my values. I grew up in Guatemala in a small town name Monjas. As I was growing up, I did not know much about other people’s cultures; I only knew people with the same race and the same culture as mine. Then, I decided to immigrate to the United States when I was 16 years old; this happened 20 years ago. Immigrating to the United States was a …show more content…
Even though I am a male, I disagree that parents have preferences on boys over girls when it comes to education. Moreover, in my culture, when the boys were going through puberty, it meant that they were ready to sleep with a woman. Many fathers would take their 13 year old boys to sleep with a prostitute to help them transition from childhood to manhood. On the contrary, girls needed to stay pure until they found the man they were going to marry. These beliefs are not something I feel proud of my culture. Additionally, girls were not allowed to play soccer because it was considered a male’s sport. However, girls could play basketball instead.
Furthermore, I grew believing that black people were dangerous. In Guatemala, black people do not have a good reputation. It was considered non-cultural for someone in our family to marry with a black person. In fact, none of my family members have ever married to a black individual. In addition, native Mayans are discriminated in my town. For instance, if someone was dark skinned, people would call them “indios,” meaning they were from the lower class. This is the environment and the culture where I grew up; some of my values were formed from these experiences. However, when I came to the United States everything changed. The things that I learned when I was little are no longer what determine what I believe now. Not everything that I learned growing up was negative. One
When I came to the United States I was twelve years old. I did not know anything about this country or the culture, it was like I was starting my life over again. I needed to adapt, learn and adjust myself to this new culture, and I knew it was not going to be easy because it was completely different from my own culture. Because I came at a young age I think I was able to adapt to the culture very fast, but at the same time I was overwhelmed with all the information and things that I needed to learn. There were a lot of differences between Guatemala and the United States culture, one of the most significant cultural difference was language. I came here without knowing any english, but I knew that I had to made the effort to learn it as fast
Gender can be defined as “sex roles” which are conditions that one considers to be for men or women. People tends to mistake it with sex or thinks that they are both the same. We discussed about the patterns of gender which how the authors of The Kaleidoscope of Gender describes it as “regularized, prepackaged ways of thinking, feeling, and acting” (Spade and Valentino,2017). It becomes an identity for us. We believe that there is and can only be two genders, being masculine for men and feminine for women. These roles has been forced onto us since birth: blue for boys, and pink for girls. You can see the roles being push onto a person throughout one’s life, but we don’t notice it since it’s “normal” to us.
Most people, unless they choose to be an outsider, want to be considered “cool.” Whether it’s to fit in with a peer group, or clique, or to impress someone in particular, like a member of the opposite sex, or a potential mate. Or possibly to gain something from an individual for financial or social gain (see “Scamming”).
Identity is what defines us as a person. Everyone one on earth has their own unique identity. To showcase my identity, I created a collage of images and descriptive words, called an identi-kit. This identi-kit shows what I feel like is my identity to myself and the others. My identi-kit identifies me as a mixed martial artist. The identi-kit has images of a deadly shark with mixed martial arts gloves on that say mixed martial arts on the front and fight shorts with the words competitor and warrior on them. It also has descriptive words like “killer instinct” and “fight” which describe my spirit. There are three assumptions that come to question when asking about one’s identity. The first is if you were born with this
I am a U.S. born citizen. My parents moved to the United States in 1984 without knowing anything about this country. Looking for a fresh start and new opportunities, my parents settled in Houston. With hardly knowing any English, my parents knew this was the place to make dreams become a reality. Luckily, I had older siblings to look up to whenever I needed help. Like Lahiri, I was trapped in between two different cultures while I was growing up. At home, I only spoke Spanish, but in school it was English. My habits and customs were different than others. Life as an immigrant’s offspring can be very difficult. As I grew older, I allowed myself to open my eyes and see the beauty of being an American from Hispanic descent.
Throughout this course, we have discussed how the differences in the social construction of gender, race, class, and sexuality have led to discrimination and inequality of those classified under a variety of these categories. Through understanding the significance of these social constructs on society it becomes apparent the intersectionality they have when it comes to understanding why certain groups may face discrimination or inequality. This paper examines gender inequality and how the social construction of gender makes it difficult for the pursuit of equality amongst genders.
However, the boys were viewed as “that’s just how boys are”. The gender roles were clearly reflected within out household. Boys had the expectations of getting a good job and provide for their family when they married. Girls were to get married, cook/clean and maintain the household, take care of the children and always remember that they were the moral compass of the family unit.
Identity is a state of mind in which someone recognizes/identifies their character traits that leads to finding out who they are and what they do and not that of someone else. In other words it's basically who you are and what you define yourself as being. The theme of identity is often expressed in books/novels or basically any other piece of literature so that the reader can intrigue themselves and relate to the characters and their emotions. It's useful in helping readers understand that a person's state of mind is full of arduous thoughts about who they are and what they want to be. People can try to modify their identity as much as they want but that can never change. The theme of identity is a very strenuous topic to understand
I owe the state that I am in now, to my ancestors who decided to migrate to the United States. Both of my parents are immigrants. My father is from Guatemala and my mother is from Nicaragua. All my life I have been closely related to my Guatemalan heritage because most of my father’s family is in Los Angeles with me. As a child I always bragged about being a Chapin, the nickname for Guatemalans. One story is always in the back of my head, the story of my mom fleeing Nicaragua.
Personal identity is essential in the human experience. Identity is complex and can be broken down into two main groups: introspective identity, and bodily identity. Introspective identity is based off of the groups, mentalities, or beliefs that you align yourself with, and bodily identity is based off of the physical side of yourself. Whether physical or introspective, your identity impacts every action you take. Whether choices ranging from what colors you prefer to which college you want to attend are primarily based off of your introspective identity, which is a combination of both memory and consciousness, physical identity impacts how others perceive you. Consciousness is mainly the awareness of bodily identity as well as continuous introspective identify, while memory is awareness of introspective identity. These two different facets of identity are imperative in the distinction between bodily identity and introspective identity. In means of personal identity introspective identity (which is evident in memory), is essential, while bodily identity (based partially in consciousness) has less credit.
In this paper I will be discussing class, race, gender, sex, and how they relate to feminism. The first theme that I will be looking into is the role that social class and gender play in how others view us. The second theme that I will be delving into is the role that social class and gender play in how we view ourselves, and how this affects our role in society. Finally, the third theme that I will be looking at is the harmful nature of letting our differences divide us. I will use A Question of Class by Dorothy Allison to discuss the effects that class can have on how people view you, and on how you view yourself. I will use the reading Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference by Audre Lorde to show how we let our difference divide us and how we can work to change that. Both of these readings will be used to show the damaging effects that letting our difference come between us can have. This paper will show that our class, our gender, and other defining factors of who we are play a large role in how society views us and how we view ourselves.
Gender identity display people’s understanding of themselves according to cultural definitions of female and male. In this essay I will attempt to enhance our understanding by exploring different aspects of gender identity, gender roles & sexual identity issues. Relying mostly on my research that is conducted in the U.S.
The history of the world is a complex arrangement of happenings and occurrences that have shaped the current state of civilization. At a fundamental level, history is the driving force behind every element of society that exists today. Within history, there are several factors that have and continue to determine the way in which our society functions. One of the most significant of these factors is gender. Today, conceptions, viewpoints and ideas surrounding gender are always changing. It is this fluidity of thought that ultimately allows society to progress forward and create change. However, gender has not always been as openly discussed. Tracing back through history, gender has consistently been a point of identity among humans.
This paper will explore the world of gender and its social and cultural importance in western society. focusing more on the discrimination and negative impacts that gender stereotyping and socialized gender roles have on human beings as a whole. This includes the limitations that women and men are living with to this day in their homes, work and school. starting from birth gender shapes everyones world and gives them a glass ceiling that only a few pioneers have hit and shattered in the last few years. (MacQueen, 2003, pg. 2) At home women and men are put into very differing parenting roles based on genitalia instead of personal wants and goals in their respective lives. If a man wants children and enjoy being around them that may
Ever since the dawn of time, women and men have been associated with specific gender roles that can be seen controversial in the eyes of many. Traits and roles associated with a specific gender can be either innate or learned over time. Looking into the deeper concept of gender roles and stereotypes, it is clear that these fixed gender roles are not naturally born with, but rather taught, learned, or influenced by external forces.