My Father's Concern For A Sports Team

My life started with my long and hard birth on July 14, 1993. I came into the world with a large scream and was immediately placed into some sort of category. The doctors and nurses took a quick look at me, and pronounced me as a girl. This social label of being a girl was now my gender, which is something I had no say in. Every since that very moment in time where my parents were told I was a girl, I have been treated according to my gender. This meant that my parents automatically dressed me in pink, bought me dollhouses and kitchen sets and threw me Barbie themed birthday parties. Since I was surrounded my whole entire life by these things, it was almost like second nature to think and act the way that I did and still do. My

Growing up as a first-generation Mexican American woman with parents who came with old ways from their country shaped a lot of my gender behavior. I grew up wearing dresses and having long hair because that is what a girl should be wearing and having. We were not allowed to play with boys because us girls are not as tough as boys and we cannot handle how they play. A lot of it had to do with how my parents were brought up and they instilled all that in us. I remember asking my parents to let me cut my long hair because I wanted short hair and was never allowed to. According to my parents a girl needed her long hair because that’s what made her feminine. So, when I was a junior in high school, I went behind my parents back and cut my hair super

At times life can seem so random, it’s scary. Everyone has a place on this little Earth we share. First and foremost, we are all children born from a mother but for many people, that’s where our similarities end. As a little girl or boy there is a big wide worlds of innocence and possibilities. Your born gender already influences you, depending on where you live, how many siblings you have. Maybe you lived close to the city and loved

Basically, I’m a girl, who just happened to be born into a male body. I don’t think that this is the most shocking thing, but it may be confusing. I haven't always been very comfortable with who I am, so I tried really hard to fit into the boxes that other

However, almost half way through our discussion he disclosed his feminine activities and interests that he participates in. These activities and interests include yoga, meditation, watching romance movies, and owning a poodle. He describes his interest in these activities as rooted by his mother. He describes that his first time doing yoga was with mother after a minor basketball injury and since then he has regularly accompanied her to yoga. John has also watched romantic “chick flicks” with his mother since he was younger, in order to spend more time with her. However, these interests were never spoken of when John’s father was present. John’s dad denied his sons from participating in feminine activities, instead forcing sports into their lives as John admits. He explains, “I played baseball, soccer, football, basketball, track and field. I played everything that was offered and did this for years until eighth grade, when I just focused on basketball.” Though he has an interest in basketball, he ended his career senior year of high school, upsetting his father. According to Emily W. Kane in No Way Boys Are Going to be Like That, fathers generally reject their sons from exploring their femininity as opposed to mothers. This is true for John’s situation. Instead of encouraging his sons to proceed their interests, John’s father obliviously chooses to enforce R.W.

Growing up, I lived the life of grass stained knees and an almost perpetually sweaty face. I will never be ashamed of the fact that I have been and always will be a tomboy through and through. If I wasn’t getting dirty at my local baseball field being that my Father was the president of the Pony League then I was finding trouble at the football fields of my local Pop Warner, because as you may have guessed my Father was the president of that too. As you can see my family had their hands full and I can’t help it if boys and sports raised me. Being that boys constantly surrounded me, I saw first hand the struggle of the emotional divide between yearning for both connection and independence. Boys want affection and understanding but at the same time are afraid of the stigma they may receive from both their peers and even their mentors.

HI, Mireya I enjoyed how you described the things you had to wear and not do as a child in detail, reminds me of what I would go through as well. My mother would also instill me to play with dolls when I only wanted to play with the “rollie pollies” on the side of the house. I agree with your last statement of what you wear on the outside cannot explain what’s going on inside. I saw this documentary of children as young as 7 telling their parents they wanted to become boys, one little girls was open at a very young age with her parents about feeling like a boy inside so they supported her all the way they let her cut her hair and dress like a boy and eventually talked hormones to become more masculine. The other child was afraid to tell her

He came up with punishment and threats to stop his boy to behave like a girl. Janet proclaims that she wants to be a secretary when her teacher asked in the class. She states, “That’s so me, I thought, attracted to the elementary hyper-feminine, submissive depiction of womanhood — a sharp contrast to the masculine world where I lived with my father” (37). Parents always want to give “the best” for their children, but the idea of the best is base upon their experience and learning of the world. Janet’s father believed bicycle, all kinds of balls, and video games are what Janet should be interested in.

As one of the most highly regarded endeavors a male can set a course for, manhood is probably one of the most sought after aspirations on the male agenda. Though it may not be much on the radar of an adolescent, as the younger child grows and matures he will come to an epiphany of gender identity and make the connections between father, son, mother and daughter. There may be much controversy over the topic; however, one fact remains clear: manhood is achieved. Despite how it might be defined, upon birth males are boys. As Michael Kimmel says in his essay, “Masculinity as Homophobia:

Every Christmas morning as a child, I would be disappointed because I would always get toys that I didn’t like. My mom scolded at me for being ungrateful as I would complain that Barbie dolls wasn’t what I wanted for Christmas. My mom replied, “Barbie dolls are what girls are supposed to have. Girls don’t play with Transformers or Power Rangers. You aren’t a boy!” As a child, I didn’t understand what she meant. Acting like a boy wasn’t my intention, as I simply expressed that I would rather have action figures instead. I was simply blinded by the fact that there was a social construct happening, and realized the social constructivism of gender roles. As the troublemaker child that I was, I disagreed with her. Instead I had these questions like,

It wasn’t until third grades that I began to notice gender stereotypes. Why should I have? I loved playing soccer, and I played as well as, if not better than, the boys. I was equally as fast and equally as talented. At this time, I didn’t know that society expected girls to be poised and proper instead of hard headed and stubborn. My mother soon gave up on her dreams of dressing me cute to church. She wanted me to wear one thing and naturally I wanted to wear the other. I soon acquired another nickname. This time I was called “Contrary Mary.” During recess in third grade, the gym class was taken outside on a hot humid Illinois summer day. We were to run a mile, this meant six laps around our school’s exterior perimeter. I loved to run and to me everything was a competition. I finished first. I was sweaty, and my heart was thrumming from the run. Soon after me, the boys finished their mile. I was accused of cheating, and I learned that day that it is not acceptable for a girl to finish before a boy in our society. I beat the boys again, this time in pull ups doing twenty-five, and again I was accused of cheating. Of course, I was accused of cheating. These boys never thought that maybe my background in gymnastics and determination were enough to help me complete this task. Later in life, I played as the only girl on an otherwise all boys travel soccer team. I was intimidated; however,

I grew up with six younger brothers. On many occasions, my brothers insinuated I was inferior due to my gender. For instance, when I informed my brothers I was going to try out for Little League Baseball, they had a fit. In fact, they told me I would never make the team because I ran and threw like a girl. Well, this made me more determined than ever; especially after my parents and brothers told me to join a girls’ softball team instead. So, I signed up for tryouts and I made the team. That year I started at the first base position on a team with two of my brothers. That shut my brothers up for a while. Through the years, I proved to my brothers that girls can do anything boys can do and I’d like to believe they are better men for it.

As a child I was often overlooked by my father. I am the youngest of one sibling and the only girl on my father’s side of the family. Growing up I was an average, girl getting average grades and living an average life. Getting average grades just wasn’t acceptable in my house especially since my father is a teacher. Being “average Rachelle” resulted in me being overlooked which led to my brother being in the spotlight constantly.

Growing up, I didn’t always conform to the normal little girl ways set by my society. I had Barbie dolls but I also had Pokémon, Dinosaurs, and Ninja turtle toys. The social gender norm for girls would be tea parties and Barbie dolls, while boys would have dinosaurs and car toys. Though, I had a little bit of everything, as an only child I had a choice of what I thought I liked better. My parents didn’t choose what was right for me, and I didn’t so much care about what other kids had. I also started a sport very young, I joined a swim team because my dad taught me how to swim at the age of five and I adored it. Ever since then I started playing outdoors and I grew up playing basketball and football with the neighbor boys. Therefore, I always had the mindset that girls could do anything that boys could do, and gender didn’t matter in most cases. Unlike the common belief that boys or men in general are better, or more superior. My parents raised me on a more neutral level and it changed my views from the social “norm”.

In addition, Bly states that boys need to learn their masculinity from their fathers instead of mothers, or boys would become men with an incomplete psyche without wildness. In ancient Greek, societies believed that “a boy becomes a man only through ritual and effort-the “active intervention of the older men”, meaning “older men welcome the younger men into the ancient, mythologized, instinctive male world” (15). Also in American culture, “the boys have a continuing need for initiation into male spirit” proves the necessity of boys leaning their masculinity from male figures, especially from their fathers (14). All boys need a second birth from men to see their genuine being, or they may have no male face or have no face at all if they are