My Life As A Woman

Gender derives its formative meaning from culture and societal values, it is not a universal entity as there are various cultures, societal values, beliefs, and preferred ways of organizing collective life across the globe and even within a single culture the meaning of gender varies over time. Chapters three and four of Gendered Lives by Julia T. Wood helps to insightfully look at those views, and rhetorical movements (women and men’s movements) that have overtime influenced, defined and given various meanings to gender (masculinity and femininity).

Society has exaggerated that the way a man or woman acts is the way they have to be or else they are not normal. The general stereotypes for women include “they don’t play sports, supposed to cook and do housework, not as strong as men.” The general stereotypes for men include “work in the science and engineering field, must be obeyed because they are always in charge, always on top.” In the short story “X” by Lois Gould, the author shows us that gender is not so important when a child chooses to express him/herself in whichever way they want to. Although society wants an individual to act a specific way, it shouldn’t define their way of life, whatever makes the individual happy they should continue to do it without having others judging them.

I was always a precocious child, yet argumentative and rebellious. I did not want to accomplish anything following a pattern set for me. I wanted to forge my own way. This determination set me at odds with my mother, and has defined our relationship all these years. It has surely led me down my own irregular path in life, and placed me in position to be the family’s black sheep.

I was born on August 19th, 1934 in New York City, NY as Richard Raskind, the son of David Raskind and Sadie Muriel Bishop. I was also the younger brother to my sister, Michael. My parents both had their M.D.s, my father being an orthopedic surgeon and my mother a psychiatrist. Growing up my mother was the more dominant one in our family. She allowed me to dress up in my sisters clothing. As I got older, I began to become sexually confused. I confronted my mother about this and she prescribed psychiatric therapy. Throughout most of my childhood I had wanted to be a girl. As a young boy, however, I was a tremendous young athlete. My first tennis championship was at the age of ten, at Sunrise Tennis Club in New York. During my years at Horace Mann High School I was a star athlete on the football, baseball and tennis teams. I was offered a spot on the New York Yankees, but turned them down as I went on to be a third generation graduate at Yale. I went to medical school at the University of Rochester in New York and specialized in pediatric ophthalmology. I finished my residency at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital and then enlisted in the Navy. In the Navy, I had become the captain of the tennis team and became an All-Navy champion. After being discharged from the Navy I had began to undergo hormone treatments under the supervision of Dr. Harry Benjamin. As I was taking these drugs I had decided to move to Europe to be a woman for a year. As I returned home Dr. Benjamin refused

Looking back at my past, I recall my mother and father’s relationship as if it were yesterday. I am only four years old, small and curious; I tended to walk around my home aimlessly. I would climb book shelves like a mountain explorer venturing through the Himalayans, draw on walls to open windows to my own imagination, or run laps around the living room rug because to me I was an Olympic track star competing for her gold medal; however my parents did not enjoy my rambunctious imagination. My parents never punished me for it but would blame each other for horrible parenting skills; at the time I did not understand their fights, but instead was curious about why they would fight.

In cartoon illustrations of children's books, such as one by Whitney Darrow, a girl is expected to act differently than a boy. Girly aspects include having to have a boy fix her toys, while boys do the fixing, enforcing the ideal that women are weak and men are made to take on dominant and powerful roles (Source E). This is clearly very demeaning and gives girls the belief that not only are they being unheard as a child, but for the entirety of their lives they must deal with oppression. In a turn from the tyrannical nature of children's books, a cartoon drawn by an artist between the ages of 18 and 28 depicts the image of a young girl drawing images of all different types of jobs that she hopes to one day be (Source C). For the theme, the artist was en-capturing the meaning of gender equality to them. The simple ability of having any job that they wish, should not be a dream for girls If from an early age one believes that they are unable to do something in their lives, it is clearly society’s fault for creating such gender barriers. By lifting that barrier, society is one step close at creating new and unique possibilities for the good of all

It all started when I was young. My family were poor and I was the only girl. My father and mother raised me just like my brothers. My father decided since woman had it harder that I would be a boy so I dressed and continued to act like a boy. As I grew up we took great measures with binding to keep the image up. Because of this, people took years off my age. I started working on the wharf when I turned 18. It was a hard life, being one of the laborers. It is a lot of lifting and moving heavy objects. It involves cleaning and going places most people would never think of going. I knew I had a few short years before someone noticed that I wasn’t changing like a growing boy should, so I kept my ears peeled for the next adventure that would save

Something relevant to me that I found in chapter 2, was the experiment that some students did where they went to toys stores and observed the aisles to see how the toys were placed. I found this specific idea relevant because I have also done this specific experiment. And I also found that the aisles are separated by gender and what each gender is supposed to play with. Therefore at a very young age many children are force to conform into society views of men and women, without ever having the chance to explore the world. Although we cannot create a genderless society, there are many parents who wish to withheld their child’s gender

It took me longer than usual to start this essay, because I fell into a deep pit of self-doubt every time I tried. Whenever I start a personal piece about my childhood, my mind instantly becomes a hive of swirling thoughts in a cloud of static. No matter what I know to be true, the fear of having my mother discredit me severely impedes progress.

Whether it was my persistent requests for my mother dreadlock my hair at the age of 8, or the immediate connection I had to the dancehall mixes played in the backgrounds of family gatherings, I was very proud of the person that my native land was bound to shape me into. But this held opposite to those of the “outside world”. Soon, I became one of the very few minorities in my classroom, with those of fairer skin and origins rooted in European countries becoming the majority. At the sight of them, the thought “am I truly as beautiful as my mother told me I am” popped into my mind, with the image that I had to carry being seen as substantially different compared to those who now surrounded me. My youth soon persisted of me being completely aware of how “different” I truly was, however, this awareness only consisted of a [blank] percentage of negative feelings. But then, age 11 hit. The year I was pushed to experience a much larger scope of the world than elementary school had allowed me: a 6th grade academy. Sure, the neighborhood and the friends that I had known prior were still present, the new setting and set of people that this school added into my life proved to have its lasting

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”.

When my mother's water broke, my father was anxious to see his newborn son. As he laid eyes on me, his first born child, he claimed, " A girl? Why a girl? Put her back where she came from!" When my mother recalled this story, I cried. I finally understood why my father looks down upon me. He believes that I am less than the boy he expected to have.

To compensate for his disappointment, I became a tomboy. By 4th grade, I was officially one of the “guys”. I was always the first one to be chosen for a sports team. I wore loose pants, tied my hair up in a ponytail and I was never afraid to get bruises and scratches on my porcelain skin. By 5th grade I wanted to show my dad how “manly” I could be and decided to work with him at his office.

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I was raised with a word to describe the most defining characteristic of my life. I knew the words “woman” and “girl,” but I had no grasp of that fact that my community would use my inherent femininity against me, I didn’t even know the word. Growing up, I built castles out of Legos, sculpted skyscrapers out of sand, and obsessively hoarded the prized pink crayon. It wasn’t until I was older that I could understand the clear division between my fellow classmates and I: that pink crayon.

I was born February 8th, 1998, in Lisbon, Portugal. I lived in a very pretty beach town my whole life called Ericeira. My mom, Maria, was born in Cuba, and she currently works as a translator for Neogen. Because she spoke in Spanish to us almost every day, me and my sister learned to understand and speak a little bit as well. My dad, Antonio, owns a dairy farm in Portugal and also fixes computers as a hobby. I have one little sister and two half sisters. My little sister’s name is Patricia and she is 17 years old. She currently attends Okemos High School. My older sister’s name is Inês, she is 28 years old, and works with the government, and Raquel, my other sister, is 23 years old, just graduated University, and she currently

What grown some of the personal hate for the male community, were not the humiliations or occasional beatings, when I was a teenager. From the seeming innocent school times to the gruesome times in the military, I have spend an enormous amount of time surrounded by men. Confused about my own gender and not knowing any better, at the time, I 've tirelessly tried to learn and adapt to their culture and adapt to be a man. I wanted to survive, to fit in, wanted to be just one of the normal guys. As soon as I figured out, that instead of beauty, it is the intelligence what men value the most. Computers were becoming a huge part of everyones life, so I knew, that it was a great choice to learn everything about them. I spent years studying them and soon enough, even as a child, I was good enough to make more money than some of the adults in full time jobs. (Thank you Mr. Bill Gates for developing Windows and establishing Microsoft!). Computer knowledge proved to be very effective, because I quickly earned respect and was accepted in successful male social circles. AT this point, the rest of the every day life, became to me, like a game. As long as I "played the ball", acted manly the doors were open to me everywhere. By the time I got to the military, I was a pretty good actor and it still ended up being some of the worst times in my life. Its not, that I hated military, or what it stood for - I volunteered to join, because I am idealist, someone, who believed, that I must help