Self Analysis

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

I grew up surrounded by strong women who fulfilled both male and female gender roles. I attended an all-female high school where girls took on the positions traditionally reserved for boys. All my friends were girls and I did not have male friends until I reached college. For most of my childhood I took on neither masculine or feminine gender norms. I was not a traditional tomboy or girly girl, over all I identified as a nerd more than anything else. I looked up to both men and women, but not because of their gender performances. I never questioned my gender or even thought much about it and so; I fell within a strange limbo of identifying as a female but not participating in female gender roles. It was not until later in life where I encountered terms such as non-binary, androgynous, and gender non-conforming. After talking to people who identified with these terms, and learning more about what they mean; it made me question where I fall on the gender spectrum. Many of my mannerisms are traditionally masculine yet I fulfill mostly female gender roles. Today I still identify as female and occasionally chose to actively participate in my gender

Prior to a couple of years ago, no one ever questioned my gender. After reading about cisgender privilege, I realized I had it in spades compared to now. I was easily able to put on a feminine appearance during job interviews and at weddings. It felt fake and I hated feeling

In a place called Earth, there are many types of genders. As we hear the word “gender”, males and females are typically the words that pop up in our head. With that being said, there are social norms of how males and females should be raised in a specific way. The males are raised to be aggressive and physically fit. While females are passive and submissive. As the stereotypes of gender continues to grow, it slowly damages the people that do not fit in society's point of view. With that discouragement constantly following us everywhere, many of us find ways to fit in society’s expectations. In this case, being born as a male and not fitting or reinforcing in the stereotype has changed me dramatically. The pressure of not fitting in or reinforcing made me change my physical look, dressing semi-formal, challenging the stereotype of how males should be aggressive and challenging the stereotype of having emotions.

My great uncle was a rugged person like a Sylvester Stallone character. He and many others like him tried to escape Vietnam, at a time when post war Vietnam was harsh against its southern people. The troubling time caused him to become the man that he is today: Stiff, strict, and sharp. Living with him for two week introduced a clash between our different upbringings. I knew he didn’t like me because the feminine me is not how a normal boy should act. However me fearing becoming a disappointment to my great uncle, I had to relate to him in some way. My approach was to change myself to be more “manly”. I stepped into his shoes. To become dominant and confident and not be too girlish. My action to force similarly to our difference ultimately changed who I was. I realized that my feminine self was not being taken seriously because I acted like a child. When I acted more manly towards other people, including my great uncle, their tone and expression were more serious and more endearing. Being surrounded by females all of my life made me miss the important aspects of being a male. Noone was going to take me seriously if I,a male, acted feminine my whole life. I just needed to grow

As my adolescence years approach many things began to change, or at least I thought they were changing. In my house I began to be have multiple responsibility. My mother soon started expecting me to help her clean the house and learn how to cook, while my brother was free to do as he pleased. This was when my rebellion towards my culture gender norms and roles began. As I grew up, I was told that I had to always be aware of my surroundings. That a girl/women does not walk late at night by herself because that could be dangerous. I was taught that I couldn’t be too friendly with the opposite sex because that could bring some unwanted attention. I had to cover myself and never expose too much because that could also cause the opposite sex too

The story begins when I was twelve. I was moderately obese and bordering on what I would call depression. I had very few friends who knew the real “me.” In reality I wasn’t even sure who that person was. I felt different from my peers. At this point, most of my friends became interested in guys. Probably because most of my friends were girls.

Being part Italian comes with a few stereotypical ideas including: you most likely talk with your hands, are very affectionate, and animated. These stereotypes are true and very apparent in my style of intimacy and emotional expression. I have grown up in a very loving, nurturing and affectionate environment where hearing the words “I love you,” are the norm. In my family we hug and kiss each other on the cheeks both when greeting and/or saying good-bye to each other. My Nonna is also known to pinch those same cheeks or at times give an affectionate pinch on the rumpus. I thought all families were similar in how they expressed their love and affection for each other until I started hanging out with friends at their homes and boy was I

As far as my gender identity goes, I have never had any internal struggle with my internal sense of being a female. I am lucky that my assigned gender, anatomical sex, and gender identity lines up. I have always been interested in the different gender roles both in our country and around the world. I know that my attitudes and behavior on the matter are more so a product of my environment, family, friends, and probably media. I know I have held gender-role stereotypes for both men and women. One big over simplistic statement I have heard is men don’t care and women are overly emotional. Also, it’s stereotypical to assume men must be the providers of a family and women the stay at home mothers. A part of me doesn’t want to fall victim to role

I am Jolayne Killeen. I am 17 and a junior at Coon Rapids High School. I have a few hobbies that I do quite often one of them being playing the piano. I have been interested in the piano since second grade when we had a para come in and tell us all about specific activities that were available for elementary students. I raced right home to tell my mom about the news I had heard at school. She was just as excited as I was when I told her. She then made it her duty to find me a piano teacher and since then I have switched my instructors but my love and passion has remained the same. My mom noticed how fascinated i was with music and art but most importantly creativity. She thought that theatre would be right up my alley. I was then signed up

As I got older, I began to reject the feminine side of myself. I wasn't like "those girls". I became disgusted by pink, and began to cut my hair shorter and shorter. I was internally fighting the things I perceived as "weak". I had labeled myself as "butch". I wasn't a preppy

When I was adolescent, I was strongly influenced by my cognitive development, experiences and people around me. First, I experienced typical psychological reactions which adolescences are likely to have: I had a lot of experiments; I had imaginably audience; and I experienced identity crisis. I was a person who had a lot of experiments. Because I was a late bloomer, I was not as feminine as other girls. However, I thought that I should behave more feminine to be an adult. Therefore, I suddenly changed my behaviors. For examples, I changed the way to talk and wear: I used the woman like way to talk and wore very feminine clothes. These experiments often surprised and confused people around me. Naturally, these changes did not last

Throughout time we have established certain norms for genders for how they should act a particular way and their certain actions can make them more/less of the gender they are. To grasp and truly see when it may not be obvious on how I reflect certain gender performances I carried around a pocket notebook and jotted notes of my actions and looked back and realized the ways I may have acted more “masculine/feminine”. To begin, my first way I looked back and realized I may have been shown as dominant was in my business class we had a group project we were assigned to. The three other members in my group were all girls and I subconsciously already depicted myself as the group leader. During the time this seemed second nature to me because growing up I saw my dad had the superior job of the family, or when I started working on my own, all the highest positioned employees were all male which left an impact that the men always dictated everyone, especially when women were in the situation. After class I went to breakfast at the dining hall with my friends to grab some food. My friend Jacob made me realize I acted more masculine because when I looked back on my day, when we first walked into the dining hall, Jacob hit his arm on the sliding door and started complaining about how much his arm hurt. My first reaction was to keep making fun of him telling him, “stop complaining you sound like a girl”.

About a month ago I did not notice anything out of the ordinary in my everyday life on the subject of gender. Yes, there have always been jokes about the women’s place being in the kitchen and men getting all sorts of privilege, but I never really thought too hard about it because it was never anything new. Once my attention was brought to this subject and I was told to delve deeper into the super weird societal gender norms, my eyes were opened to so many new and fairly disturbing occurrences. It was actually quite overwhelming. I did not know how to process everything and in a way my mind wanted to reject these happenings because it just seemed so sick and twisted, but I was accustomed to all of it and frankly, I did not want to be

One way this manifested was in my distaste for pink. I didn’t particularly hate the color, but because it’s always associated with being “girly” I avoided it as much as possible. My interests were a more of a mix, but I wouldn’t talk about the ones that were more traditionally feminine. For example, I really enjoyed playing video games and I didn’t mind playing with dolls every now and then but the doll playing had to be done in secret whereas I would openly talk about and play games with others. I think the things that I watched and games I played had a hand in my aversion to femininity because they would depict it as something boring which only exacerbated the problem since I was always looking for exciting things to occupy myself with. I avoided thinking about my gender too deeply.