What I Learned My Feminine Behaviors Of A Girl

In taking answering the questions to the Personal Autobiography on Sexual Orientation, I was able to reflect upon my life up to now as being a gay male from the Midwest. My first memories about really being exposed to sexual orientation would have to have been back in elementary school where sexual orientation was introduced by peers more or less as a name calling, playground name calling sort of thing—I was introduced to sexual orientation in a negative way. In terms of my parents, I would say the messages from there were positive as my grandma has a brother who is gay and has been “out” since the 1980s, so they have gone through the process of acceptance of LGBTQ individuals.

In “Why Boys Don’t Play With Dolls,” Pollitt writes about the differences between growing up as a boy growing up as a girl. She brings up the stereotypes that society naturally creates between genders in early ages, which leads to the lifestyle and path that boys and girls are raised in. Parents and feminist alike play a big part in establishing these sex roles. They raise their kids wanting them to be successful at what they are expected to be good at based on their gender and the trend that has been set before them.

What does it mean to be a woman or man? Whether we a man or a woman, in today’s society it is not determined just by our sex organs. Our gender includes a complex mix of beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics. How do you act, talk, and behave like a woman or man? Are you feminine or masculine, both, or neither? These are questions that help us get to the core of our gender and gender identity. Gender identity is how we feel about and express our gender and gender roles: clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. It is a feeling that we have as early as age two or three. In the article, “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meaning of Gender,” the author, Aaron Devor, is trying to persuade his readers that gender shapes how we behave because of the expectation from us and relate to one another. He does this by using an educational approach, describing gender stereotypes, and making cultural references. He gets readers to reflect on how “Children’s developing concepts of themselves as individuals are necessarily bound up …to understand the expectations of the society which they are a part of” (389). Growing up, from being a child to an adult is where most of us try to find ourselves. We tend to struggle during this transition period, people around us tell us what to be and not to be, Jamaica Kincaidt in her short story, “Girl” tells just that, the setting is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly. The mother soberly

This article, “No Way My Boys Are Going To Be Like That,” converses that young children are becoming aware of gender processing, which means

The determination of my gender identity was preset by my parents giving me the chromosomes XY, gave me an anatomic appearance of a female. Also being reared in a hetero environment had an influence in becoming a female as well. So the relation to the masculinity-femininity continuum is that I posses both traits feminine and masculine. In some situations I tend to carry myself as a caring and soft-spoken female, is typical for feminine behavior. On the other hand I express more masculine attributes like aggressiveness and self-reliance, which is typical for masculine behavior. Both add in the development in determining and sustaining my gender identity. The biological perspective by the way was inherited from my parents and aided in the development of the characteristics in becoming a woman, gender role of nurturing and caring individual, and maternal tendencies in taking care of my child. Then the psychological perspective according to my mother to which she insists that I was a normal girl with particular behaviors toward feminine toys and clothes. As a final point, the social environment offers an insight into the typical social role of an American woman, which was predetermined at birth by my social surroundings (Rathus, Nevid &

Devor starts by be explaining how gender identity starts between eighteen months and two years. Children then start to understand which specific group the fall into when it comes to gender. Culture also plays a large role in this because different cultures have different thoughts as to how gender is perceived. Masculine and feminine characteristics are usually believed to be opposites of each other. Masculine attributes consist of being competitive, aggressive, and territorial. On the other hand, females are maternal, caring, and sensitive. Gender identity can also be seen through the way individuals speak, their body posture, and personal goals. Society plays a big role in the definitions of masculinity and femininity since children learn values based on the settings around them.I agree with Devor when it comes to the belief that society shapes how individuals understand gender.Gender role characteristics reflect the conceptions that our society sees

Gender and gender roles are a somewhat complicated idea to understand. Contrary to popular belief, gender and sex are two different things in that “gender is not inherently nor solely connected to one’s physical anatomy” (“Understanding Gender”). When parents automatically assign their child a gender based on their sex organs, it leaves very little room for change later in the child’s life, because children born with female sex organs are not necessarily girls, just as children born with male sex organs are not necessarily boys. Rather, gender is based on mindset, personal identity, outward presentations, and behavior of the individual. Binary genders, or the broadly

I knew it would be a challenging for my family to accept me being gay. Being the only gay male in the family was not as easy as it sounded in my head. I decided to wait for the “right time”. As years passed, it took a toll out of

Upon my mother passing away in 2004 and my father remarrying in 2007, the cookie-cutter Christian girl life I had always known permuted into something completely new. I was to attend a public school instead of a private Assemblies of God academy, which had been both terrifying and exciting at the time. The most severe shift, however, was that

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

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

Gender is an age-graded event that affected my childhood. Being able to identify as a woman and learning society’s expectations for women was critical for my development. At the age three, I discovered that society does not have the same expectations for males and females. Therefore, I had to learn how to act like a “lady”.

In the American society, there are many social norms relating to gender. There are certain expectations that both males and females must follow to be socially accepted. These norms and expectations are enforce in children’s lives at a young age. I know for me personally, when I was younger in a family full of boys, I would always hang out with them. In doing so, I would play with nerf guns and wrestler actions figure, what society considers a boy toy. My parents would always tell me that I needed to act more “like a girl.” As I got older, I realized that what my parents told me was stereotypical and that there are no such thing as what is appropriate for a male or female. Today as more and more things are becoming unisex, which means that it

Parents play a crucial role indirect relation to children’s health, and well-being. Psychological and emotional development of children correlates directly from the relationship they have with their parents. With some states now allowing same-sex marriage or unions, the next step being taken is starting a family. There has been wide speculation into sexual orientation and whether it has an impact on homosexuals and their abilities to be good parents. Each parenting style reflects different elements that occur naturally in patterns of values, practices, and behaviors that parents place on disciplining and supporting their child.

They preferred male activities with male company and expressed more interest in a career than in having a family.” (G.C Davenport, ESSENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY, chapter five, page 116.) When a child is born their gender role (set of expectations to say how they should think, act, feel.) is based on their gender identity (sense of being male/female), which is usually based on what sex the child’s genitalia reflects. When we look at children who have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, it is interesting to see that some individuals develop in a feminine direction and acquire a sense of identity as female but others are brought up as males. The child’s upbringing was based purely on judgements about their genitals,