Blog #20...that's all folks

"Girls rule and boys drool" used to be one of my favorite things to say.  And in the case of the chimpanzees the author discusses in the beginning of the passage, that statement is definitely true.

I have to admit by just reading the title I assumed this passage would not be focusing on females, but it did and I thought it was very interesting and well written.  The author's writing kept my attention throughout the reading.  Partially because the topic of alpha females makes me feel empowered and because the author's mix of facts, rhetorical questions, and predictions kept me wanting to know more.

Personally, I think it's great that more females are in college. Considering the fact that not too long ago education wasn't even an option for women. And it makes me angry that the author is arguing that the academic and occupational gains by women in recent years have come at the expense of men.  If women are rising in education and the work force it's because they are working their butts off to do so.  Maybe college admissions is letting more girls in than boys, but then within the schools it's not the girls faults that more of them graduate with degrees than the guys do.  Maybe the men should work harder.

Now I guess because I am a girl, I'm biased. BUT, to be honest I don't see a problem with the future holding more college educated women than men.  With women occupying more prestigious jobs and everything...maybe we'll finally have a female president one day.

Blog #19

Oh the "Guy Code".  It's the reason they act the way they do, or the excuse for their secrets.  No matter the definition behind it, it will always be a guy thing....and according to this reading, more specifically, a straight guy thing.

I found it really interesting that when prompted, a college age girl simply stated that as a woman she can do and be anything she wants.  She referred to different celebrities with different jobs and said she could be any one of them if she so pleased.  But when a man is asked what it means to be a man, it's a whole different story.  There is a set of rules or a 'code' one must follow in order to truly be considered a man.  To be honest I found the "Real Guy's Top Ten List" in the reading to be insanely stereotypical, and in my point of view, though most of it is true, I think men have been able to stray from it especially in the past decade or so.  I definitely know a lot of guys that have no problems sharing their feelings and don't mind being sad or crying about something.  I also think that the media and advertising have a huge affect on gender roles in society and the male roles in movies and on television now a days are much more sensitive and open to something such as asking for directions.  Of course you still have your superhero and macho men characters, but there are quite a few lead roles on TV shows such as Scrubs, CSI, Psych, etc. that show men with emotional sides and occasionally even shedding a tear or two.

I agree that it makes sense that boys are more prone to depression and being diagnosed with ADHD.  Growing up in a world where you hide all of your emotions and don't let anything out means all of these feelings are being locked up inside which is unhealthy and can lead to a great deal of confusion.  Turning to anger and violence seems to be the only way for them to let go of anything, but it only hurts themselves and the people around them.

Blog #18!

"A Boy's Life" by Hanna Rosin was a very interesting story.  At my age I can't even fathom being a mother, let alone a mother dealing with a child who wishes to be the opposite sex.  I had no idea that children that young could know deep inside that they identified with the opposite gender, I thought that was something people figured out as they grew up and went through puberty.  I actually admire Brandon for being so courageous and forward about his feelings and who he wanted to be at such a young age.  
It makes sense that Hanna Rosin struggled so much as a single mother dealing with her son because of where she lived.  In a small, secluded town, there aren't other adults or children like Brandon, let alone any knowledge of transgender people.  It wasn't until her mother showed her a video that explained the terms gender-identity disorder and transgender, that Hanna realized that this was a common situation.  I was personally stunned when the article then stated that she decided to buy a computer so she could Google the terms and learn more about the topic.  Clearly, she didn't just live in a small town, she lived in a very conservative and secluded area.  The Trans-Health Conference that she attended with her ex-husband and son exposed them to many other transgender people and helped them cope with their situation.  They were finally accepting to the possibility that Brandon could grow up as a women and maybe even be a mother. 
I'm not sure how I feel about the hormone blockers.  If you decide to give them to your child when they are too young to understand, then they don't have a say in what is happening to their bodies.  Even if at a young age they identify themselves as the opposite gender, they are unaware of the changes that their bodies will go through during puberty and if you stop that from happening then they'll never experience it and truly know and understand why they want to be the opposite gender.  I guess if you're a parent in this situation and your child is miserable as the gender they were born, then maybe it's a good idea.  Especially if later in life it would save them a lot of money to get surgery.  If I were a parent of a transgender child, I'm just honestly not sure what I would do regarding blockers and other drugs.

Blog #17

I was absolutely blown away by "Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meaning of Gender" by Aaron H. Devor.  I have never once thought about how we learn, as young children, to identify ourselves with a certain gender and how long it takes for us to understand what gender to associate ourselves with and how our culture defines gender behaviors.  It takes a long time for us to understand gender anatomically, because at a young age children recognize the genders of people around them on the basis of role information, like clothes or hairstyle instead of physical attributes such as genitalia.  A section of this article that I found particularly interesting was when the author described a study where young, school age children were given dolls and asked to identify their gender.  The majority of the children identified the dolls correctly but on the basis of their hair length or clothing style.  17% of the children identified the gender based based on their primary or secondary sex characteristics.  I think that is truly amazing.  It goes to show how much our culture affects us as young children before we can understand concepts from a more scientific standpoint.  This could also be why many people have trouble accepting that some individuals dress like the opposite gender, according to social norm.

Blog #16

"The End of White America" talks about similar points that "Deconstructing America" discussed, that the white race is soon going to be a minority.  I think for some white people this freaks them out because they are used to being the majority or "superior" to other races.  Throughout the United States history, whites were the ones in charge and there were always more of them than any other race.  Today, the U.S. is much more diverse and your 'status' as a U.S. citizen has to do with your social class and nothing to do with your race.  And in a country that aspires to be post-racial, it is interesting that people are scared or worried about the racial percentages in the U.S. changing so that almost everyone could be considered a "minority".  "We can talk about defining ourselves by lifestyle rather than skin color, but our lifestyle choices are still racially coded" (Hsu 510).  However, we are going into a more diverse world where culture is something we are creating in our own image, and many races can be apart of one culture.
I found that "The Crossing" relates to "The End of White America" because both of them deal with metaphoric lines.  "The End of White America" deals with "the color line" and "The Crossing" deals with the "border line".  For Martinez and many other Mexican Americans, or Mexicans trying to get into the U.S., the line means a lot of things.  Abiding by the line means abiding by the law, but that may not be the morally right decision depending on the person.  Martinez struggled to help a man with diabetes; he couldn't drive him over the line because he would get arrested, but at the same time he wanted to be able to help him cross so he could have a better life.  And Martinez didn't want the man to walk in fear of him not making it due to his medical condition.  So he notified Border Patrol and the hoped the man would be okay and would be able to cross the border eventually on his own. The quote from this passage that really stuck out in my mind was "I tell myself I did the right thing. I tell myself I did the wrong thing. I tell myself that every decision on the line is like that, somewhere in between" (482).

Blog #15 Deconstructing America

This passage was pretty overwhelming and made me question some of my beliefs. I always thought that America was heading in the right direction by becoming more racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse, but according to Buchanan there are quite a few downsides to this.  The one that stood out most to me was the statement that "the greater the diversity, the greater the mistrust".  It's weird for me to think that in this day and age people only feel that they can truly trust those of their own race, I feel like that just disproves how far we have come and that we have been able to move past racism in the extreme sense that it used to be. And then what I found to be very interesting was the long list of all of the horrible events or laws in this country's past that all revolved around the subject of race. "Racial diversity has been the most polarizing issue among us" (469). The Civil War, Dred Scott, riots in L.A. about Rodney King, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; it was all about race. And Buchanan questions if whether opening up the United States to the whole world is a good idea because of how many issues this country has had regarding race. I sort of see his point but at the same time I disagree. I think it's good that we are becoming even more diverse and that no one race will be the majority. Yeah it'll take some getting used to, but eventually it could really benefit us and make us a more well rounded people.

Blog #14 (yes, we skipped 13)

It's interesting how Jame's mother had so much pride and was so overly protective of her children, that she was incapable of opening up to them and answering their questions regarding their identity.  I guess I understand, given the time period, that she wanted to keep them safe so she sent them to the white, Jewish public schools instead of the schools near by where other black kids attended.  However, I think it is because she sent them to white schools that they were humiliated and hurt more than they would have been if they had gone to the schools in their neighborhood.  The white students and teachers were very racist, and for James this was very hard to deal with.  He was constantly being pushed around at school and eventually found that his only comfort was looking at his reflection in the mirror and pretending the person he saw has a better life than his.  It's really unfortunate that he had to go through all of that and then come home to his mother who can't answer his question "am I black or am I white?".  Not because she doesn't know the answer but because she doesn't want to deal with it.  Though she is proud to have married a black man and had black kids, she is embarrassed to reveal to her children that her Jewish family disowned her and that she has a strong Jewish heritage.  I was angry with her when James asked what a 'tragic mulatto' was and her response was "you're a human being".  Jame's life is so convoluted and all he wants to know is who he is so he can be comfortable in his skin and be able to identify himself and all his stubborn mother can muster is "you're a human being".  Thank you captain obvious, he's a smart kid he knows he's human.  And all of this led to James being ashamed that his mother was white and he didn't want to be seen in public with her anymore.  I found this to be very sad, but I feel like if his mother hadn't tried to raise her children in a bubble full of unrealistic ideals, then that wouldn't have happened.