What does it mean to live up to the expectations of society for gender? This week in class I was asked by my professor, about my first distant memory of expectations for my gender. Then, I was asked about my most recent memory of expectations for my gender.
These are both very tough questions to answer. Mainly because, I'm faced with expectations of how I should conform to society through my gender everyday.
My very first memory was through my family. My mother was raised very conservative in South Texas and she truely believed that women should act or dress a certain way. She thought, that looking pretty was all the female species had going for them.Though it may not be her belief today, there was a time when she thought very seriously about the expectations society had for her and her family.
When I was fourteen years old she started to apply those expectations in my life. Before then, I never wore make up, acted feminine, styled my hair, or cared much about my appearence as long as I knew I was happy. But one day, that all changed, when my mother started to buy me makeup that I refused to wear, and we would have arguements before school because I wasn't living up to her standards of how to dress. She'd tell me things like, "you'll never get married if you don't put on your make up everyday," and "you can't even expect someone to fall in love with you without your makeup".
To a fourteen year old girl, those sentences are very degrating, especially when you haven't lived long enough to understand the meanings of the words "love" or "marriage", and my mother wouldn't let me leave the car to attend school until I made myself look like a porcelin doll. This unfortunately,was the first memory i had of expectations for my gender, and now I can't leave the house without wearing some form of make up.
My recent memory of being faced with expectation for my gender, would be EVERYDAY when I attend school, work, or see my family. My work expects me to dress apropriately for my gender, by wearing feminine attire or wearing my hair in a more feminine manner. At school I'm expected by my peers to act a certain way or be a certain way. My family has expectations for my love life, or my future, and anything in between that they could care to argue about. I may not fit alot of societies expectations for my gender, but I can say that I am faced with them everyday and alot of the time, I'm judged for not fitting societies expectations of who I should be.
Thank you for reading, please expect to read more from me as I travel my way through life, love, and education. ~ Ashton R 1096
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