Question.

[postingwhore]

This is something I've been thinking about lately.

Was your socialization gendered in a traditional manner?Looking back, I believe the socialization I received during my formative years was very traditionally male. I was taught to be ambitious and assertive, to expect nothing less than the best, to take leadership whenever necessary, to go for

Comments

[fishpatrol]

This is a very interesting topic of discussion! I wish I had time to formulate a response, but I have to go study for a midterm that's tomorrow, on the subject of the sociology of gender, coincidentally enough. *bookmarks for later*

[postingwhore]

XD Good luck, and I await your response!

[fishpatrol]

I don't think my parents brought me up in a particularly gendered way. I preferred to read books than play sports, but I also used to get into fights when I was younger. My parents pushed me towards the sciences and math, and it was mostly my mom that helped with physics and chem and calculus. My dad tried to teach me to be aggressive, but I don't think it's really part of my disposition though. XD; I think that I learnt to "be gendered" through other socializing sources, like peers and school, and less so from my family.

[postingwhore]

I was too popular to get into fights, but if I had the chance, I probably would have done it. XD;

After I came to the States, I basically read all the time and so wasn't really exposed to other socialization institutions. I didn't even grasp the concept of fashion until seventh grade, so. :P I think that isolation probably allowed me to retain much of my traditionally male socialization.

[elyndys]

Well, I've never thought my upbringing was biased one way or the other in terms of gender, and consequently I've always been adamant that I, and everyone else, is a *person* first and foremost. And I think the reason why is, neither of my parents conformed to a lot of typical gender stereotypes. My dad hated sport, hated DIY, hated driving, developed an interest in cooking after he took early retirement. My mum was a professional, just like he was, and while she did stay at home to look after me until I was 10, she edited books and studied for her MPhil. Although my mum is actually pretty conservative and a fairly strict Christian, in her wedding vows she didn't promise to "obey" because she thought it was wrong. I always fully expected to go to uni and do whatever I wanted, just like both my parents did - I have no doubt my mum would've thought it was a complete waste if I'd just settled down and started a family without trying to do anything more academic. And hey, I hate kids and have no plans to ever have any, so that suits me

[blackjackrocket]

Whereas to me, it's bizarre that people would even read it that way, because I read it as being about those specific characters rather than applicable to me or the world around me.

That's how I read them too! Heck, that's how I see most media too, stories of individuals. Like that individual woman is a spineless wimp, and that individual man is overly macho. I never felt pressure to be like either because I didn't like either, and falling into some vague catagory also shared by them wasn't enough.

[edmondia]

That's an interesting thing to think about. I know that part of the reason that I was adopted was that my mother wanted to have a little girl, and this was excessively clear in my younger years - I had a collection of designer dresses that you would not believe a five-year-old should have - but I hated them with a burning passion, and eventually she just kind of shrugged and gave up on that, especially when I kept wrecking them while playing with my brothers. (Eleven and nine years older than me, but surprisingly willing to play with a sproglet who followed them everywhere. We climbed a lot of dirt piles, had a lot of snowball fights, and slaughtered G.I. Joes with a B.B. gun. I got to set them up in their respective camps on each side of the yard, not do the shooting. :P

[blackjackrocket]

My thing is that I also feel like neither gender, but rather than reject sociatially feminine roles in rejection of physical identification, I go with what I want to embrace from both sides. Because there's parts of both I like and parts of both I don't like. And to reject "traditionally feminine traits" just because they *are* traditionally feminine is shutting out a large part of influence. There's useful things that can be taken from that as well as traditionally male traits.