Beyond Midlife Interview: My Grandmother
I have rarely spent time trying to understand why older generations act and feel the way they do. To take the first steps into understanding, I chose to interview my Grandmother Claudette Grant. She is a perfect candidate because she is seventy-three years old and her young adult life aligned with the second wave of the woman’s movement. Her biological sex, gender identity and expression also align with mine, so I was able to challenge myself to look for similarities and differences within our gender experiences. I went into the interview as open-minded as possible. My goal was to understand her gender experience in comparison to my gender experience, along with any assumptions and research about women …show more content…
My grandmother was brought up in a catholic home. The catholic ideals translated into the way her parents approached her sex education, which in this case was non-existent. Her mother told her the bare necessities about menstruation and told her that sex should be saved for marriage. Subconsciously she was slowly shaped into the “good girl” stereotype. According to Brannon (2011), this stereotype was born out of the ideals of “The True Cult of Womanhood” dating back to the Victorian era (47). Women were expected to be pious and pure while men were expected to be aggressive and sexual (Brannon, 2011). Consequently, my grandmother developed an insecurity that she still embodies today. For example, even though she is older and sexually experienced she still finds it difficult to talk to her children and grandchildren about sex. This caused my mother to be shy about sex, and that insecurity transfers into how my mother talks to me about sex. It took me a while to feel comfortable talking to my mother or friends about sex. This shows that her ideals have immersed into my generation and if the cycle it makes it difficult for women to break out of sexual
I have rarely spent time trying to understand why older generations act and feel the way they do. To take the first steps into understanding, I chose to interview my Grandmother Claudette Grant. She is a perfect candidate because she is seventy-three years old and her young adult life aligned with the second wave of the woman’s movement. Her biological sex, gender identity and expression also align with mine, so I was able to challenge myself to look for similarities and differences within our gender experiences. I went into the interview as open-minded as possible. My goal was to understand her gender experience in comparison to my gender experience, along with any assumptions and research about women …show more content…
My grandmother was brought up in a catholic home. The catholic ideals translated into the way her parents approached her sex education, which in this case was non-existent. Her mother told her the bare necessities about menstruation and told her that sex should be saved for marriage. Subconsciously she was slowly shaped into the “good girl” stereotype. According to Brannon (2011), this stereotype was born out of the ideals of “The True Cult of Womanhood” dating back to the Victorian era (47). Women were expected to be pious and pure while men were expected to be aggressive and sexual (Brannon, 2011). Consequently, my grandmother developed an insecurity that she still embodies today. For example, even though she is older and sexually experienced she still finds it difficult to talk to her children and grandchildren about sex. This caused my mother to be shy about sex, and that insecurity transfers into how my mother talks to me about sex. It took me a while to feel comfortable talking to my mother or friends about sex. This shows that her ideals have immersed into my generation and if the cycle it makes it difficult for women to break out of sexual