I am a white female, born to a poor, unwed mother. My father a drunk like his father before him. Both my parents worked low-income jobs, my father jumped around from workplace to workplace because of his temper. Momma, my mother, worked, and still does to this day, retail and customer service jobs; she, unlike my father, clawed tooth and nail to keep those jobs and receive whatever raise she could. She knew what it was like to be “born poor into a world that despises the poor,” and she didn’t want that for my sisters and me (Women’s Lives, 124).
My family is predominantly female, so the entire idea of what was considered “male” baffled me for a large part of my life. My father had left and I rarely saw my uncle, so I was surrounded by estrogen. …show more content…
When I’m not wearing my fandom bearing shirts, low cut v-necks and button-ups are the rest of my wardrobe, with tank tops to match. A necklace of some sort is always around my neck since I refuse to pierce my ears, this is the extent of my jewelry. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve worn makeup. All these things are gendered in some form or another, “our bodies and their adornments provide us with ‘texts’ for reading a person’s gender” (Gender and Society, 1999). Examples are whether a baby is wearing pink or blue or if a young child has long hair, it is generally a girl, where a boy’s is short and …show more content…
I have incredible difficulty voicing my opinion and speaking out for fear of confrontation. Some of my grandmother’s phrases stuck with me, and some didn’t. This is training I’ve learned after the horror stories from TV, seeing women walking down the street, their heads down, they only time they look up is when they are approaching some sort of obstacle, or a man has approached her and she is trying to find some way to escape interaction. Images like this, and others like it, tell females what it means to be “female,” how one should act and dress and what kind of jobs they will have. With no other exposure to different idea’s, they will conform to what is in front of
My family is predominantly female, so the entire idea of what was considered “male” baffled me for a large part of my life. My father had left and I rarely saw my uncle, so I was surrounded by estrogen. …show more content…
When I’m not wearing my fandom bearing shirts, low cut v-necks and button-ups are the rest of my wardrobe, with tank tops to match. A necklace of some sort is always around my neck since I refuse to pierce my ears, this is the extent of my jewelry. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve worn makeup. All these things are gendered in some form or another, “our bodies and their adornments provide us with ‘texts’ for reading a person’s gender” (Gender and Society, 1999). Examples are whether a baby is wearing pink or blue or if a young child has long hair, it is generally a girl, where a boy’s is short and …show more content…
I have incredible difficulty voicing my opinion and speaking out for fear of confrontation. Some of my grandmother’s phrases stuck with me, and some didn’t. This is training I’ve learned after the horror stories from TV, seeing women walking down the street, their heads down, they only time they look up is when they are approaching some sort of obstacle, or a man has approached her and she is trying to find some way to escape interaction. Images like this, and others like it, tell females what it means to be “female,” how one should act and dress and what kind of jobs they will have. With no other exposure to different idea’s, they will conform to what is in front of