Expectations Of Sex And Gender In The Swimming Pool By Thomas Lux

In “The Swimming Pool,” Thomas Lux writes about a girl who has not receive her breasts yet is afraid of being teased by her friends, so she decides to tease somebody else first before her friends make fun of her. The girl is embarrassed that she still does not have breasts while her friend has her breasts. She is scared that people will make fun of her by saying that she looks like a guy instead of a girl that should have her body parts. The girl in the poem thinks that a girl should have breasts, and that’s what makes her a girl. This is how most Americans think nowadays. This is the expectations of sex and gender in American today. They think that women should have breasts, wear dresses, and have long hair. They also think women should …show more content…
Somewhere inside of their hearts, they believe that they should be the opposite sex. It is just they have been given the wrong hormones and have been born into the wrong sexed body. This is a new era now. People should expect new thoughts and new behaviors. Parents should also expect that as their children are growing up, they might find themselves wanting to be the opposite sex. Some kids might have natural preferences towards toys or things that do not fit their sexes. In this case, parents should let their children make their own decisions about their genders. Nobody should take away anybody’s choices of being what they want to be. It is ok for girls to play footballs. It is perfectly fine for boys to play dolls. Because that is what they want and what they want to do and most importantly, they like it and they are enjoying …show more content…
In “The Swimming Pool,” the girl is embarrassed by her late-mature body, a body with no breasts. No one should be embarrassed by their own body. It is their own and unique body, and everyone is beautiful the way they are. If people have these expectations, then the taunting that happened in Lux’s poem would not have happened. The girl would not tease and hurt the fat boy because she knows that nobody would make fun of her breasts. Similarly, the “forlorn fat boy” who has been teasing by other people and the girl, is living a hard life because everyone laughs at his fat body. They are laughing at him because he is fat. Those people expect guys to be strong and skinny, but sadly, the fat boy is not. Again, if people continue to have these expectations, they would make fun of every guy who is not strong and skinny. They will tease at every girl who does not have her body parts. As a final point, it is a cruel thing for those people and children who do not meet these expectations because they get to live a life where everybody has biases for