Every day we hear phrases like; you run like a girl, you throw like a girl, you should act like a lady, but who decides how a girl runs or throws a ball? Last time I checked we all ran with one foot in front of the other, or that there were more pitching rules in fast pitch softball then baseball. For many years women have been told how they should walk, talk, and act. Society portrays an image of how boys and girls should be, whether it’s from our parents, the media, or social interactions. . Growing up I always told how I should look and what type of things I should like. After having children of my own I realized it was all a lie, that we should be able to be who we want and do the things we enjoy.
For a very long time …show more content…
My whole life I felt as if I was fat and that had given me very low self-esteem and confidence issues. Since I was 12 my sister who is my senior by five years has gotten my hand me downs. My mother would always watch what I ate, made sure I worked out and made me feel very low about myself. It wasn’t until after my divorce that I realized that I am not fat, that I am just built different from my family, I stand at 5’5 and 135lbs. Because of my mother and what the media portrays as how the ideal women should look I still struggle with loving what I see in the mirror. I try very hard to watch what I say in front of my daughter regarding my body and my attitude about eating healthy and working out, because I don’t want her to feel the way I was brought up to feel. My little beauty stands right about 5’0 and 95 lbs., she is only ten and towers over her class mates and team to where he coach has to prove her age at games. I spend many mornings and nights comforting her because she thinks she is fat and needs to lose weight, but she is not fat. All she sees is that she doesn’t look like her friends and doesn’t see why her older cousins fit into her old …show more content…
He is a firm believer that a women should always dress up for their man, she should cook, clean, and stay home and raise the family, a women should always ask permission before she does anything. There were many things that he wouldn’t allow me to do, going back to school was one of them. Those believes are the exact things that I don’t want my children to have. In our house both kids help cook and clean, laundry is a team effort, and we all take care of each other and back each other up. According to our book sexism can be towards men just as well as women, but women deal with a majority of it. (Kendall, p. 323) As much as I want my daughter to know that those believes are not how it should be I want my son to know that too, I want him to grow up to be a kind, caring, and respectable man. I want my son to grow up with the passion of wanting to take care of his family, and doing that in any way possible. I want him to know that it is not a man’s job to make all the money he can still take care of his family even if he’s a stay at home dad. I want my daughter to know that she shouldn’t let her gender keep her from following her dreams and becoming who she wants, even if it means she has to work harder to get there she can still do