Heteronormativity

In the essay, Why Boys don’t play with Dolls, by Katha Pollitt, the ethical issue of children being forced to follow roles that our society has based on gender. Pollitt’s essay was written 22 years ago, so the essay was written about how gender stereotyping was being handled back in 1995. Pollitt mentioned how NOW (National Organization of Women) was organized 28 years before she wrote her essay, and how, after almost three decades after the organization was formed, our society had not done much…

Queer theory, explained through Eudora Welty’s Moon Lake Moon Lake, by Eudora Welty, narrates the adventures of a group of girls during a summer camp, exploring their desire of discovery and their transition to adolescence, which is also related to the expression of their bodies and their public behavior. Moon Lake, then, is an important space of socialization where orphan and wealthy girls interact with each other, despite of the notorious differences between them; and to explore new…

This essay will aim to argue the importance of acknowledging the diversity of our country, in particular, the transsexual community. Also discussed in this essay, is the issue of transsexual people feeling remote and experiences of discriminating against them through environments such as the workplace and education facilities as well as everyday life experiences. Furthermore, this essay will continue to highlight the injustice experienced by transsexual people. The need for a more diverse…

A Deliberation on Borders External and internal limitations surround us at every moment in our lives; hence, borders such as the color of our skin, geographical borders, and culture are hard to escape from. It is solely up to an individual to establish how they intend to deal with their borders, if at all. This was no different for both Gualinto, from George Washington Gomez, and Henry, from Zoot Suit. They both struggled with, a psychological border, the awareness that they came from two…

According to the Module 7 lecture, norms are implied through social influences and interactions. Norms can be explicit, that is, general rules that are known to everyone that's part of a group, such as not speaking during class when the instructor is giving a lecture. Norms can also be implicit, where the rules are not so obvious, such as taking a bite of your food before a prayer at the dinner table is said. By observing the way that others behave in a particular group setting, we learn what we…

In many different societies we all contain social norms. Fundamentally, social norms are defined as “the rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society” (YourDictionary). In other words, norms are the written or unwritten rules of behavior that we follow in everyday life. Some norms could be an effortless gesture such as “holding a door for an individual”. But other social norms are more strictly held to in certain situations than in others; for instance, slapping a…

Gender roles affect the lives of every human being. Dictionary.com defines gender role as “the public image of being male or female that one presents to others.” This implies that we portray something that we construct ourselves, crafted according to our personal expression of masculinity or femininity that we identify with. Our personal understanding of gender is shaped by the norms that come from our culture. Norm is defined as “a standard, model, or pattern.” To be included in our culture we…

The film Osama directed by Siddiq Barmak delivers insider perspective of the challenges a woman living in Afghanistan experiences on a daily basis. Osama was entirely filmed in Afghanistan during the strict rule of the Taliban, where women are not allowed to work or be in public without a male escort. Many families are left without men to provide for the women because many of them died during the Afghan Wars, thus leaving families with only women to starve. Osama exposes an extremist culture…

Some external factors that may have influenced the way Leo turned out was definitely his participation in extracurricular activities. Despite his slow-to-warm up temperament, Leo was always ready to engage in activities that were associated with what he loved to do or with what deeply interested him. My son was persistent on the idea of joining the boy scouts since he was fascinated with the nature and the outdoors which is why we always took trips to the mountains and played in our backyard.…

This excerpt comes from the episode, “Definition,” from the television show, How I Met Your Mother. In this episode, the characters Barney and Robin have just kissed, however, they do not want to be in the traditional romantic relationship their best friend, Lily, wants them to be in. While the male characters in this scene, Barney and Marshall, uphold the linguistic norms for male conversation, Lily and Robin, the female characters in the conversation, represent two far sides of the female…