A Girl Like Her

By: Alexis Y. Ortiz

Gender can be defined as the roles or expectations that go along with being male or female. Gender is something all people do, that distinguishes them as wither male or female. Gender is a socially constructed.

Sexuality is a persons sexual orientation or prefereance. Our society would prefer for relationships to be held within heterosexual couples; however with biology comes variation. There are homosexuals, trisexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals and transgendered individuals among others. A person has the choice to be with whichever sex they desire, although it may not be acknowledged by spciety or the government in most states.

Gwen Araujo was born Edwin Araujo with male genitalia and reprodcutive organs. Shortly into his child his mother noticed that her was more interested in feminine opposed to masculine activities. He was a boy who according to his mother played in girls clothes and toys never trucks or guns like most boys. In an interview his mother gave she explains that Gwen never felt like she was born into the right body. She was not gay, she had just been placed into a body that she could not identify with. In a movie portraying her short life, Eddie began going by Gwen in high school and would wear articles of clothing and accessories that would give him a more feminine appeal. By the time Gwen was in her last year in highschool she was passing as a woman.



Somehow Gwen managed to fool her boyfriend into believing that she was in fact a natural born woman. Her boyfriend was completely oblivious about who she really was. Sylvia Araujo, Gwens mother, decided to tell her boyfriend the truth ultimately leading him to make the decision to discontinue the relationship. Gwen reportedly became very upset and began to spin down a negative spiral. She was reportedly self medication with alcohol to dull the pain she was experiencing from her lovers deep rejection. Not so long after she went to a party and never came out alive. A group of young men forceably revealed her secret and killed her because of it.

Eddie was born a boy at least that is what his birth certificate and genitals would say. What would Gwen Say? Gwen would probably say that she was a whole lot of woman. Her sex may have been male but her gender was as much of a woman as I am.



Happy Halloween!

Submitted by Mirra Watkins

     Halloween….  Known as a day of masquerading for children to trick or treat.  I have always known it to be such a day, to dress up and be whomever or whatever you admire and love: Captain Jack Sparrow, Princess Peach, Batman, Spiderman, etc.  However, due to most of us “doing gender,” I don’t think many realize how Halloween has contributed to the reinforcement of gender socialization (see how our society makes distinct differences in how children should dress for Halloween in the pictures below).  One mother’s decision in 2010 shook up this notion.

     Sarah Manley’s five-year-old son, Boo, decided to dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo for his preschool Halloween party in 2010.  Much to my and his mother's surprise, it started an uproar.  To add more shock, the controversy did not start because of Boo’s fellow preschoolers teasing him for wearing, what many would assume, a "girl’s costume," which Boo (and I upon hearing the story) expected.  No, it wasn’t his friends who criticized him.  In fact, the children enjoyed his get-up.  The disgust and disapproval came from none other than the children’s parents.  Manley, retelling the incident on her blog, stated that “Two mothers went wide-eyed and made faces as if they smelled decomp…And Mom A says in disgust, ‘Did he ask to be that?!’…Mom B mostly just stood there in shock and dismay.”  Another mother found the audacity to tell Manley how Manley “should never have allowed this” and that she would have to put her foot down in years to come.  Sarah Manley received much backlash not only from the mothers at her son’s preschool but online as well after she vented about the issue on her blog.  In the New York Times online blog, Manley discussed how she “received some pretty terrible comments and name-calling about [her] 5-year-old that [she] couldn’t reprint.”  One individual went as far as tweeting Manley's husband’s police department in order to have her children taken away.

     What’s upsetting to me about this controversy is the hypocrisy of our society and their unrelenting ways to commit everyone to their very specific and limiting gender roles…even on a holiday made for dressing up and being someone that you're not!  What’s even sadder about this situation was the many negative comments Manley received about her son being gay or that she ‘outed’ Boo.  Despite the fact that young 5-year old Boo, as his mother said, has "no sexual conscious choice."  The negative comments further support the social belief that, as quoted in Sociology Matters, “men and women who deviate from traditional expectations about gender roles are often presumed to be gay."  Manley’s son, Boo, was expected to dress up as someone "masculine" for Halloween (most likely similar to the costumes above).  Because he didn't, he and his mother were chastised.  Far as our society’s homophobia and standards of gender roles goes, a boy dressing up as Daphne, Snow White, Storm, a Powerpuff Girl, or any other female character is a huge NO-NO and should be frowned upon and stopped.

     Many fail to realize and to understand that at such a young age, children do not know or understand sexual identity or sexual preference.  According to MSNBC, experts say that it is not unusual for boys under five to dress up in clothing or costumes usually associated with girls.  Not only that, however, many girls dress up as boys (or what’s typically associated with boys) and our society sees no problem with that! Manley said it best in her blog that if her daughter “had dressed as Batman, no one would have thought twice about it.  No one.”  What makes a girl dressing up as a male any different than a boy dressing up as a female?  Nothing.  As children see it, they are just having fun.  However to our society, it is a stigma.  A stigma so influential that children around five years of age become aware of the "differences" between our two genders and the desire to "cross-dress" disappears.

     Sadly, this issue came into light because of one Halloween costume.  I cannot imagine the difficulty our society will have with the larger issue of parents allowing their children to causally "cross-dress."  How will our society handle our children wanting to dress in everyday clothes that are stereotypically associated with the opposite sex?  Will we reprimand and scold our children in order to mold them into society’s acceptable and restrictive gender roles?  Or will we learn to accept, making our children’s happiness our top priority rather than our society’s standards and expectations?  Will we evolve and become a nation that does not subject its children to dimorphic genders?


To read Sarah Manley’s full blog post, go to http://nerdyapple.com/my-son-is-gay/

The roles of gender and sexuality in American Society. By Ken Shaw

We have truly come a long way from the viciously intolerant times of our parents and grandparents. It wasnt even 80 years ago when expressing your true sexual preference meant you had a chance to go to jail if anyone caught you. Closeting your emotions and beliefs because of the stigma behind it. The old days when men and women alike were expected to fill the "cookie cutter" mold that society put in place. Going against the norms of the times ended in being labeled as a "freak" and excommunicated from society.

Many movements and causes shaped and truly changed our generation's views and opinions on the matter. And we truly do realize how lucky we do have it in today's times. The equality for Americans that go against the social norm still is lacking key elements such as the right to marry and all the privledges that come with the title, but 50 years ago they were'nt even considered American in society. Slowly but surely the LGBT community fought for the freedom to express your true gender and sexuality without facing the adversely negative stigma and labels that come with being LGBT. Through the cruel verbal and vicious physical lashings they took to get their message of tolerance and equality across to the masses and it was truly being recieved on open minded ears.

 I honestly dont know much about the LGBT community and their trials and tribulations that came with the fight. But I truly commend the people that constantly fight and rally behind obtaining equal rights. The ones that marched and lobbied to government officials to at least grant them the right to marry a partner wether man or woman that they truly love and live out their version of this so-called "American Dream". So I leave you ( my fellow classmates) with this:"Could you truly thive in a country that did'nt consider you a equal because of your true expression of sexuality and gender"? 

To Be Or Not To Be The American Family

Aydaia Hills


 The American family consist of a white family, mom and dad who is married with two biological children one girl and one boy. living under one roof in a nice big white house with a fence and a large yard. The dad would be the provider making a well over average income while the mom would stay at home to cook, clean and take care of the children.

Family defined by the U.S. Supreme Court consist of three different family views. One is a traditional "nuclear family", that is  when two parents and their children live in a household, and the parents presumed to be acting in the best interest of their children.In such a family, there is no need to give the children their own voice even when parents do such things as institutionalize their children.second is an extended kind model of family made up of a community of parents, siblings, grandparents and other relatives which should be recognized as a primary family, even if their blood ties are not as strong as a nuclear family. Last is an individualist model where family members are fairly autonomous and that individual should be respected. 






we all know that in today's society its rare to find many families still living the American family tradition. Now a days we have family households of people being raised by single parents, gay parents, grand parents, siblings and so forth.Which i believe is great, I think family should consist of a house hold of anybody that live under one roof or many roofs that love, cherish, care, and take care of one another.




I define my family as an extended kind model. I was raised by my god parents since i was three months old. Our house hold consist of my god mom and god dad who were married, and my god brother and sister. So it was just the five of us. We had a really nice home I would consider it to be the American family home. My god father and mother was both the Provider. Then my god mom got sick and became a stay at home mom while my god dad still worked. When I turned about 13 my god dad past away, then my god sister and brother became the providers of the house. So its not always what you want it to be its what you make it. Just because my god parents became sick and my god dad past away doesn't mean we were no longer a family. We still loved each other the same way, we still provided for one another, we stuck by each other side and still til this day we are sticking it through together. Now that's what i call a family!

The Family Effect

By Charles Marren

We’ve all learned in various history courses that society has changed drastically with each generation and in each new generation new norms and values are presented. A common norm found in society’s past is called the nuclear family; a family consisting of a mother, father and child. This type of household structure played on the stereotypical gender roles and enforced a blueprint for doing gender in the family with men being the main provider of the family with money, and the mother being the main nurturer. However in present society these roles for men and woman are not as nearly black and white as they were before, with the so called guidelines for each gender becoming blurred together. So the question is what could be one of the contributing factors of this new wave of thinking? The man being the provider and the woman being the nurturer were two ways of thinking that were birthed in the home, so why should we not expect that any new type of thinking didn’t come from the same place? It starts in the home is a commonly used phrase after all.

Although considered a stereotype for the family structure, the nuclear family was once a prominent example of the average household. According to census data found in Sociology Matters, in 1940 84% of married couples made up households in U.S, while female-headed households made up only 4% and male-head households only 1%. During that time it’s not hard to see why society viewed the gender roles in such a black and white fashion because both genders were present to fulfill those roles in the average household at the time. However as explained previously, times have changed and one of the major things that have changed are norms, and one major norm that has become frequently present in current society is divorce. Divorce in present society has changed the average family household dramatically as seen in the census data found in Sociology Matters, as it reveals the average married couple household has dropped to only being 50% of the majority, with female-headed households rising to 13% and male-headed households rising to 4%. So how could the rise of single headed households change the view gender role guidelines?

In a household with only one man, the man has to break away from just being a provider through his job, but also a provider of nurture through one on one contact with his kids. This same type of situation applies for a single woman of a household who now has to get a job in order to provider for her children instead of just being the nurturer at home. With a single parent home, no matter what gender the household is helmed by, the roles become blurred into one single gender role. So now the children of the present, unlike the children of the past, are seeing a woman, their mother, working and making money just like men and being a provider. Along with that change, fathers are someone a crying child will wake up to in the middle of the night for comfort. With the rise of these new family structures, the roles of genders will most likely diminish slowly over the course of the years and a new role will be introduced simply known as The Parent; a nurturer and provider. 

Family Matters

Submitted by Keith Miller

Does having a family matter?  The first question I should ask is, what is family?  According to the U.S. Census Bureau "a family includes a householder and one or more people living in the same household who are related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption."  When it comes to a family, there can be different types.  There is a traditional or "nuclear family" or there is an extended family.

The first type of family someone can have is a traditional family or some may refer to it has a nuclear family.  What that means is when a married couple and their children all live together.  The other type of family is an extended family which can be defined as when relatives like grandparents for example all live in the same house as the parents and their children. 

Me, I was raised in a nuclear family.  Growing up I lived with both my parents and my sister in one house.  Now I live in Philadelphia with just my sister, away from all of my other 15 family members.  Looking back, I didn't live in an extended family when everyone was under one roof.  But I have always been very close to all of my family members including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Every holiday, every birthday, sometimes even every activity one takes part in, the whole family goes to support and we are always communicating and talking to one another.  So even though I live a traditional family way, I really live as an extended family.

So getting to my question of does having a family matter, I would have to say yes.  Being in such a family has made me the man I am today.  Family matters especially when growing up.  They are suppose to be loving and warm people who you can go to in need of help or personal struggles. Whether you grow up or live in either a nuclear, extended or any kind of family, its important to have that.

What is family? by Stacey Nelson

     What is Family? This is an important question that is often asked. Rather it's at the dinner table or in a political debate. As learned in class (soc 101), a family is one particular and ideal way. I belive the politically correct term is a nuclear family. The nuclear famiy consist of a bread winning or workin father, a mother who is a homemaker, white or caucasian and two biological children. In 1950's and 60's, the nuclear family was very popular. But, in today's society, that is a dream. Rather Black or White, there aren't that many around.

  

  Family is those around you. Those that are there when you need them. Most modern day families consist of working parents, rather one or two & two or more children. Some have grand -parents or aunts and uncles that play a big part in the upbringing of the children. In my opinion, your family is what and who means the most to you. It's what you work for and work hard to keep together.

   As a child, my family was made up of my father, my mother and 9 brothers and sisters. My father wasn't always physically around but financially he was the authority figure. My mother was the head of house. Although there was never enough space or bathroom time, having so many in one household had its advantages. There was never a dull moment. All the chores didn't fall on one person, we all had a reponsibility. It was also lots of love. The love I recieved from my family and watching the way my mother and father's relationship was taught me to be a strong and loving parent.

   I am a single parent of two children, both boy and girl. I am also a full-time employee as well as a full-time student. My responsibilites allows me to be a part of society. Throughout my daily travels, I'm able to learn about the world around me. My days are long and sometimes hard but because of the love I have and the passion of success for my family, it is well worth it. So now that i have told you about my family and how it gives me a belonging to society, tell me about yours. What does family mean to you? How does it make you a part of society?