I found this week’s reading to be very interesting because it discusses in-depth length how Gender Binary is so important in our society than any other Gender people claim to be. It also explains how people of different Gender other than man/woman or male/female are being treated in our society. A member of our class Raquel Hernandez explains this through their snapshots. In their post, we see a written instruction that shows where people who identify as HE/HIM or SHE/HER are meant to enter or use but those who identify as THEY/THEM are restricted or have no place to enter all because such gender is not accepted in our society, also because the only gender known and valued is MALE/FEMALE, so any other gender people claim to be is against the culture and not recognized. The reading also provides us with an accessible understanding of gender fluidity showing us how a world Beyond the Gender Binary of man and woman creates more freedom for everyone.  

Alok Vaid-Menon writes about how the enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life. She said “Babies are born and divided into one of two categories. These categories of boy or girl affect how we treat the baby when they cry, what clothes we dress the baby, what toys we allow the baby to play with, and so on” (pp.29). She also talked about how before a baby is born, well-wishes and family often ask, “is it a boy or a girl” (pp.29) because babies become more important when their gender is known and knowing if the baby is a boy/girl is also part of the culture. 

Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themselves. They teach that boys are strong, aggressive, rational and girls are weak, nice, and emotional. This has always been done constantly and with so much authority that people do not recognize that they’re doing it or what harm it will cause. Sometimes we take this message lightly but later it becomes more serious depending on any of the genders we assign to them, boy or girl. We tend to harm children when people try to impose gender and responsibility on them. Beyond the Gender Binary also breaks down some arguments that are often leveled against people who lived beyond the gender binary. Some of these arguments were divided into four categories: Dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope. 

Also, the author states that “Gender is not what people look like to other people; it is what we know ourselves to be. No one else should be able to tell you who you are, that’s for you to decide” (pp.45). That said,” if people of gender non-conforming weren’t taken for granted and dismissed as a conspiracy, a lot of people would spend less time panicking about the future of the legal system and more time being concerned with the injustices we face today” (pp.57). 

Every society, ethnic group, and culture has gender expectations, but they can be different from group to group. The social construction of gender is demonstrated by the fact that individuals, groups, and societies attribute traits, statuses, or values to individuals purely because of their sex, yet these ascriptions differ across societies and cultures, and over time within the same society. Gender roles are social constructs that have developed over time and are based on natural human behaviors. It is shaped in a way in which men and women are expected to act differently based on their sex.  

From the day a child is born, they are expected to act upon their sex and gender, we can relate this to the reading on Sex & Gender 101-Raising Zoomer which tells us that “if a baby appears to be biologically female, they are assigned a feminine gender. If a baby appears to be biologically male, they are assigned a masculine gender and upon assigning a gender, children are then socialized according to the gender roles of the culture they were born into.” If you are a girl, you must wear pink and if you are a boy, you must like blue and cannot use anything belonging to a girl like toys. Some of these toys like cars, plastic guns for boys and make-up kits, kitchen sets for girls all encourage specific skills for boys and girls, also suggests value about masculine and feminine gender roles. 

Also, according to the reading Sex & Gender 101- Raising Zoomer “boys are taught and expected to be tough, risk-taking, athletic, strong, and aggressive while on the other hand girls are taught and expected to be soft, submissive, delicate, weak, and interested in domestic chores.” As a result, these women/girls are now meant to be under men/boys and see them as the head. Also, because of these gender roles, women are sometimes not valued in the workplace as men even if they earned more college degrees than men and this is because “the US has not always valued women’s equal education.  Bell Hooks also made some similar statements in her book “Feminist Politics-Where we stand regarding gender equality/equity, and she said, “Masses of people agree with the idea of gender equity in the workplace- equal pay for equal work(pp.2) and that changes in our nation’s economy, economic depression, the loss of jobs, etc., made the climate ripe for our nation’s citizens to accept the notion of gender equality in the workforce” (pp.4). In most Organizations, men and women are assigned a different task to perform and occupy different positions based on their sex. 

Sometimes our gender roles limit one from expressing themselves and their emotions e.g. It is harmful to masculine folks to feel they are not allowed to express sensitive emotions and it is also harmful to feminine folks to feel they are not allowed to be independent, smart, and a leader. Gender should be thought of as behavior and personal identification.