Thurmya Davis
Gender Communications
June 1st 2020
Journal Entry 2
“Individually we are one drop. Together we are an ocean” – Ryonosuke Satoro. I chose this quote because today’s reading is collectively about how society norms separates us. I agree with this chapter because division is our number one weakness and oppressor at this moment, and actually since the beginning of time. We are not only divided by gender, we are divided by race, class, careers, and culture. While I do understand and agree with some parts of “division”- such as different culture practices- I do believe that it is absolutely wrong to divide people and treat them wrong because of how they identify (whether that’s gender, race, or class). Binary systems is a system that I do agree with because to me it is just evident that we all are different; men are different than woman, black is different than while, high class is different than low class but that doesn’t mean its okay to discriminate against each other!
Adding on to my idea of discrimination, I want to give an example on how I think. For example, I see nothing wrong with the idea of “men bring home the bacon” and women take care of the kids. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with the opposite. The point is, why discriminate? Different things work for different people. In addition to that theory, I agree with today’s reading that discriminating careers are wrong. Men should be able to be elementary school teachers, care givers, etc. However, I still agree that it is natural nature for women to know how to nurture a child. Moral of the story is I am always going to look at most situations with a 50/50 mindset.
That same mindset applies to how I feel about gender. I believe gender is a part of a person that cannot be change. Just as a person cannot change their DNA make up (race), or what family they were born into. Yes, we can identify as different things, but facts are facts. If I wanted to identify as Indian, could I? Well now that I identify as Indian, am I considered Indian even though I may be a full blown Italian? In my opinion, I do not think so. I believe that there are somethings about ourselves that cannot be changed, and I am okay with that. I am also okay with others disagreeing and living their life in which ever makes them happy. No matter how one identifies we should not allow gender, race, class, or culture divide us. ❤
I see you working through a lot of different things in this entry. You say you think the binary is true, you actually talk about it like it isn’t. Saying that a man can bring home the bacon and a woman stay and the opposite can also be true shows that the binary cannot hold. Because what we think of as a man and what we think of as a woman is more than just biology. In fact, we think we know the biology of people without every seeing under their clothes or their medical records. What we are actually identifying is their gender (whether correctly or not) NOT their sex. In fact, even within biological sex, there is a lot of variation. Do you mean that the binary works for you and what you want in life, but it’s ok it doesn’t work for everyone? Like I said, it seems like you are working through a lot of stuff here so you might not have the answer yet. I’m glad to see you processing it all!