Author: Stephany A Pineda Cardoso

Gender Identity Project Stephany Pineda Cardoso

I looked up and around, women all so efficiently coordinated to get the job done. Living in a small apartment in Puebla, my four aunts worked, did chores, and took care of their children, all single mothers, except one, who never left her room. I saw women walking in and out, one side led to the kitchen and the other led to a comal bigger than my 6 year old self, where flames blazed as if it’s purpose was to eat the hands that flipped the freshly made tortillas. What a bravery I thought, as I slowly bit into a tortilla watching in amazement. 

I looked around; we were traveling in a van full of men for what seemed to be days. My mother’s legs carried a bump that occupied my pillow space. I became angry, but my mother looked into my eyes and hugged me, reassuring me that her love for me would never end. Finally, we arrived in a house full of tough, tall, big belly men. And as we settled in a room a young woman entered. Her tears endlessly fell, my mother hugged her as if she were me, and my 7-year-old self watched them as I slowly faded into sleep. Our field trip came to an end, or so I thought. We arrived at my aunt’s house, but we were soon told we needed to move out. I looked up worried, but my mom described a beautiful place to look forward to, which made me forget that when I looked around, we were sleeping on someone’s kitchen floor.

I looked up, we were smiling, chatting, and laughing. I held her hand, strolling in our new neighborhood where we finally had a room to call ours. I looked around and then back, suddenly I was several feet away from my mom, my eyes locked onto her figure. He was hurting her. I entered a state of shock. I wanted to tell him to stop, to scream, to punch him and kick him, but my body and voice felt as if it had been tied and threatened by fear. All I could hear was my mother’s yelling, asking for help. Her gray handbag refused to let go of her arm, and her hand refused to let go of the stroller. I clicked back into reality when he started running away. I ran towards my mom in need of a hug, I was scared and confused but she reassured me like always.

The time came where I no longer looked up, but instead I looked at myself and then around. “Critical theories emphasize the role broad cultural institutions and norms play in the construction and maintenance of gender” (DeFrancisco, Victoria and Catherine), these played a big part in who I thought I was supposed to be and who I wanted to be seen as. I was trying to understand who I was through society’s norms. In relation to my gender this happened when I became a girlfriend, I saw other traditional examples of what women did towards their loved one, and I tried to imitate. I was not aware of my gender experiences until now, and not because my grandfather recently pointed at my “inadequate” decision as a woman to cut my hair, but because I now understand my past experiences.

Gender roles assign an expectative to a specific gender or sex (Sonja K. Foss). All my aunts defied traditional gender roles. One of them never left her room because she silently grieved her boyfriend’s death. The bravery of my aunts to dip their hands in fire and rescue a tortilla is nothing more than a womanly role to many. The young woman my mom consoled, was crying because she had just experienced a man being stabbed. My long field trip wasn’t just another vacation, but it was when I crossed the border. I can now see the resilience and power of my mother, to withstand the heat in the car, and my complaints of this bump, that ended up being my sister. I learned that we needed to move soon after arriving in the U.S because my uncle had physically abused my aunt. My mother’s strength to confront someone significantly taller in front of her children, and still not break down just to give me reassurance is unbelievable.

All my life I saw women as a representation of strength and power. My ideas of what it means to be a woman were psychologically built, “psychoanalytic theories call attention to how unconscious thoughts and memories influence a person’s identity, actions and beliefs” (DeFrancisco, Victoria and Catherine). My gendered experience was additionally intersectional, my culture, social class and immigration status had to do with my gendered experience. My current beliefs were triggered by early childhood experience. I have learned that if I indeed viewed women and men as equal, I would not mind letting go of this gender binary system. A gender binary system is made of two socially constructed categories, (one who is always more powerful). The history and challenges women face carry a heavy weight, getting rid of this binary system in my mind means invalidating the power and strength of a woman. I have recognized, upheld, and feel proud of women’s success because of their unique and difficult challenges, but because I have not experienced an identity formation of a man or know of their unique challenges, I devalue them unconsciously. As I spoke with communication professor Whitney, she stated that gender is not meant to be completely abolished but rather other definitions are supposed to be implemented so that we eliminate this binary system. But because of the social learning theory, which is the idea that gender is a learned behavior constructed by the analyzing of others (DeFrancisco, Victoria and Catherine), and that gender is a performance as stated by Judith Butler, I believe that the behavior associated with each gender will always be problematic. Remembering gender by history and unique challenges in effort to eliminate it might be more successful, but of course I will have to educate myself further to make such claims. I know that as humans our experiences are both powerful and meaningful. I cannot highlight the power of a woman (despite their everyday discrimination and challenges) without recognizing the depression and silence men go through because society’s norms (critical/cultural structure). If I think of people as humans with complex experiences, I can better understand the foundation of identity formation.

 

Stephany Pineda Cardoso Discussion 3

My smile – Psychological and Critical

Although I’ve had bad comments about how my smile looks aesthetically, I still love it. My teeth are straight, so this helps my confidence, regardless, I believe it represents me and who I am as a person. My personal philosophy is to always smile, be kind, hardworking and have discipline. I have developed this through my personal experiences. Moving to a new country heightened my self-awareness of my difference in culture. I was not only facing school, culture, language, and personal identity development challenges but I did not have a safe place to go home to. My family and I were unwelcomed by some family members that lived here. Being torn away from my family in Mexico was difficult, and although I had my mom, I also had my new outside world to face. Knowing that the people you love can be torn away so quickly is the reason why I love people in general, I believe I need to cherish every moment. Smiling was my way of coping. Every time I see a picture of myself, I am smiling, and most of the time with my teeth showing, it’s funny but it reminds me of how happy I am with the people around me. I have pictures of all my friends and family hanging up on my wall and we are all cheesing. My smile is a reminder that I can overcome anything. People know me as always being happy, bubbly, and full of energy in any situation. Through my analysis I see that my experiences influence the way I view my smile, and this is a psychological and critical perspective.

Arms – Biological, Psychological and Critical

I have viewed my arms through the norms of society. I have disliked their thinness and hairiness because it has led me to believe that I am physically weak and unattractive. I have learned to feel indifferent about them, but I cannot help but feel annoyed sometimes. Everyone has body hair, but it is expected that women shave. The problem is not about shaving the problem is that women are expected to do this in order to be exemplary, more like “an acceptable woman”. Otherwise women get called disgusting, or even manly. I was constantly “jokingly” called out for being hairy. This brought down myself esteem, I looked at myself and wanted to get rid of everything that made me look different. The only thing that kept a razor off my arms was my mom telling me that if I shaved my hair will grow back thicker and ugly. My first time shaving was for my firth grade graduation, I think I was too young to do so but I was influenced because my best friend’s mom had allowed her to shave and so she made a side comment about me doing it. Through middle school I had close friends who had arms just like mine, and I would make pinky promises with other girls to promise each other never to shave our arms and support each other. Sadly, they always shaved, and society won. I now feel more confident, I am glad I didn’t shave, and I don’t mind my arms being thin. What still annoys me is that when my arms are visible people just stare, as if I suddenly transformed into an alien. This is annoying and hurtful at times, but I let them have their view and process of thought, there is really nothing else I could do.

Speech – Psychological and Critical

I am insecure of how I speak; I am scared to look like a fool, and I feel frustrated when I cannot get my ideas across. I started learning English while barely knowing Spanish. My cultural differences have led me to fear being perceived as uneducated. While taking linguistics I was able to reflect and understand that I have idolized “white English”. I associated “white English” with great articulation and perfect pronunciation. My view on my speech has come from a psychological and critical perspective. 

I think that my embodied communication complies with “what it means to be a girl”, this could be anything from my behavior to how I talk. Based on the information in this article I believe I use many stereotypical behaviors to fit my needs and my environment. I have always done “boy like activities” to show that I have courage and to break the stereotype of a typical girl. It is common for a girl to be perceived as strong when she does a daring activity (known to be for boys), but once that girl starts picking up “boy behavior”, such as a specific way of sitting, talking or eating, she risks receiving retaliation. I see myself in this situation, this is a norm I follow and submit myself to, they construct my behavior today. Psychological theories describe these experiences, children grow up within ideals that make it harder to break this gender binary system. Mothers want the best for their child but there is the fear that teaching their children something other than these norms might completely challenge their experiences.

Journal 3

Theories of Gender and Sex introduces the theories by which gender and sex is studied. There are three main theories that are introduced; Biological, Psychological, and Critical/Cultural theories. Biological theories are an objective perspective (also known as scientific), while cultural theories are viewed through an interpretive perspective, and psychological theories are in the middle of both.

Biological theories typify sex, meaning they use hormones, brain structure and other common aspects of a specific sex to understand or explain behavior. This has undoubtedly been helpful, but these types of studies indicate that women are more likely to for example, be more nurturing because of their biological nature to give birth, additionally, new studies have shown that this is not true. This further indicates that men are more likely or have aggressive behavior due to their high levels of testosterone. It essentially says that our biological sex determines gender differences. This is a problem because new research suggests that there are more factors that go into determining what is gender, how is constructed and how it is adopted.

Psychological theories focus on the internal development triggered by early childhood experience. This approach focuses on how our unconscious thoughts and memories influence our identity and beliefs. Within this approach there are two very interesting ideas, social learning, and cognitive development. Social learning tells us that gender is learned behavior while cognitive development is identity in stages. This approach uses scientific research along with other resources to understand the complexity of humans. Humans are only so predictable therefore we can only understand so much through this approach. Research that goes into developing these ideas might have a larger margin of error results because of our unpredictability.

Lastly, Critical/Cultural theories introduce us to study the power within society and gender norms. It invites us to look at how gender is viewed in different cultures. All societies have at least a slightly different perspective and therefore experiences of individuals vary. For example, women in the U.S have a different experience than women in Muslim countries or Latin countries because of religion, history, tradition, race, etc., this is called intersectionality.

Gendered/Sexed Bodies gives us a further understanding of all the concepts above and how they are played into reality. I was specifically intrigued by how many ideas are internalized. This was discussed in the explanation of Objectification. This term refers to the view of bodies as sexualized and as an object, but self-objectification goes on further than trying to comply with society’s norms. Self-objectification internalizes those beliefs; that your body is an object.

Stephany Pineda Cardoso Discussion 2

VISUAL IDENTITY 6/01/20

I will choose the Genderbread diagram to explain gender to someone else because of its clarity and familiarity of shape. Explaining gender can be difficult especially to people whose ideals have been established by decades of tradition. In many cultures’ men are expected to be providers while women are expected to please and care for their families, but within this ideal I believe that many people can see a degree of variation of gender roles and stereotypes. The word choice of the diagram recognizes these differences without any confusion, because of this, traditional families can be more willing to listen or acknowledge this idea. This is also where the shape of the diagram has a lot to do with how we can be introduced to new ideas. The gingerbread man gives us a degree of comfort because of its likeness to humans. The colors, kindness, and children-like aspects of this gingerbread man can help a person identify and be willing to listen without maybe feeling fooled by a unicorn or confused by a solid shape diagram. The gingerbread allows for personal connection.

I think my personal identity has been one of my greatest challenges. As I was creating this diagram, I asked my boyfriend how he thought people saw me, but this turned into a self-analysis. I believed people saw me as an uneducated and naïve Mexican, but honestly, I don’t know what others used to think. In 5th grade I got made fun of constantly (my Mexican culture highlighted my difference in this grade) and in response to this I suppose my mind tried to find answers, in turn developing my self-awareness. Whatever others made fun of it became something I hated about myself. Now I see that my biggest battle was against myself which paved the way for future conflicts. My experiences, passions and likes have become the most influential part of my identity. Moving from a small village to New York City was inexplicably challenging, but I am incredibly thankful I have gone through what I did because it made me value my family, education and it gave me something to pursue. I chose some of my features to represent me because some of them have been my greatest challenges and I feel proud to have accepted them. My smile is a feature I love about myself, but on the other hand, my bushy eyebrows and hairy arms is something that I was self-aware of. I got teased because of them, and all my friends who I thought I could turn to, just showed me I had to conform to these standards because they always ended up shaving their arms. My curly hair was also a torment until it became a trend. You can see my physical features, but you cannot see what’s inside me. One of the reasons I did not include my ethnicity is because I truly don’t know where I fit in, I have played this game my whole childhood and I will not play it now. As a result, I have developed family as my number one value, creativity and courage. I want to build a business surrounding creative fields to help my community. Even though family is my number one value there may be times where they might not agree with how I think, and this can become a challenge. With my creativity I always want to make sure I stay on track and do not overweight a creative process over an objective. Finally, my courage might put me in an uncomfortable situation if I am not prepared. 

Journal 2

Understanding Binary systems is complex, and this happens not because the definition is hard to understand, but because the cultural norms we live in have built our ideals for hundreds of years. We have internalized these ideals and therefore acknowledging something like gender as a binary system can categorize you as being “less of a man”. Binary systems are socially constructed systems that categorize you between two things. These two categories are opposites, and if you do not fit into one, it assumes you are the opposite. They will additionally, always have one category in power (men in power over women) and vary by identity (such as class, race, etc.) which is another reason why this system will not work. I believe that you can acknowledge binary systems as problematic without feeling less of your identity. There is no correct answer to what it means to be a woman or a man. But now that we understand gender is a binary system, it is important to know how to approach this. A system developed to understand this has to do with our gender, sex, and sexuality, named the Genderbread. Sex has to do with your biological composition, gender with your identity and expression, and sexuality with your attraction. The most important thing is that one does not have to do with the other, so recognizing gender as non-binary will not affect your sexuality and so forth. This is vital information in conservative and traditional countries because we are not trying to convince you to be one way or the other, but we are just giving you the information we know so you can form your own perspective. I see this specifically within many Latin communities, if I were to spontaneously say my gender is non-binary, I will be looked as completely out of my head or as if my sexuality changed because of it. This is due to culture norms and goes further than that of prejudice or stereotypes, it can be a cause of lack of education.

Journal Entry 1

Chapter one of Gender Stories explores and analyzes the different aspects of our gender identity development. Sex is the biological body you are born with and gender is what you identify as. There are three different approaches to understanding gender. The first approach views gender and sex equally; if you are a male your testosterone will be a cause and reason of aggressive behavior. The second approach looks at gender separate from sex, meaning you can be born a female but identify as a man and so forth. Lastly, the approach that this book takes is looking at gender as the assignment to bodies, Foss writes, “…which refers to gender as socially constructed and includes two perspective which are sex”. At first I was confused, even though I am a female and I identify as a woman, my femininity and masculinity varies depending on my environment and I know it has definitely shifted over time due to my life experiences. What the book explains is that organizing gender as a binary means you are putting people in a category forcing them to be all those standards or else, they will be classified as the opposite category. In this case, whatever is not feminine is masculine and vice versa. This creates a conflict that I believe is not widely noticed. The definition the book takes explains that our gender is socially constructed and that it considers our entire person (Foss 9). We can see how personal stories and identities such as race and social class influence gender. 

Agency is the process by which we can make a difference in how we are viewed and how we view ourselves. This is very important once we understand how gender is socially constructed. Accepting gender as nonbinary does not make you less of a man or less of a woman, it in fact helps you reclaim your power to be human. Just like a woman you can cry and not be called out for being unmanly. Lastly, reframing is a concept that I will apply in my life personally. Having the option of interpretation is something that I was not aware of clearly. In the book a woman felt that she was being discriminated against because of her gender, at first, she thought about quitting or even suing her boss, but she decided to treat the situation as if things were already different. She gave her opinion as if she felt her boss cared for it, slowly their relationship grew, this is a clear example of reframing. My mom has always been the type to smile at people and bless them specifically when they would give her a bad attitude or curse her out in the subway, and I always wondered why. She always told me that you must be nice to people because you don’t know what they might be going through and that with a positive attitude the conflict will dissolve. I still never understood. Looking back, there was once a security guard where we lived that did not like us, we had just moved in and my mom always said hello, smiled, asked how she was doing and tried her best to interact with her in English. To me this was funny and dumb, but slowly the security guard started smiling at us back, until she became a very close friend. Reframing is a way I can approach my conflicts now.

Stephany Pineda Cardoso Discussion 1

I am Stephany Pineda Cardoso, I love watermelon and I am majoring in communication studies. I was greatly educated by the reading assigned and even had a hour long discussion with my mom about our gender identities, this in turn helped me analyze and develop my story below. I was also specifically intrigued by the video Be A Man because I identified myself with him in a similar way.

I thought I didn’t have a gender story, and I don’t want to tell you the story of a Latina who has been oppressed by macho views because it is an experience that I have barely lived; I have seen and listened to other women being oppressed by macho views their whole lives in such an intense way, that this is a story for them to tell. Mine is a little unconventional, I have been a spectator with intertwined Mexican machismo roots that have not caught up with me until recently. My mother grew up living within very strict norms, in a village where gender roles are clear and followed till this day. Women cook, serve, clean, love their families, and are forbidden to become a rumor. Somehow, my mom broke these chains, she is the eldest of more than 12 siblings and her path is an outcast. She never understood the rationality behind the standards and expectations that women were led to, she questioned why people tried to limit her ability because she was a woman. She is a single mother and has been my only clear example for 18 years of my life, it has only been me and her most of the time, away from all the influences that would have shaped my mentality negatively.

I did not become consciously aware of my encounters with machismo until recently. As a child I never questioned or understood my surroundings; Why were only fathers called to discipline their children harshly? Why were girls in the household encouraged to cook while men threw the trash, went to the store, or joked around? I never had a clear example of “what it meant” to be a woman or a man because my mom has been both, so I assumed both roles were equal. Not being held up to traditional gender roles has been a positive experience but becoming aware of this has been challenging. How can I use this information?

I called my grandparents in Mexico recently and shared my life updates. I told them that I bought a sewing machine and that I was making my mom a dress for Mother’s Day. My grandma was happy because my mom never fulfilled her expectations with “womanly” roles, and my grandfather was proud. I was excited to tell them I cut my hair, but it felt like I was shot in the face right after. “You are not a boy!” is one of the first things I got told, “women don’t cut their hair short”, “you looked so beautiful with long hair”, was I not beautiful now? My mind twirled, my heart sank, my grandfather disapproved, my grandma stood shut. I was forbidden to do this again; I know his views were different, but I couldn’t help feeling miserable. Many expressed disappointment as if I didn’t know any better. It was the first time someone had boldly pointed at my gender and held me down because of it. From this, I now know how privileged I am for not being influenced by traditional gender roles as a child. I am proud that my interest in sewing did not develop because I was forced or pressured to do so like my mother was. My cut ponytails are my trophies, they are my strength to defy these traditional gender roles. I will not apologize because of my “inadequate behavior” as a woman. I was ignorant for a long time about surroundings, right now I still do not fully understand the information I have learned about myself, but I am further exploring this experience.