Hi everyone! My name is Michelle Rodriguez and I am a Gender & Women’s Studies Major. Two years ago I finally took the leap and enrolled back in school after many years of procrastinating and making excuses. My sons were already young men, one is already a father, making me a grandmother. So I had nothing but free time.<\/p>\n
My main reason for enrolling in school was to learn Spanish. I work for a small personal injury law firm here in New York City and I am unable to communicate with at least a quarter of the clients because of said language barrier. Ironically, I was called in for an interview at my current firm because of my last name. When people see Rodriguez they automatically assume 1. you’re Spanish\/Hispanic and 2. you speak Spanish. I am Puerto Rican but unfortunately for me, I do not speak Spanish, although I am able to understand a lot of it, but that doesn’t really help me much in communicating with someone. Luckily for me, I impressed them enough that they looked past my inability to speak Spanish and hired me along with someone who did speak Spanish.<\/p>\n
When I first enrolled at BMCC, I thought going into Criminal Justice would be perfect for me as I have always been interested in the law, though I never wanted to be a lawyer because I don’t think\/feel I am aggressive enough but I didn’t mind being behind the scenes- researching, preparing paperwork, etc.\u00a0 All that changed when I went on the BMCC website and came across the Gender and Women’s Studies major. It was like something clicked and I knew this is the area of study I wanted to get into. And I am glad that I did. Though I am still undecided as to what I want to do, like in the article, Gender Stories, my “story” is still being written and I have made many choices that lead me where I am and there will be many more choices to be made on a daily basis, each choice contributing to the path I am on, eventually leading me where I will end up. And I certainly welcome the challenge.<\/p>\n
Growing up, my household didn’t focus much on gender, but I can remember times it did play a part. I grew up with my dad, stepmother, 2 sisters and my little brother. My father eventually had a son (my brother) with my stepmother, but by then I had graduated high school and moved out. My father for the most part let us be who we were. We lived in Brooklyn Heights, across the street from the promenade, less than a block from the park. Needless to say, my siblings and I lived at the park. Climbing trees, riding bikes, playing baseball, tag, etc. My parents let us be kids for the most part. Our only “job” being to go to school. But I can also remember my stepmother having the girls wash the laundry because we were girls and that’s what girls did. Or washing the dinner dishes again because “that’s what girls do.” My brother took out the garbage because “that’s what boys do.” I can remember thinking “who made these rules?” As I got older I realized this is just learned behavior passed down from generation to generation. And in order for it to change, it has to start with us. My dad on the other hand taught my sisters and I everything he taught my brother because as he would state “you don’t need a man.” Which has sort of been my guide when raising my sons. They should be able to do for themselves and not expect a women to do for them simply because she is a “woman.” Whether it is cooking a meal, washing their clothes, cleaning their apartment, etc.<\/p>\n
I think we need to breakaway from past generations\/cultures, beginning with gender roles, what a woman or man should and should not do simply because of prehistoric teachings. We should be teaching acceptance. And we should be celebrating our differences and making more of an effort to get to know and understand each other before judging them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi everyone! My name is Michelle Rodriguez and I am a Gender & Women’s Studies Major. Two years ago I finally took the leap and enrolled back in school after many years of procrastinating and making excuses. My sons were already young men, one is already a father, making me a grandmother. So I had … Continue reading “Michelle Rodriguez Discussion Post #1-Final Portfolio”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1339,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-1","tag-michelle-rodriguez-final-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1339"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1606,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions\/1606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/gendercommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}