Ijeoma A. and Pascoe write about expectations that are placed on girls and boys, respectively. What are some of the norms that they write about? What are some of the norms that you grew up with, either in your own experience or that you witnessed? How did you relate to these norms?
Patriarchy is the system in which our society runs. it is a system where men hold power over women and can be seen in every area of everyday life. we participate in this system by allowing boys to think at an early age that girls must be in certain “box”. These stereotype that we create everyday around the idea of living in this patriarchal society.
In the reading “Because You’re a girl”, Ijeoma mentions some of the responsibilities that girl are to do. The main things were like cleaning and having to cook/serve for your man. I live in a hispanic household, so I can relate. my mother would say things like “you need to learn how to cook, clean because how are you gonna serve your man”. when non of my sisters or I will clean, things like this would be said “its like I’m living with boys”. we were expected to be cleaner than the boys. when I was younger I had to wash my brothers dishes because they are boys and they didn’t have to do it. recently my brother said to my mother that I should wash his dishes because that’s what we do. when it comes to “what women are to do” I can say that the way our parents/grandparents think is way different than our mindset now, we are from different generations so what my mom was taught from my grandmother , she kinda was raising us how she was raised. we women are to put our feelings aside for men, just to satisfied their needs. we are to put man man first when it comes to us.
Great response Jarlene, you have my brain wheels spinning, I relate to your post so much.
The way you describe your mother enforcing gender roles in your home growing up struck a nerve with me, my mom had similar expectations. I have a younger brother and an older sister and growing up it was made very clear that men and women were expected to serve different roles. As a girl, I was expected to have a clean room, do the dishes, help my mom in the salon (she did hair so sweeping, folding towels, shampooing out color and perms), but these expectations never fell on my brother. When he got a little older the types of chores she gave him were more physical, like cleaning out gutters or making home repairs which required him to learn to use tools. I didn’t think much of it then, but now (at least before the pandemic) my brother and I both were working building sets, and it was clear he had the skills to use tools that were useful in our career.
This made me jealous, in many ways the types of work I was made to do as a kid cant be as easily monetized, but so many of the skills my brother learned could be. This speaks to not just our families’ expectations that are based on our gender, but also to the way our economy values the types of work that are segregated by gender so often too. Wild to consider!
I also felt what you said on being raised to put our feelings (as women and girls) aside for men. Thank you for sharing.