Gender

Hello!

Gender. Yup, Gender. As in Male, or Female. Or is it?

The debate about gender, and how pervasive it might be in our lives from childhood has been burning up in recent times. Who are we to say a boy should be a boy? A girl a girl? Well, I mean there IS biology. Needless to say, it IS relevant to the education system, and it IS a big deal.

I remember reading an article in ENGL 219, about raising gender neutral children. I read it, and I thought about it. I mean the point made by this couple was that as a human being, their child had the right to decide his (her?) own gender, and not be influenced by the bias of society and perceptions of others. I mean, fair enough...let the kid do what he/she wants. BUT. I mean come on now, the child has hardware, you know? I mean it's either a guy under the hood, or a girl. There ARE two sexes. I don't want to oversimplify, I know that they get this and that they re simply arguing that society shouldn't emphasize gender roles and expectations...well at all. It's all fine and dandy, when you say it...it sounds nice, doesn't it? Well...this is the real world, frankly. We have, males and females. I personally think all of this effort going into neutralizing gender is just wrong.

ANYWAYS, to tie it back into the conversation. Yeah, there are A LOT of gender stereotypes, and a lot of norms, and these things DO influence our students. I mean, yeah, some of them aren't gonna be all positive, that's unfortunate, but really, A LOT of things influence us in life, and if we hide from all influence, we might as well live in boxes. As teachers, we can be objective and do our best to let go of societies stereotypes and gender bias, and not let it into our classroom. That doesn't mean we should be for abolishing gender, or fighting to eliminate all gender influences on our students, its part of life. I strongly believe that there are just as many positive gender concepts as their are negative, and they both exist, its simple fact. Either way, as much as I agree that gender is an important issue, lets try not to kill it, and keep it in perspective, shall we?

Zach