Talk and reflect about what you learned from the identity wheels activity and the Genderbread person 2.0 activity in class last Thursday.
Blog posts must be 200-400 words, proofread, and void of common grammatical errors.
Your blog posts are due before the start of class next week.
Please email albreaks@ku.edu if you have any questions!
I have heard it said that smiling requires fewer muscles than frowning, and laughing can add time to the length of one’s life. Having a positive attitude makes things much more enjoyable. So why, then, did the students in the study we heard about in class slip so quickly into negativity, while it took a valiant show of bravery to get the people in the video we watched two weeks ago to get up and dance? It simply takes less effort to reject something than to accept and embrace a new, often uncomfortable idea.
ReplyDeleteWhen I discovered the real reason behind Bill Clinton’s impeachment, I, like everyone else, questioned his morality and ability to make sound decisions. Over the years, I have realized that Clinton had some effective ideas in office that had nothing to do with his lack of sexual integrity. Although I cannot defend his actions behind closed doors, I can clearly see that his marriage only exists for political reasons. This leads me to question whether Americans need to change the way they think of sexuality and divorce.
Another subject that makes me cringe involves the act of imposing sexual roles on young children. An eight year old girl was recently denied education at her Catholic school because she didn’t fit society’s idea of femininity. Yet, parents of girls even younger than she enter their daughters into socially acceptable, sexually-driven beauty pageants. My two year old son has an obsession with shoes (most notably my high-heels), yet he also gets excited about football. As he continues to explore what lights him up, he will gradually learn how he can contribute to society in his own way.
Maybe if we, as Americans, can accept people for who they are in their most elemental form, we can look past those things that make us uncomfortable and allow them to more positively impact our lives. We can learn so much from the simple way children look at situations, in contrast to the way we complicate things like leadership positions. Maybe the time has finally come to change the way we perceive the variations in sexuality that have existed for centuries.
Gender and sexuality are popular and controversial topics in today’s society. There is a wider range of gender identity now and I think it is an important concept to understand. The Genderbread Person is an outstanding graphic to demonstrate that gender identity is a complex idea. I have never come across something like it before and it really opened my eyes to the depth of the gender question. I consider myself open-minded, but the Genderbread Person breaks gender down into identity, expression, biological sex, and attraction. I think all four of these sections should, and do, have an equal importance. Gender is made up of the whole body, not one specific section.
ReplyDeleteI was also very interested in the identity wheels. The activity can be useful for everyone, no matter what gender they identify with. I think it gives the individual confidence when they actually write it down and share it with a group. You have the freedom to choose for yourself what makes you who you are. Of course we always have that power, but sharing it with others is empowering. If you are good enough with drawing, you can even demonstrate how big each sector affects your gender identification.
Overall, I learned that sex and romance are two very different things. There is a range for each and every person is different. I think the common story in the media is about homosexuality as a religious or moral conflict. The focus is on whether someone identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. But no label we give ourselves, or others, is all-inclusive. I don’t think we should judge a person based on these labels because they really don’t completely define the individual.
The Genderbread Person 2.0 was a very intriguing graphic that brought up a controversial topic in today’s society. I have luckily been exposed to similar topics in my sociology class so a lot of the things from this graphic that seem foreign to some were actually familiar to me. The Genderbread Person does a great job of showing that a person can be on any end of a scale for the four groups that are brought up. This means that there are infinite possibilities for the makeup of a person. Not everybody fits into one category a certain way and identy, sex, expression, and attraction is not always black and white.
ReplyDeleteThere are many things that play a part in a person’s train of thought and character and some of these influences are part of your identity. Each and every one of us, human beings, are unique in our own special way. Some of the things that make us unique are things like ethnicity, sex, gender identity, gender expression, attraction, religion, or class. These are just a few examples, but these are all things that could be put into an identity wheel. All of these play a part in someone’s life and shape a person’s morals and beliefs. It was very interesting hearing the different identity wheels and seeing what things impacted people and some things had more of an impact than others. One thing that really hit home for me was that everyone comes from a different background, everyone has their own story, but at the end of the day we are all human.
I believe the main idea people have to come to terms with, is that there is no way to fully understand another person. There are simply too many components that make up a person physically and mentally. It’s really only possible to know who you are, and it’s difficult to know exactly how everyone else identifies themselves.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, if we look at sexual and romantic orientation, there are way too many sub categories, each with a spectrum of conclusions. It’s difficult, no, impossible, to categorize everyone. People’s bodies and minds were not made from identical molds. The infographic on asexuality demonstrates the spectrum of asexual to sexual, and the many differences in romantic orientation. Also, The Gingerbread Person 2.0 demonstrates the many facets in which people differ in how they identify themselves, express themselves, and are biologically made. There is a spectrum to a person’s gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and whom they’re attracted to. The gingerbread person did a good job at exhibiting the difficulty in being able to “draw” a box around a group of people and say, “You are one and the same.”
You can attempt to categorize people, but the only person you will every truly understand is yourself. So, the only thing left for us to do, is accept other people how they come, realize everybody is different, move on, and stop judging everybody, so that everybody can just be themselves and be happy.
I think the identity wheel activity helped a lot in our perspective as an individual and how we see others. In a sense, we often put ourselves down thinking we could’ve done better or we don’t think we have the potential to do what we dream to do. Only a small part of the human population put forth their minds to something and then defies everything else.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up being hearing impaired has definitely altered my perspective on life than most people. I was born with hearing loss already so I never fully experienced what it’s like to have perfect or near perfect hearing. I wore hearing aids since birth and just several years ago, switched to digital hearing aids. Sure, when I put my hair up into a pony-tail on a hot summer day, I have been judged as a “dumb person” by several spectators who see my hearing aids. But I didn’t let that stop me into what I wanted to do. I still wanted the same education as everyone else. I didn’t want to take the “easy” way. I still have the same amount of intelligence as anyone else.
There were some setbacks to being hearing impaired in a public hearing school, I’ll be honest. During passing period when everyone is trying to get to their next class, I can’t hear people talking to me unless they are right next to me. Meetings are the same way. I was involved with the senior advisory committee in my senior year of high school. They often place me in the middle of the meeting so I can hear everyone but that is the worst spot in my opinion. Sometimes when several people are talking back and forth on opposite ends of the table, I have to turn my head every time just so I can catch their words. It’s much easier for me to sit at a corner or end where I have a clear view of everybody’s face and I can catch unsaid words through lip-reading.
In the end, the activity wheel definitely helped because I’m not just hearing impaired. I’m also a student, a woman, a Christian, daughter, sister, weather geek (ha!)…the list goes on and on. I can do everything a normal person can do but if it requires listening/hearing, I just need a bit more effort to fully understand what’s going on. All I ask is for people not to take pity but don’t try to change too much just to make sure I’m comfortable. If something isn’t clear, I’ll ask to clarify or ask the speaker to repeat something I missed. We all need to keep an open mind about someone else that is different from us instead of judging how they talk/act/walk etc.
I was unable to stay for the entire class period, so I was not apart of the conversation on the Genderbread man. The picture and the information on the doll was interesting and eye opening. It was good information on all the different spectrums in which people associate their gender and sexuality. There are no two humans alike we may have similar things or view points in common but no one is the exact as another. So it is brash of us to try place such a closed box on sexuality. It is only natural that sexuality and gender go beyond just a linear spectrum. It is necessary that society stops trying to label a person. If that person desired to be labeled so be it, but instead we should see people beyond just their gender and sexuality. It is kind of like the saying “I don’t see color” that is applied to racism we should be saying “I don’t see sexuality/gender” but rather I see the person for the greater soul that they have. I will admit I was at first a bit confused on the pictures and the relevance of sexual orientation for the alternative break. After thinking about it more and looking more closely at the picture I see the relevance incorporating information like this to a big group setting. Not only is it necessary to be reminded of this for everyday interactions with people but also it is especially helpful in understanding the different viewpoints for big groups.
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