Gender is a social construct
As a child, my brother was fascinated by nail polish. He used to sit beside me on the bed and watch me paint my nails, his eyes blinking up at me in wonder. Sometimes, I used to paint his nails in whatever color he had liked. He used to give me a wide grin, his missing teeth on display, and would run off to show mom.
Our mom wasn’t too happy when we played around like this. My brother getting his nails painted was not something she thought a boy should be doing. She raised my brother a certain way. She wasn’t too keen on him helping her out with household chores. My family glorified having a son in the family as a boy child was associated with pride. While they didn’t think I was a burden, I was nothing special either. Similarly, my brother also felt stifled on many occasions when he was expected to be a man and asked to take on more responsibilities as a man should.
Social traditions influence how we view gender.
As I grew up, I started becoming all too aware of societal influences on conforming to one of the gender binary. I had studied in a class where I was the only girl, and there were differences in what was expected out of us. The boys were unruly, and it was acceptable behavior. Certain behaviors were acceptable when it came from the boys, but it was frowned upon and stretched into a drama when it came from me. My teachers often remarked, “Boys will be boys,” and “I could understand a boy behaving like that but you?” The boys had no clothing restriction and were allowed outside of their dorms well after dinner time. The girls’ hostel was a nightmare because everything we did, starting from how we dressed to who we interacted with, was scrutinized. I saw similar behavior when I was in college. Women were expected to act in a certain way. The shopkeeper was reluctant to sell me a cigarette because I was a girl.
I am sure men can also empathize.
“Be a man!”
“You throw like a girl.”
“Crying? Don’t be a wuss!”
We have all come across these phrases that are often casually thrown around. I have witnessed boys getting bullied when they are not inclined towards sports or inclined towards the color pink, like a romantic movie and other things considered effeminate. They are stamped with labels like “too girly” or “acting gay” when they stray from the gender norm in place.
There are defined attributes on what it is to be masculine and feminine. We are taught gender from childhood. Let’s take toys, for example. In stores, toys are grouped differently based on what is deemed suitable for boys and girls. These groups are promoted using different colors — blue for boys and pink for girls, projecting our gender stereotypes onto children, thus limiting their imagination.
Here are a few more examples of various sources of influence that reinforce the idea of what it is to conform to each of the gender binary.
Many movies, tv shows, magazines, and ads associate femininity to having a beautiful body, being timid, and playing the role of a damsel in distress. Women shave their legs, get picky about covering their flaws, lose weight to get the ideal figure, and dress impeccably all the time because they mimic what is seen around. Similarly, it associates masculinity to having a six-pack, being brave, and having the charm to woo all the ladies. It influences them to be conscious of their body, what they talk, how they talk, and how they behave.
Today, I come across various products that are distinguished as suitable for men and women, and it is ridiculous. Gender is used as a way to categorize certain entities, and it is unnecessary.
We have to stop absurdly gendering everything around us.
Harvard structured the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure attitudes and beliefs that people have, consciously and otherwise. The gender IAT revealed that while people believed women and men should be equally associated with science, but most automatically associated men with science more than they associated women with science. Stereotypes that are passed along from generation after another lead to biases that are far more ingrained in our minds and decision making than we are aware of.
Our stereotypes make us gender entities like shapes, skills, interests, sounds, clothing, sports, and such because of their conceptual similarities to men and women but mostly without logical reasoning.
Recently, I had asked a few folks what gender they would associate a butterfly with, and many had impulsively answered female. Their reasoning ranged from butterflies being beautiful, an adjective commonly used to compliment women, to how graceful they looked as they flitted from one flower to another, another adjective commonly mapped to women. The influence of stereotypes is clear here, and when made aware, we will start to realize that gender is fluid. It is socially constructed, and we have to make a conscious effort to de-gender every aspect of our lives. Why? To not let absurdity hinder us from living our lives to the fullest potential.
We live, and we let others live.
