Gender Roles

• Blog – Explain a time in which you were taught about gender in the way these authors were taught.

I was taught about gender indirectly in this instance (it’s actually more than one), still it’s a good example of how I learned about gender.

I grew up always being told that if I had a problem I should tell an adult. Within my first week a girl at my school called me a tattle-tale for doing that, after that I resolved to use my fists, that I was supposed to use my fists. By the end of kindergarten I had sent a kid to the hospital with stitches because we decided it would be fun to have a rock fight. Being the smallest boy in a school sucked, I discovered that I not only had to prove myself like everyone else but more so because I was the easy target of all the taller, more athletic, boys. Being a short boy in elementary school was bad, being a short boy in middle school was worse. I remember having to line up shortest to tallest for a photo of the 250 person grade, I was the third shortest, it was humiliating. In short I learned that the role of my gender in having to defend myself.