Linxin Jiang

Even in this so people called modern society, 2021. There are many hidden and visible gender stereotypes that happen every time, every day. No matter what gender or sexual orientation you are. You are being hurt by gender stereotypes. For a long time, people have had a gender model in their minds. It means men should be powerful, rational, hard working, and good at repairing things. Women are emotional,  good at housework, they can be less educated as long as they are getting married. In our society, everyone should follow this model, whoever didn’t follow this rule can be the target.

For women, gender stereotypes are very harmful. Women can be ignored in the work environment because they used to be labeled as emotional, unprofessional but good at raising children. Gender stereotypes hurt women so bad. Some women don’t even have the right to decide if they want to have a child or not. When a female decides not to have a child. Her family can give them enough pressure to make them give up what they really want. The reasons can be ‘every woman goes through it’, ‘you are so selfish if you don’t have at least one child’，‘when you are getting older, you will regret it’. However, marriage is not as simple as a fairy tale. As a woman who is breath enough to get married and have a child. If she goes to work just like her husband. There is a very big chance that she still needs to do all the housework and cook for everyone in the family.

As a female who majors in Computer Science. I have been questioning since the first day when I picked this major. No one believes that I picked this major because I love coding, they question me if I have good logic to write code. When they finally accept that I want to become a programmer. They suggested to me that I can be a front-end developer because it required less logic. When I answered by saying I hope I can be a front-end developer, it is only because I love building user interfaces. They always have an ‘I told you’ expression on their face, they want to tell me how ‘smart’ they are for giving such useful suggestions.

Most men, a lot of them believe that they don’t need to fight for anything. But the reality is that many of their rights are gone without notice. According to this quote from my People and Language class. One of the articles points out, “Many researchers have reported that both sexes engage in gossip… but its cultural meaning (for us) is undeniably ‘feninine’. Therefore we might expect to find most men avoiding it, or disguising it as something else, especially in mixed settings where they are concerned to mark their difference from women.”(Cameron)

Men get upset when women try to fight for getting their power back. Some men claim that women got a lot of power if we compare nowadays with history. They are stigmatizing feminism by saying women who support feminism means women are asking more than they deserve. Women are taking men’s rights and power. Women want money and take less responsibility when women are talking about feminism. They don’t feel that women have been treated prejudiced. Something they claim women even have more rights or power than men. However, they can’t be denied that our society is a patriarchal society. 

Does it mean men don’t need to fight for anything?

The answer is surprisingly yes, everyone in this society needs to fight for themselves. 

It is because men ask women to follow the gender model. That means they should be powerful, rational, work hard, and good at repairing things. When men ask women to stay at home to take care of children and do housework. They are asking themself to work harder to feed everyone in the house. When they ask their wife for anything. Their daughters may be in the same position when they grow up and get married.

If there are no gender stereotypes. LGBTQ community doesn’t need to go through what they have been through.

At first, the church was against homosexuality. Although we can no longer know the real reason. But the following are some popular conjectures. For example: ‘church wants to have better control’, ‘stable population’, ‘against the Bible story’. When something becomes common sense, it is very difficult for us to break it down. 

Michael Lynch said when she thinks about Marsha P. Johnson. She thinks Marsha is someone who kids today who are gay know nothing about which is a shame. Because she‘s one of the reasons they are sitting in all their liberty glory. Marsha paid the price for who she was.

Marsha P. Johnson was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights. She was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.

One big thing in Marsha and Sylvia’s life as they had formed a group called STAR (Street transvestite action revolutionaries). They were able to operate an apartment as a shelter for homeless transgender youth. The youth were kicked out of their home for being transgender.

During the interview, Michael said: “I’m not intending to live 20 more years. I don’t want 20 more years of this wonderful life of disco romance. They call me a legend in my own time because there are so many queens gone that I’m one of the few queens still left from the 70s.”

Feminism is never just for women. People who are controlling this game want us, people with different gender identities, to fight with each other with small things. Therefore, they can take away bigger things(rights) from us without notifying us. 

References:

Cameron, Deborah. Performing Gender Identity. 1999. 

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