Gender Essay

Why is gender so very important?  Why do we use balloons and cake filling to announce the fetus is a boy in blue and a girl in pink? Cultural expectations of gender sometimes make me so angry steam comes out of my ears.  At other times I oppress others by making generalizations. When I went to college in Saint Cloud my consciousness was raised. Certain words such as mankind made me livid. I was told that mankind meant men and women but I did not believe it.  If a person really wanted to include men and women they could, with only a h and a u write humankind. I used the moniker Ms.  Using Ms. as a title would raise eyebrows in the 1970's.  Maybe it still does. I don't really care. After graduation I went back to my college placement office for advice. I found out that the male graduates with an elementary education degree made significantly more money than the women graduates with elementary education degrees. I got so upset I drove to Clearwater with tears in my eyes and stopped at the east bank of the Mississippi under the bridge to calm myself down. I went to school with David and Larry and Tom.  David and Larry and Tom and I paid the same fee for every college credit.  The four of us got the same assignments.  The four of us worked hard for our degrees. i don't remember if they graduated with honors but I know I did. David and Larry and Tom got jobs easier than I did because they applied in a field typically,  at least in the 1970's, was a job for women.  AND THEY GOT PAID MORE THAN I DID! This upsetting train of thought came to my head yesterday on a sandy island on the Saint  Croix River.  A friend scooped up a frog and it croaked as it was lifted.  We identified it as a green frog and because it croaked we knew it was a male.  Female frogs do not speak. I find it interesting that one gender croaks and another remains silent. But how do we know that all frogs are either one or the other? Gender can be a matter of degrees.  I consider myself a female but this morning I mowed the lawn wearing farmer overalls, no make up, and a baseball cap. Did I break the gender rules? I had a skirt on before I mowed but I have to protect myself from the blackberry canes, the thorny bushes and the poison ivy. When I was in second grade another kid teased me because I was a girl and had a lunchbox shaped like a barn.  I loved my barn lunchbox. How did he figure farms and barns were appropriate for boys only? I had been to farms. I saw both my aunts and my uncles on the farms and in the barns and both of them working working equally hard. I have found that kids are often more rigid about genders than adults. When Offspring #2 was 2 years old they got  a gift of dress up clothes including fake make up, a crown, jewelry, a princess dress, and, most mind bending of all, a pair of high heel silver sandals. Seriously?  High heel sandals for a person who has only been walking half of their life? This child was still falling over walking barefoot! High heels are dangerous for me and I had been walking for well over 30 years by then. I realize I am ranting but be prepared for me to use more gender neutral language in the future.  I am not too old to learn. I won't be fluent and I will make mistakes.  I will try. I hope it's easier than using a foreign language. I try because being called an erroneous pronoun can be upsetting to others as David, Larry and Tom's income was to me. I want to use a barn lunchbox without comment.  I want to wear functional clothing that I like. I want to earn my salary because of my ability and experience and not because of my gender. I want my grandchildren to be able to choose any blankety blank careers that they want or think they will be good at. I don't think that is too much to ask. I call HORSE APPLES on gender rigidity. The end. You may now resume your normal programming.