paper #1

Growing up I gender was never a big issue for me. I did not know that the traditional woman was stereotyped into staying at home taking care of the children, cooking, and cleaning house all day. My mom and dad both worked. They would take turns cooking and we all helped to keep the house clean. When I was too young to be in school, my grandmother would watch me. When I did start school, one of my parents were always off at a time where one or the other could come pick my sister and me up from school.
I grew up in a rather small town. So when I hear other people in class or any other places say they grew up in a small town and were raised or exposed to women staying and taking care of the home, it surprises me. My mother has always told me that I could do anything I wanted to. I do not think she ever had the expectations of me being a stay at home mother. She has always thought I would be a independent business woman because I always said I wanted to be a lawyer, but I have since changed my mind and want to be a radiologist. She taught me that I could do whatever I set my mind to, to follow my dreams, and do not let anyone stop me.
The first time that I realized that a lot of people had the idealization of the role that women and men should take on was a few years ago, after my sister married her husband. My sister married her husband a month after she graduated high school. She continued working at the job she had been working since she was 16. She chose not to attend college because she was tired of being in school and never could decide what type of field of study to go into. A couple of years after she was married she had her first child a boy. A third, named after his grandpa and his dad. She quit her job and chose to stay at home just to cut the cost of having a babysitter. Also , because she did not trust leaving her child with a stranger. There was no familly members able to watch her baby everyday while she worked. She liked staying at home with him. She developed a system of having dinner cooked when her husband got off work. After a while it was just expected of her to have dinner made. He would think something was wrong with her If she did not .
About 2 years later, she had another boy. For the first couple of months things were going good, but then she started getting tired of staying at home all the time. She stopped cooking dinner everynight and made her husband and start cooking too. He would always complain though. He would say “UGH, I am too tired. I worked all day and all you had to do was stay at home and do nothing.” So, after years of this going on, she has become very depressed and unhappy with her life. I have seen her husband standing right in front of the refridgerator and my sister sitting on the couch and he ask her to fix him a cup of water. And she does it!
I never said anything about it to him because I did not feel like it was my place to say anything about it. But one day we were watching tv and something brought up about how stay at home moms. He was saying that all women should stay at home and have the house cleaned and dinner cooked for when their husbands came home. I just had to say something about it. I explained to him how women and men are equal and men stay at home sometimes while women work. I told him that it is a 24 hour job that never ends. He is so tired when he gets off. But that’s the point he gets to come home and rest and ignore his kids like he does but my sister always is messing with them. She works all the time it is just not a paying job. He went off about how the bible says men are better than women and women should obey the men and whatever. I got so mad at him and still do not like to be around him sometimes for the way he acts. I have never had problems with gender or even realized that there were people in the world who thought this way until this.
That situaion has definetely opened my eyes to the way gender affects some people. I am sure things like this occur all around the world. Even in other countries where women are looked down upon. And in the old days where babies where left to die because they were not born a male. That is so sad. We all have the same oppurtunities given to us to make an impact on the world regardless of our gender. Gender to me should not affect anything. People should not be discrimminated against because of the gender they were given when they were born. I should be about what skills a person has and their personality, not their body parts.