Reflective Essay
Hamilton, Collin M
Dr. Hinks
BI-218X
Help Received
Past Assignments and Artifacts
Within the span of this month, I have gone from extremely ignorant on the subject of gender, to slightly less ignorant. That being said, the content covered in the course was extensive and I feel that there is so much more in depth that could not have gone into due to time constraints on the course. I had always seen gender as one in the same as biological sex. After having a few classes, it was very evident that I was mistaken. I had heard the term “social construct” thrown around when I heard discussions about gender, but never in an educational light. I had always heard it in a not-so-friendly debate between a stereotypical feminist and a conservative hardliner. As I learned from one of the first assignments, Gender is a social construct to determine biological sex roles within a community (Artifact 1).
I also had no idea that some governments actually legally recognized some individuals as a completely separate gender, or commonly known as the third gender. I learned of the Khawaja sara, a community of the third gender in Pakistan. They are born male only to identify as a woman. They often work as sex workers or performers. In some instances, they live in isolated communities to avoid discrimination. I was pretty shocked that a hardline Islamic state like Pakistan would even have that kind of system in place until I read further. Learning that they are officially recognized by the government as a third gender, but publicly shammed due to deep rooted social stigma from the British Raj over the Indian sub-continent (Artifact 2). There are currently seven countries world-wide that recognize a third gender legally, and the United States is not among them.
Among the numerous social rituals and taboos that cultures all over the world have, one that confused me the most would be that of the Jewish Orthodox religion. Women who are in menstruation are required to leave the house and go to be cleansed in a bath. While the woman is menstruating, no man may come near her with sexual intentions as she is considered unclean until she goes through the cleansing ritual (Artifact 5). This ritual is said to protect women during her time of menstruating, but some would see this as a repressive way to hold women below men in social standing. I personally believe that is does take women down a peg when they are called unclean and have to take a week out of their month, every month, to go have a ritualistic bath to cleanse them. Although that is my view, I also believe that if it isn’t my culture and tradition, I shouldn’t really pass judgment. It’s all a matter of perspective in the long run, if the women feel that this ritual protects them in a religious way, then I’m all for it, but if they want to change this part of their culture, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t get to choose for themselves.
The gender gap was an eye-opening assignment for me as well. I had always known that the pay gap between men and women was different, but I thought the modern trend had caught up and that it was only a few cents off the dollar. I could not have been more wrong. I learned that on average in the United States the gender pay gap was that women earned 80 cents for every dollar men earned working the same job (Gender Gap Assignment). Although there was more to the gender gap than just monetary earnings, such as government participation and healthcare, the pay gap surprised me the most.
Finally, the film “Guyland” really disgusted me and left a pretty deep impact. It struck a chord with me that I wouldn’t really have expected. I don’t usually brag about my upbringing, mainly because I’ve always been around people who have generally the same ethical and moral standards that my parents had instilled in me since before I can remember. This film made me realize just how lucky I am to have grown up in a small rural town in South Texas with similar moral values. Learning that a massive amount of college and immediate post-college young men would behave in such a way of sexually assaulting severely inebriated young women as well as trying to prove their masculinity to their friends by getting into fights or acting like a total fool and destroying property is completely disgusting and embarrassing to be in the same age group as those that would do such things.