#RaiseAwareness EnlightenSociety

[chariannyrx-blog]

While I was reading transformations, there were many things that stood out to me, those of which I will highlight here. They are the way that women are supposed to “do gender”, how it feels as a woman to have to be constricted to these belies that society has placed upon us. Some double binds that have caught my interest, the inequality that woman face in a predominately “men dominant world”.

To begin with, as the author of the book mentioned “doing gender” for women is an aspect that is much more complex than it is for men. Men tend to be of lower maintenance than women for the simple fact that as females women have to express femininity, thus making it that wearing makeup, wearing certain clothes and hairstyles is the only way to determine whether you’re female or male, almost as if there are not other characteristics that can identify you as a female other than your femininity. Raised in a gender neutral environment the idea I never comprehended the idea that I had to “do gender” or perform the gender that I was assigned at birth, I was free to perform tasks deemed for both men and women and exposed to both aspects of what it is to be a “boy” and what it is to be a “girl”.

Reading this chapter opened my eyes and made me realize the struggles and the stereotypes that women face, there were many things that even though I knew about, I never really bothered to think about or pay attention to. One of those things are the double binds that only seem to surround women, though they sometimes happen with men, it is tiring having to conform to society’s views of women. It really does create this negative mindset in women and a no win situation. If we dress too feminine, we are trying to get attention, if we don’t dress feminine enough, people tell us that we should wear prettier clothes and wear makeup. If we are quiet, people tell us we should make our voices heard, if we make our voices heard, we’re over confident, bitches and should be put back in our places. There is no winning for a woman, we are constantly being judged which in my opinion just leads me to say that because there is no pleasing anyone, we should just go ahead and do whatever we want, we’re going to be criticized for it anyways.

Lastly, another part of the reading that stood out to me was the fact that women get paid less than men to do the same job, to express the same ideas and have virtually the same thoughts and perform the same actions. Ive always known men get paid more than women, but I didn’t come to understand how it worked until one of my colleagues experienced it first hand. This won works for a very well known company in which she had to ask for a demotion to become a full time student, it wasn’t until she was demoted that she was informed that her now manager was getting paid four dollars more to perform the same job as she used to. This helped me open my eyes and expand my understanding of the ideas and beliefs that society has created surrounding women. Overall, as women we should do as we please, stick together and raise awareness in order to encourage other women to be the best versions of themselves and encourage men to learn from the experiences and situations that women are exposed to on a daily basis.