This will be the first blog post within the entire eighteen years I have lived on this earth. I have never blogged before, and never had a desire to express my feelings on books, television and other daily occurrences to the world. They are mostly kept in the secret back file cabinet of my mind, never to be release. Yet, here I am.

Today, I will be discussing gender image.

As a child, I grew up and was raised to be a girl. But, I was always a tom boy at heart. I never enjoyed wearing dresses or playing with dolls. I would much rather play tackle football or rough house with the guys. But, because I was a girl, the boys would keep away, and not include me in their games. I learned very quickly that young girls should not do such things, so I began dressing in baggy clothes to make it harder to tell which gender I was. I did end up playing mostly with the guys because they thought I was a boy.

Needless to say I have grown out of such behavior, and the phase only lasted to the end of elementary school. But even as a child, I saw that boys were allowed to do more than girls, and I wanted to be a part of it. I didn’t understand why there had to be differences, just because I was a ‘girl.’

I have recently read the article “The Night To His Day: The Social Construction Of Gender.” By Judith Lorber. I have been putting off this reading, mainly because I believed it to have no new information for me on gender image. I was only partly right.

Most of what Lorber says in her essay, I agree with. I was not informed much, seeing as I was included in a long hour discussion of this topic in my psychology class (lucky for us, since it distracted said teacher from the test she should have given us that day). But I did find most of the article interesting, and a majority of the information common sense put in front of me. It was as if I was reading a book for the second time. I know most of the plot already, and I pay more attention to the little details. Such as how children model themselves after their adults, or how parents shape how girls and boys should act to their children.

Gender identity really doesn’t mean anything to me.  I have mainly the same views as the ‘socially normal’ views on how men and woman should be treated. I also understand that the two are different and therefore, are treated different as well. But, I do not see the problem in people who switch their gender identities. When I learn of someone being a transsexual, or acting opposite of their biological gender, I merely shrug it off. Good for them, bending the social norms to be happy.

My expectations for this class? To learn much more about gender and identity in literature. I want to understand more on how society portrays men and women, and how those views may or may not differ from real life.