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Friday, January 21, 2011
This video is relatively interesting. (Everyone else seems to have uploaded the more interesting videos)
This is totally unrelated. Last weekend I had my 21st birthday party and the theme was polka dots, pink nails and umbrellas, in case it rained as it was an outdoor bbq party. Being a good student of Mars/Venus?:Gender & (Mis)Communication, I started to observe differences between men and women.
There were two obvious differences -
1) No men came in polka dots OR pink nails. (Men, can you please explain yourselves?)
2) The men were the ones doing most of the bbq-ing.
Today in class while we were talking about the more serious matters of gender inequality, power relations and how, "Rather than being treated unequally because they are different, men and women are different because they are treated unequally", I started to think about polka dots and pink nails.
Everyone felt that it was acceptable that the males did not come in polka dots and pink nails while unacceptable for the females. There is an undeniable double standard here - men and women are treated unequally due to differing expectations. But why are there differing expectations in the first place? I think it has got something to do with the constructivist view of gender and how gender is affected by socialization.
And what is wrong with wearing polka dots! Dear male, do you like polka dots? Maybe you think it is gay. I asked one of my guy friends and he said that he liked polka dots, just not on him. This reminds me of information processing theories that we learn in psychology.
For example, there are two types of little boys - "genderized" and "ungenderized". ( I cannot remember the correct term) Their thought processes differ.
"genderized" boy sees a doll --> does he like the doll? --> do boys play with dolls? --> plays/does not play with doll
"ungenderized" boy will skip the "do boys play with dolls" step.
This is perhaps how males think about polka dots and pink nails as well.
I believe that at most bbqs, the males are the ones doing the bbq-ing. It seems to me that this has got something to do with the functional aspect of gender - perhaps each gender compliments the other and these gender "roles" are convenient and prevent conflicts. But what interest me is that women are supposed to be the ones doing the cooking. However, at bbqs, the roles are reversed. Why is this so?
Labels: The difference between Men and Women
hui jun published at 1/21/2011 01:44:00 AM
3 Comments:
I think you have interesting thoughts about polka dots. I also believe that most people inevitably or unconsciously go through the thought process of "do girls/boys do this?". Like if you cut your hair real short, people think that you are a town boy but all you may want is just convenience.
About bbq, I guess the main reasons for most girls not cooking are the heat and smells. And boys just wish to have the food fast. :)
BTW, happy belated birthday!
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