Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Friday, March 4, 2011
The janegirl
We have a name for the opposite phenomenon, the tomboy, but not for this. Why are boyish girls more accepted than girlish boys? You can comment on the homosexuality issue raised in this article if you wish, but I would be more interested in hearing what parents should do in terms of helping their children conform to gender expectations and be accepted by society, versus allowing them the freedom to enjoy their interests and be themselves. Do you think this mother is handling the situation well? What about our role as a society/culture in terms of enforcing or working against these expectations?
Recently, an issue of homosexuality is being raised more and more frequently. From my perspective, however, I see our society problematic rather than homosexuality. Indeed, the main fact that contributed to my final opinion was exactly our society, precisely its contradicting views on this issue. The most exasperating, as I find it, is that our society claims that we should not discriminate against anyone and instead accept and adapt to differences. On the other hand society tends to do the exact opposite when it comes to sexual orientation and thus creates many inconsistencies in the world. But reason for such disgust in homosexuality is not an individual’s reasonable opinion, it is just unfamiliarity which goes against the nature and thus we easily consider it bad. And this is exactly the case in the article.
ReplyDeleteArticle however, deals with a little different topic, but it still has a connection with rejecting homosexuality and contradicting. Article is generally just an another proof of how people are too gullible and easily believe and consider what is told to them by a known person in TV, scientists and many others, to be true, even though it might not be. A mother of Sam has apparently this feeling too and I admire her for standing up publicly to alert this issue.
Her main point, however, was a concern about making mockery of her son as he was having girlish manners. In my opinion, you just cannot judge a small child for what he likes and neither his parents. I mean parents have just a small, very small, contribution to what their child likes. Yes, they could get rid of Barbie dolls and force them to play football as suggested but I think that it would only create some kind of disgust in these forced activities and only boost their likings. Thus I consider unfair to blame mothers for being responsible in their child’s developing orientation. Let alone when child grows up this orientation or rather hobbies and likings are changed in most of the cases. Also a personality might be different from a gay appearance. After all, men like to dress up nicely more and more recently what might also change confusion in treating homosexuals.
One experience that would support my point has just popped out in my head in fact. It exactly deals with appearance of little gayness in an early age. In this case it can be attributed to an environment a child is getting round. I have a brother 3 years younger than me. As a little child he was always repeating what I did. Therefore he ended up playing with dolls and polishing his nails or wanting to do his make-up. No matter how my mum tried to explain that those are girly things to do, he had no intention to understand. After he grew up, however, I think he would even want to pretend that those things had never happened and moreover he is far away from being gay. That is how a person can easily change and a parent has almost no influence in it. I would only conclude that there is no acceptable way to blame a parent for this problem as well as that we should not judge a book by its cover.
This argument really made me wonder. Why is our society always trying to make standards according to which we should live our life? And why are they criticizing the people who are not a part of the herd as a consequence? The answer is still a little unclear to me. Maybe our society seeks stability, maybe they just want the same things for all the people on Earth and maybe it’s just because they are afraid of something that’s different or unfamiliar to them. It could be anything.
ReplyDeleteI was amazed as I discovered Sarah Hoffman’s dedicated and thorough blog entry about her little feminine son. I cannot but agree with her on every little thing she had said in it. A mother is a person who should support her child at all times, no matter what. Support in this case, is defined by encouraging them to engage in their favourite activities and to play and dress as they like, even though it might not be considered ‘’normal’’ by our society. Why should we restrict them and take away the things they like? Would you take away all your daughter’s favourite Barbies just because YOU think that she shouldn’t play with them? I think not. And the worst thing is, people don’t realize that this is perfectly same as taking these Barbies from your son. We all agreed that people are equal so why are so many people’s actions based on the opposite? As Sarah had said, the problem are not the little feminine boys, the problem are the bullies that taunt them.
Furthermore, I feel that Dr. Phill takes a wrong side of the argument here. Sarah has put one and one together and has seen that he’s just walking in circles and doesn’t really solve anything. I completely agree, because it is rather logical. I think that the effort to change these boys, because of fear of the forthcoming gayness is pointless. It has been proven in many cases that the little feminine boys life does not always lead to being gay in the future. And even if it did, Dr. Phill has no right whatsoever to persuade their mothers to take it away from them. Only the mothers alone can decide on that, but still, they should be considerate and put their boy’s wishes before their own. Eventually though, this might lead to bullying. There is no way to avoid it so it might be better just to sit down with their son for a moment and talk to them about it. They should try to explain that if they want to behave the way they do then there’s no problem, but they have to be aware that it’s not going to be easy for them. And when they come home crying, make them a chocolate muffin and hug them, instead of telling them ‘’I told you so’’. They will become stronger and they will eventually understand that they don’t have to care about all the fun-making people’s remarks about them.