This chapter while realistic and spot on, was very frustrating for me. Gender roles are everywhere in society, including schools and it has always driven me crazy. Why do things have to be so predetermined for people? I remember sitting in high school and watching the way my friends would perk up and act differently as soon as "the cute jocks" would come into the room. I remember sitting there confused and dumbfounded, I suppose I never got the fascination with these types. They would act like other people other than themselves. I would wonder where my smart and articulate friends disappeared to. I was very shocked when my best friend (she is still my best friend) joined the cheerleading squad. The year prior to this she would say how the cheerleaders were the "snobs" of the school. She became one of those girls and to this day regrets the way she acted towards others. It got her the attention of one of the popular boys whom she dated for two years in high school. While I didn't agree with what she did, I still understood it. I believe society, media, and other sources tell us that these are the kinds of people we should strive to become and perhaps even date. I realize now that a part of her went "underground" in order to maintain the new persona she created for herself.
Later in the chapter alternative moratorium is described, it claims, "According to this model, the young women who emerges from adolescence has not experienced a moratorium of the type Erikson describes. Rather, she has experienced a process of refinement- refinement of a socially acceptable way of being. She has learned to become what others want her to be, and in that sense has lost an opportunity to become the person she herself might have imagined"(pg. 107). This kind of moratorium is something that would happen to either gender. There is the young man who becomes a football player because some outside factor in his life tells him that is what he should do. There is the young woman that goes on to an ivy league school because that is what her parents or grandparents did. There are always going to be these stories but I disagree with the last statement about how she lost an opportunity. I think this statement is too much of a generalization. Many youngsters in these situations go on to find themselves or perhaps even change the course of life and go on to pursue their own passions. It doesn't have to be so final.
Just because I love South Park...
This one intrigues yet disturbs me.....
This chapter really got me thinking about my classroom because I only have female students, all female staff, and an all female management team. Clearly there are other factors present in the classroom, but I don't see the girls "perk up" or try to act a certain way to impress others as specific guys enter the room. This made me wonder about the absence of both genders being present and what influence that can have on individuals at this stage in adolescence.
ReplyDeleteI think the "lost opportunity" Nakkula mentions is kind of like not eating Brussels sprouts because most people think they're disgusting. Maybe you've tried them before, maybe you haven't. But they're good and you're missing out.
ReplyDelete