Gender Lessons

General Instructions:
Give your essay a title that reflects the focus of your work. As to length, essays will be approximately 3 pages typed, double-spaced with a 12-inch font.
The rationale for the Assignment:
We all receive “gender lessons” from the time we’re born. These “lessons” come in many forms; they teach us, both overtly and subtly, what is expected of us as girls and boys, women and men. Gender lessons come to us from family members, from religious leaders, from our teachers, from peers, from gifts or compliments or criticism we receive throughout our lives, and from the media.
Your task: You will interrogate your own, various “gender lessons”, examining what you learned or were taught, indirectly or directly, about gender, and what each particular message teaches us about how we should be “doing gender”. You will integrate into your analysis THREE texts from our syllabus, showing how, having read them, you gain a better understanding of gender roles and expectations you’ve experienced in your life.
Gender lessons typically involve (but are not limited to):
how/when girls and boys/women and men should talk or not talk (including tones of voice or pitch)
what books we were read or given as children or young adults
in what activities we were told we should or should not participate
what “manners” are considered gender-appropriate
what the consequences are for gender-inappropriate behaviors
how to dress: fashion as gender lesson (what to wear; what not to wear)
Halloween costumes we wore as children or those that our children wear
gender-based disciplinary methods in your family of origin or at school
room decorations
who our friends are (“spatial segregation” as Judith Lorber mentions: all girl and all boy environments that teach us gender lessons)
toys we played with as children
chores around the home: in childhood, now: who did/does what?
how to sit and walk
what to joke about; what not to joke about
what sorts of gifts our family and friends have given us for birthdays or holidays
who does what during family gatherings
what sorts of gender-related compliments and/or criticisms we have heard given to girls and boys/women and men (ourselves included)
what decisions we have made about our sexuality
what educational and career goals do we set for ourselves that may be gender-related
what gender lessons we were taught about participation in sports
what gender lessons we have been taught by watching television or through social media
There are three components to this essay:
Analysis of Experience: You will analyze your experiences growing up male, female, or both, by interrogating (that is, subjecting to analysis) what you were taught or absorbed as a child, an adolescent, and an adult pertaining to specific topics above. Read about the difference between summary and analysis under RESOURCES for WRITING. Analysis means that you are explaining, not just describing, your experiences.
Discussion of Outside Sources: You’ll integrate into your analysis of experience three relevant sources (with citations) from our class reading. (Class reading is on the syllabus which I will link down below.)
Experiential Observations about everyday life: The focus of your observations is not something in the media (e.g., television, magazines, films, the web, etc.), but in “real life”. Suggestions: You could go to a toy store or children’s clothing store and observe the way consumers choose their boy or girl children’s toys. You could go to a gym and pay attention to the ways in which women and men use the facilities differently or similarly. You can observe church services or meetings in your community, or in-class courses at Hostos to observe gender roles in those settings. You can observe people at your place at employment—people flirting or carrying out the sexual division of tasks (such as who gets the coffee?) in the world of work. These are just a few suggestions; the possibilities for this part of your assignment are wide open. In your essay, be sure to note where you conducted your observation, what you observed with some detail, and ultimately, what you learned about gender and gender roles from this observation.
Include your experiential observations in 1-2 paragraphs that follow the analysis.
Organizing your essay:
Introduction:
Comment on gender role socialization as you’ve learned about this process so far into our semester—how and from whom does one learn to “do” masculinity or femininity? Why are gender distinctions made out to be so important in our (and every) culture?
Body:
You can move 1) chronologically from childhood to adulthood, or you can proceed by writing about 2) the source of the lesson (family, school, etc.) or from various 3) types of lesson learned (dress, talk, gifts, etc.); you can also choose one particularly pervasive theme (such as sexuality) to organize your essay.
In any approach, you will describe what you were taught over your lifetime about the conduct and attitudes appropriate to growing up female or male and, most importantly, you will EXPLAIN the significance and intentions of what you were taught about growing up female or male (or any gender identity that you were taught as a child into adolescence).
From your experience as a sibling or a friend, you may make observations about the conduct and attitudes deemed appropriate for another sex as well as the one with which you identify.
In its own section, describe your experiential observations of gender role “lessons” that others have been taught and then explain the significance of what you have observed. Why is this an impactful lesson–or “training” about gender?
Your essay is to be based on your thoughts about your own experiences. BUT you must ANALYZE your experiences, explaining their significance as a “teacher” of gender lessons, based on what you understand after having taken this course.
DO NOT SIMPLY narrate your experiences or observations or, in discussing texts from the semester, do not simply “name drop”! (Don’t write only this as a textual reference: “This reminds me of Audre Lorde’s essay ”or “I can relate to the life of Dolores Huerta”. Instead, explain why the reading you have chosen to include helps you understand your own gendered experiences or observations more deeply.
Before quoting or paraphrasing from each text, introduce the text by giving the author’s name and the title
In citing texts, use MLA format to give page citations parenthetically. Include these works in a Works Cited list at the end of your essay.
To conclude:
1) After analyzing your own experiences, the readings and observations you’ve made about learning and doing gender, include an answer to this question: if you have, or were to have responsibility for raising/influencing children, specifically what would you teach your offspring about how girls and boys should behave, given what you’ve learned this semester?
OR:
2) Writing honestly, examine how you either fit or do not fit within the general cultural ideas we hold about women’s and men’s roles and attitudes. Explain what have been the rewards or consequences for you in conforming or not conforming to specific aspects of expected gender roles.
Reminder #1:
Quote once from each text from our syllabus and use parenthetical citation to show where the quote is located in that text. (If you use a video, you will put into parentheses the URL.)
Each textual reference must be explained in terms of how it relates to the analysis you’re making of your experiences as a person whose gender identity and ways of “doing gender” have been constructed from birth.
The last page of your essay is a Works Cited list with the three references on it (readings or videos from our syllabus), each one correctly formatted according to MLA style.
Reminder #2:
Your essay must be edited and proofread so that it reflects your command of standard American English. Essays with multiple, serious and basic grammar and usage errors that impede comprehension or flow will not earn passing grades.
(Make sure you CITE 3 TEXT FROM THE SYLLABUS WHICH I LINKED BELOW)

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