Earlier I had the great pleasure of babysitting my cousin’s six month old little girl, Bridgette. She is an absolute doll and I really enjoyed getting to see her. I also have a cousin who has a baby boy, Greyson who is also six months old. Ironically Bridgette and Greyson were actually born on the exact same day. Since I absolutely love children and deeply desire to have my own some day, anytime I am in town I try to see the babies as much as possible.
I read “Night to His Day” in our Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, which made me really look at the differences of how my family treats Bridgette compared to Greyson. According to Lorber, “For the individual, gender construction starts with assignment to a sex category bon the basis of what the genitalia look like at birth. The babies are dressed or adorned in a way that displays the category” (Lorber, 2010) . She continues to explain choice in name, clothing, and use of other gender markers creates the gender status (Lorber, 2010) .
Bridgette is clearly a female, based not only on her physical genitalia, but her name, her clothes, her toys, blankets, even her diapers scream, “I am a Girl”. Beyond these clearly defined female items, my Grandmother points out her supposed feminine way of acting and looking. Quite frankly at this age, I don’t really see much of a difference in their actions. Bridgette certainly looks female and Greyson is without a doubt male looking. Of course, I really don’t know if has much to do with their sexual anatomy or the way my family is dressing and raising them.
I really don’t want to continue rambling about the differences in appearance of my two adorable baby cousins. I decided the easiest way to really demonstrate, how they look is to post a picture. So you can look at Bridgette and Greyson and use them as I did to more fully understand Lorber’s point about society creating gender identity.
Bridgette Humphrey
Greyson
Kent
Awww. They are so precious. The things you mentioned remind me of the class I took last semester called, "Sociology on Gender." I had Dr. Christine Williams and her class was definitely worthwhile. I learned so much stuff about gender differences and it was very interesting, but at the same time it was also discouraging. Females have so many more problems to deal with from society than boys do.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, glad you got to visit such sweet little babies! Have a great Spring break.
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Yesterday in class we were talking about how society sees sex for men differently than for women. A man who has casual sex and sleeps with multiple partners is considered a "playa" and fathers deem their sons as following in their father's footsteps. For girls, the opposite is true. They are labled "loose" or "whores". The same bahavior, but gender makes it either acceptable or unacceptable. It's crazy how we start this process when children are the size of these two little dolls. As they grow, it will definitely be interesting to see how each are treated by the family and by society.
See you soon....
They are adorable!!
ReplyDeleteI can totally see how we treat and dress children differently based apon gender and because its so instilled into us we cant help it. My son is 11 months old now and my daughter is 10 years old and I rememeber the difference not only in clothes but how I am allowing him to explore. With my daughter I followed her every step of the way and was there to pick her right back up right when she fell but with him I wait for him to get his self back up.
Thanks for sharing the pictures with us.