Quintanilla

Cynthia Quintanilla

Gender is done as we perform daily tasks. Since babies are born as a clean slate and later learn to behave into socially acceptable sex-based roles, what we do after infancy is defined as masculine or feminine behaviors. Realistically, our behaviors are simply actions, it is people that identify those behaviors and gender oriented. A woman and a man can both take command of a group of people when working on a project, but these behaviors will be categorized differently. The woman will be considered "bossy" while the man will be considered "a good leader." It seems that the patriarchy has already established a list of things by which to define men and women and SO HELP THEM you will be labeled regardless if you follow the gender stereotypes provided. A woman painting her nails will receive positive reinforcement about her behavior and will continue to paint her nails, but a man that paints his nails will be, at best, questioned and, at worst, ridiculed. This type of social feedback reinforces the type of things we do to fit into society's gender construct.

It seems as though society is incapable of viewing people as simply humans that perform actions and instead insists on dividing people based on their genitals into two different categories thinking that they each need a different type of training. Unfortunately, the type of training one group gets is deemed inferior. And to think, it's all by design!