Case study 5.

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Case study 5. Step 1. I think the biggest personal example I have experience of “doing” or performing a role as defined by society is my own experience of sexuality. My battle with my sexual identity is constantly evolving with the mess of societal understanding and sexuality. When I first came about as someone of the LGBT community, it was as a bisexual woman. For the longest time I had believed that being heterosexual was a given. Every person who was “normal” and fit into society was and should be heterosexual in mind. As a kid I was taught that the only homosexuality that was okay was between women, because it was “cute”, but even then, it was still wrong and too taboo to talk about. Due to this, I believed that I had to be heterosexual because I was not wrong.   The thing is, I am not heterosexual. I do not know what it is like to be interest in men and I probably never will. So, I performed heterosexuality as best as I could as someone who did not know what it was like. Any boy that was nice to me, I told myself I had a crush on them. Of course, I ended up with what I thought were crushes on tens of boys at a time. It was not until middle school that I was properly introduced to what homosexuality meant. Eventually, as I saw how “normal” being gay was, how not wrong it was, I started to accept that I was interested in girls.   At this time, I knew that I had never been interested in boys, and that there were some girls I had a romantic interest in. Still when I felt okay enough to come out as a wlw (woman loving woman), I came out as bisexual. I was young, although I still am, and believed that as some point, I had to start being interested in men. I no longer thought it was wrong to be into the same sex, but from what I had seen in my personal life, it only made sense that girls were into boys and that I would be too. In my mind, that was natural. Even though I knew I was not into men, it only made sense to me that I would fit more heteronormative roles. It took years for me to accept that I was not in fact, into boys, and that I probably never would be. At some point I finally felt comfortable to come out as a lesbian.   Since then things have changed again. I was never really interested into the concept of gender. It is not something that kids have ever been introduced to. The typically roles we should fit into are assigned to us as youth and reinforced by the media we consume. No one ever even entertains the thought of people fitting outside our norms as youth, and that become ingrained into us. As I have grown and been introduced to the truths of gender as a social construct, my idea of my own sexuality has changed. It took a lot for me to come out as a lesbian, so when I was exposed to the reality of nonbinary people it threw me for a loop. I am not interested in men, but I am interested in nonbinary people (enbys). That was harder for me to grasp, as I did not know where that left me. The idea of coming out for a third time as bisexual again scares me, I have always been worried about how people will judge my sexuality. At the same time, that word typically applies to people that love women and men. I am a person that loves woman and enbys, and still stays romantically unattracted to men. Our society is so label oriented that it has been important for me to find one that fits, and I always seem to be left behind. Especially as someone who has realized that I am not sexually attracted to anybody. My attraction only goes as far as the romantic level.     1-Should children be exposed to more inclusive ideas of sexuality and gender identity? Your answer 300 words.   Step 2. “Understanding Gender and Male Privilege”, “doing gender” means to “perform gender” in the traditional sense. (pg.8) I’m going to be completely honest that I disagree with a lot of this week’s readings. I don’t see myself as “doing gender” as we are supposed to discuss in this week’s Reflection. I go to work as a paralegal. The attorney I work for is a male. According to the article I am “doing gender” because I am the female assistant to a male boss. The fact is my boss is a male who happens to have gone to law school and passed the bar to obtain his Juris Doctor degree. I stayed home to raise my children for 18 years, and by the time I decided I wanted to go to law school, I find that the only law school I can attend is 1-1/2 hours away and it would be nearly impossible to work full time and commute that far while attending law school. Many would also look at my situation and say that I was “doing gender” by being a stay at home mom. The fact is, I wanted to be a mom since I was a little girl. Not because society taught me that’s what I should be, but because I loved babies. I don’t “do gender”. I “do me”. I do my job, I do research on case law, I work hard to support my boss so that his law firm does well. I don’t have this job because I am a female- I have this job because it’s what I enjoy doing and because law school is not practical right now. Unfortunately, so many men and women nowadays have decided that if “doing me” follows the traditional social construct of being a female, that I am simply “doing gender”.             However, for the sake of this assignment, I will give two instances of my “doing gender”. The other context I “do gender” is in my everyday life with my boyfriend. I wake up early every day to do my schoolwork, make him breakfast and lunch, do laundry and get stuff done around the house. He would never ask me to do any of that and he certainly doesn’t expect it. I do it because I love him, I’m a morning person and enjoy getting up early, and I want to make his mornings a little easier. He, in turn, makes me dinner several times during the week, he does dishes, buys me flowers, holds the car door open for me, and does countless other things. I know a lot of women that would cringe at that. My own daughters cringe at that. That I am somehow “less” of a person by allowing him to hold the door open for me and for making him breakfast every day. But I see it as having different roles in the relationship. Neither one is better than the other, and both are done out of love and respect for the other person.     2- By your own words. Do you think the tendency toward violence/aggression in males is more nurture or nature? Your answer 300 words.   Note; Avoid PLAGIARISM and copying and pasting you will get you ZERO. I will scan the papers.   Review and write according to the instructions. look at my attachment