[culturehandy]

I pitched this in the Community Forum and it was well recieved.

This thread is all about the politics and cross cultural and societal views on gender.

I started thinking increasingly about gender when the media frenzy about Caster Semenya emerged. It is my opinion that the only reason people questioned Ms. Semenya's gender is because she appeared to be "masculine". That is, she looked masculine according to the ideas of society at large. Had she had softer, more "feminine" features, questions of her gender would not have come up.

So, what is gender? We know that there is sex, your biological sex, but gender is a social construct.

[culturehandy]

Being Canadian and all, I didn't see the founding father crap, Canadian history was learning about the first nations populations and small pox, and Quebec vs English Canadian and zzzz....

Plus, my parents were still up front, did I feel it was unfair, sure. but, there was also a series of adds in Canada (that still run) that highlight the accomplishments of all Canadians.

I still see the accomplishments of people as just that, accomplishments. Do I see the glass ceiling that exists, absolutely, but even despite all of this, I still didn't feel bound. Even when I was in grade school, our teachers taught us that any of us could do anything we wanted, again, regardless of gender.

Women weren't missing from our textbooks, we were taught about Laura Secord, Marie Curie, Suffragets, etc. History is dominated by men, sure, but I didn't think too much about that, i was too busy thinking about how dreadfully boring canadian history was (and it is boring) it wasn't until they got into scandal that it got interesting.

my current feminist fight is for things that are currently affecting women, and it was like that when I was growing up as well. I wasn't concerned about what happened in the past, some x amount of years ago. the fight I fight is for women of today. I recognize the past and using at a point of knowledge, but also acknowledge that I can't change the past. I do have the power, however, to change tomorrow.

[ketto]

Being Canadian and all, I didn't see the founding father crap, Canadian history was learning about the first nations populations and small pox, and Quebec vs English Canadian and zzzz....

Plus, my parents were still up front, did I feel it was unfair, sure. but, there was also a series of adds in Canada (that still run) that highlight the accomplishments of all Canadians.

I still see the accomplishments of people as just that, accomplishments. Do I see the glass ceiling that exists, absolutely, but even despite all of this, I still didn't feel bound. Even when I was in grade school, our teachers taught us that any of us could do anything we wanted, again, regardless of gender.

Women weren't missing from our textbooks, we were taught about Laura Secord, Marie Curie, Suffragets, etc. History is dominated by men, sure, but I didn't think too much about that, i was too busy thinking about how dreadfully boring canadian history was (and it is boring) it wasn't until they got into scandal that it got interesting.

my current feminist fight is for things that are currently affecting women, and it was like that when I was growing up as well. I wasn't concerned about what happened in the past, some x amount of years ago. the fight I fight is for women of today. I recognize the past and using at a point of knowledge, but also acknowledge that I can't change the past. I do have the power, however, to change tomorrow.

Culture, this is an interesting post because we both (as far as I know) grew up in the same city. I felt much the same way you did as a child. I felt equal to my two brothers and my parents always made it clear we could all do whatever we wanted to. I was a very girly girl who loved playing 'house' and dressing up in dresses and having long hair and all that jazz. I took ballet and Tap dancing classes for years, but I also played soccer and baseball at spent my summers playing football, baseball, tag, hide and seek, and just being outside with the neighbourhood kids. There was a group of 7 of us who lived within 3 houses on my street (4 boys, 3 girls) and we would set up tennis tournaments, make movies, put on concerts for our parents, build forts in the basement, build lego towns, and all that kind of stuff. We didn't feel bound by much at that point. TV and magazines weren't very prominent in our house when I was growing up so I don't remember having any feelings tied to them in particular.

It wasn't until I got to late middle school/early high school (when I was 12-14) that I started to realized things were missing. I never learned about Laura Secord or Marie Curie in my school. I don't even remember talking about suffrage but I'm sure we must have. I know we watched all the Canada Heritage Minutes (the commercials culture mentioned) in a grade 11 class and I liked that THEY touched on Laura Secord, Emily Parsons, suffrage, but that's the extent I feel I learned about women in regards to history. We talked about the role of women in first nations communities historically, but I don't even remember going into that in high school, just middle school. I did feel cheated in regards to the amount of attention paid to women's historical contributions.

In high school it was obvious that certain teachers favoured the guys in the class and that alone greatly contributed to me never wanting to speak up. I also became keenly aware of femininst issues intertwining with GBLT issues in grade 11 when 3 students switched schools because they were being harrassed from homophobic students who called them gay. When we tried to form a gay/straight alliance, the parents in the neighbourhood refused to let us call it that and we instead called it the "Human Rights Group". I definitely found that I wanted to be involved in activism by grade 12 but I didn't really know what it looked like yet or what to call it.

In grade 12 I probably discovered feminism, but it wasn't until University when I found my home in Women's and Gender Studies that I realized it was what I had been looking for in High School. Answers to my questions about oppression, racism, sexism, gender identity, etc.