Gender Expectations

            I chose to do my final project on my journey with feminism and how understanding how important it is changed me and how I tend to live my life. I think examining gender roles and what each gender expects from the other is important. I mentioned in my essay that when I don’t wear makeup guys comment on how tired I look or how sick I look or if I even have a tiny blemish. I think it’s so interesting that men are allowed by society to have imperfect skin and large pores and shiny foreheads because they don’t have to constantly cover up their faces. I know I look particularly young when I’m going barefaced and I’m quite offended when people ask me how old I am when I’m working or tell me I’ll love when people think I’m eighteen when I’m twenty five. I just never saw that point in unsolicited comments from strangers about my overall appearance. I remember one time when I was working, I am a cashier, two middle aged men only came through my line because they considered me a “good looking chick”. I rolled my eyes so hard when I heard that but I still had to be professional even though I felt uncomfortable.

            While doing my project I found an article of a man telling why he thought it was okay for men to tell women to smile and why most men do it. This man said that men want something pleasing to look at and a smiling woman is just the thing. I hate waking up knowing that I am going to possibly be seen as just some object for some man to look at while I’m in the grocery store buying eggs or something. I’m not saying that every man feels this way or would say that to a woman he sees in public but I just wish that some thought would be put into saying something purely based off of someone’s gender. Gender and sex and sexuality are things that are becoming so important and so prevalent in the media that it’s just frustrating that some people still don’t understand how incredibly inappropriate it is to say something gender focused to someone they know and don’t know.

            I think it’s important for both genders to understand one another. I think classes focused on gender roles and understanding genders would be something great to be taught to students in high school. Young people are so impressionable so if we could just teach students while they are young that people, male and female alike are not objects there wouldn’t be a need for me to be angry that some man once again told me I looked sad and that I should smile more because the world can’t possibly be that hard.