Secrets of Mind and Reality

Gender Issues

Gender relations in America have been undergoing a transformation. In some neighborhoods, that change is barely started. Gender issues in middle America generally revolve around pretty set concepts of identity. Women are supposed be pretty and to compete for the attention of boys. Men are supposed to be tough and rugged and play football. The less you conform to the stereotype, the less you are considered a real man.

In many places across America, however, gender education is changing these traditional stereotypes. Now more than ever, people are able to explore gender identity and come up with their own relationship to it. For some people, gender issues are not that important. If you live in a society without very rigid gender roles, you may well be able to develop your own sense of identity without really thinking about gender issues that much. For other people, however, it can be more complicated. Some people have identities which are so far outside of what is considered normal that they just can not get by in society. They freak conservative people out just by virtue of being a bit different, and those people react with hostility.

Most gender experts point out that this isn’t really the fault of people who question gender. There is no reason that a girl should not be able to play football and not worry about her looks or the boys, for example. The fact that these kinds of behaviors disturb some people means that we have a long way to go. Mainstream American gender issues will go away on their own, but the results of ignoring them can be sometimes tragic. So-called queer bashing is the worst result, but sometimes the more quotidian sorts of discrimination have the same results. Many people have been driven to suicide or lifelong depression through gender discrimination.

Gender issues are really tied into gay rights. Basically, it isn’t enough to say that this group or that group should be persecuted. Will he have to say the society is that people are allowed to negotiate their own relationship to gender identity in general. A lot of people do not fit narrowly into gender dualities or gay and straight identity. His beloved much of a right to live their lives as they please, and should be treated with respect given to everyone else. Every day we seem to move little bit closer to this goal, but it is still far away.