Does Gender Matter?

         This week in class we posed the question "Does Gender/Sex Matter?" I want to pose that questions to you guys. What do y'all think? Do they matter? I think they can go both ways. In some ways they do and some ways they don't. 

        Gender does matter in the sense that we are born to do different things. Female and Males brains are different. They think different and work different for different reasons. Girls are better at observing details and remembering little things where guys are a lot better at remembering directions and how to get somewhere. Females can and usually are thinking about multiple things at once all the time whereas males are amazing at focusing on only one thing at a time (I wish I had that ability). 

        We are made for different roles in the family. Mothers are more nurturing and are born to give birth whereas fathers are not as much. Now that doesn't mean that fathers can't be nurturing, they can be for sure, but it's a little less natural. And in that case we could argue that specifically gender in families does not matter because moms and dads can perform the same tasks and roles no matter if they are male or female. 

        One study I found interesting that we read about was about toys and young children. They gave different guys and girls both stereotypical "girl toys" and "boy toys." Trucks and barbies for example. They gave they children a chance to pick out what toys they wanted to play with and the little girls were drawn to the girl toys and the boys were drawn to the boy toys. This was interesting to me because they claimed that there was no bias or anything with the toys but on my end, they weren't new borns. They had some experience with toys and parents giving them toys. They're conditioned that way by parents to play with specific toys. 

        What about sports? Does gender matter in sports? I think yes and no. If a girl wants to go out for a guys football team, go for it. But what about the other way around? Guys bodies are built different than girls. They have testosterone and more muscle mass. They are genetically stronger and faster and more athletic. So do we let guys in female sports? There is a lot of controversy right now in letting transgender women into women sports because they have the advantage of having a males body still. So do we let them or not? 

        Another aspect we can talk about is being gender typical vs gender atypical. When we are younger what do we like to do? Well gender typical boys would like playing with trucks, being destructive, and talking about gross things haha. Typical girls would like playing with doll houses, doing crafts, and braiding each others hair. Well what does the atypical look like? An example of this would be a boy wanting to play with a doll house with all the girls. I think a big part of our culture today is atypical girls or "tomboys" and how we view tomboys over atypical boys. Boys who are different often are looked down on. Not tom boys. No one really says anything bad about them and are even looked up to. All over social media they say "girls should go outside and get in the mud and learn about cars and like to do all the sports." 

        Well where does that leave me? Because I love being outside and camping and being dirty and going on adventures and the sports and everything. But I also LOVE having girls nights and doing skin care and wearing jewelry and dressing up in cute outfits. So am I typical or atypical? Who knows.