Over the weekend, I had 2 birthday parties to go to so I decided to use this entry to do some research in my gift buying process. These 2 little ones are brother and sister so I took it upon myself to ask their mommy if I can take them shopping, (which by the way, this is my boyfriend’s niece’s two littles.) I asked her if she was interested in coming along or I could take them off her hands for a couple of hours so that they can pick out their own birthday gift before the party.

She decided upon letting me take the two kids. The little girl was turning 3 and the boy was turning 1. Of course, I made my boyfriend come with me as we carted the two littles to Walmart so that they could choose whatever they wanted. The boy, who is only 1 immediately screams, “cars,” while almost at the same time, she screams, “dolls!”

Walking into Walmart there is no doubt that the toy section is completely gender organized. The incredible amount of pink everything on the island before you walk into the aisle was a guarantee that walking through that aisle you would find everything pink and girlie. There were dolls, barbies, kitchen toys to clean up such as kitchen stoves, vacuums, brooms, all stuff that in society a woman has been known to do. We are already putting in the hands and heads of our 3-year-old what their gender role is and what our norms are in society.

As for the boy, he too saw the island filled with blue cars before you even walked through the aisle. You already knew it was gender organized for little boys. The aisle was kept with all things that our society was a gender norm for boys which is cars, trucks, bats, legos, assembly tools, etc.

It’s incredible, but it’s not, that these kids knew exactly what a gender norm toy is and how badly they wanted exactly that toy related to them. I know we say it is not biological, but socially constructed but it was pretty awesome to watch they passion in which these children knew and related to their gender exactly what they wanted at ages 1 & 3. It was also fun when I handed the 3-year-old a car just to see what she would do she literally said angrily, “no, that’s for brother. He’s a boy!”

In this day and age, there is no doubt that a woman will use her gender as an advantage in an “illegitimate career gain” if need be.  The fact that gender is still a societal issue that discriminates against us forces us to combat against men in society and bare all arms necessary against them. We have overcome huge discrimination and resistance as being subordinates and weak and unintelligent, but times have changed and not only are women intelligent, but powerful as well.

There is a huge shift in the military where woman are now men’s superiors and I can see how that has had impact on men in the military. I have heard how degrading it is by young men I personally know in the marines also. I have heard through my girlfriend who was a sergeant how tough it was to gain the respect of her soldiers as her being their superior. Men and women of today are still struggling in how to accommodate the shared roles without gender playing an issue.

My girlfriend mentioned how it was very difficult in the beginning to gain the respect and the discipline from them when commanding direction to her soldiers. She said that they would work slower and take their time to make her look bad. She mentioned they would sabotage her in various ways, but she said that they wanted her to quit. They wanted to break her because they thought that they could since she was, “a girl.” They didn’t know who they were messing with.

To make a point, me, they could have broken. I would have cried. But that is why I don’t put myself in those types of jobs. Her however, they messed up. They ended up being the crybabies that in the end couldn’t do as she said. One gave her so much hell when she gave it back, he ended up taking a discharge (I’m not exactly sure what she called it.) In the end, the rest of the defiant soldiers ended up allowing her to lead them and never gave her any more problems.

Unfortunately, women have to deal with so much resistance in the work force. We have to deal with gender discrimination, sexual harassment, scrutiny from others and many other types of harassments that if you are disliked by anyone around you, you will be forced to deal with. That is why as women we have to stand together and stay strong and keep pushing forward to gain more opportunities, especially equal wage salaries as men.

As I’m sitting here, beer beside me, keyboard in my laps, I spit out my beer when I read this quote: “The power of beauty is such that the status of even a homely man skyrockets if he marries a dazzling woman. People discover positive qualities in him they never before noticed: self-confidence, likability, friendliness. People viewing individuals who are romantically linked to an attractive person try to make sense of the association. They may ask, ‘Why is she, desirable as she appears to be, involved with him?’ “

The reason this is so funny to me is that I can relate to this so much. Not in a conceited manner, but when I first got with my boyfriend, he had been single for almost 10 years. He obviously had his “hook-ups” for a lack of better word, but after his 10 year relationship where she cheated on him, he just chose to play around and not get into anything serious. When him and I became a thing, he always had many friends around, guys or girls it didn’t matter. We were always surrounded by his friends.

In on instance, one of his guy friends goes outside to smoke with me and says, “can I ask you something?” He then proceeds to ask (and I won’t use names), “why are you with ‘him’, I just don’t get it.” So I said, “ I’m not sure what you mean or why you would ask me that.” He says something like, “well, look at you. I don’t know I just don’t get it.” I was so damn offended that being the non-combative person I am I said nothing to him nor to my boyfriend at the time.

The next similar situation was one of his best girlfriends. She takes me upstairs of his house and says, “hey, so what are your intentions with my best friend?” I literally was blindsided by this question because I thought she liked me. It turns out, she didn’t understand why I liked him. To me, that was so ridiculously offensive because it made me think who the hell are these people that think so less of him? These are his best friends? They’re making him look like crap!

To explain one thing, I’ve always been a makeup girl. The girl in class is not the girl that worked as a bartender or even now on weekends. The weekend girl is Mac’d out, and in heels all the time. If for some reason my physical appearance made them uncomfortable, then I’m sorry but they did not have a right to say the things that they did. The worst part is it wasn’t even against me. I was offended because it was against their own best friend! How rude!

Physical appearance is very important, there is no doubt. But, to judge who your friends are dating and to become incapable of believing that love and affection would be the reason somebody is together because one is apparently more physically attractive than the other is just disgusting. I think he’s cute. Not to mention, he’s driven and smart and I have no reason why I have to validate my feelings to these haters who he used to call best friends.

There is no disagreement here that men and women have different approaches in all things. We see things differently, we are offended by different things, we joke in different manners, and we don’t take criticism as well as men do. I am the first one to say that I do not take criticism very well. I am a huge crybaby and kind of shy when out of my element, so criticism is a tough one. It’s not that I have a problem with what they say to me for example in a job setting, it’s that the worst feeling I hate to feel is embarrassment. Embarrassment for me is something that comes with uncontrollable flushing and sometimes tears.

The minute somebody says something to me in a manner that made me feel embarrassed or uncomfortable, I become almost offended and it causes the blood to rush to my head. Once that happens, I may or may not cry. I doubt that men have these types of feelings. It’s so horrible because it makes me feel weak. Let’s not even get into arguments and actual fighting because then I go really weak.

When I was in middle school there was a girl that came from the bay and she liked my boyfriend. She was a mean girl and caused a lot of drama. One day, she stepped up to me with her finger in my face, yelling and screaming at the top of her lungs the things she was going to do to me.  Me, being non-combative and again, anti-embarassment, I started yelling back as the tears were dropping from my face. I was willing to fight if she hit me, however the screaming match caused me to immediately cry tears which caused me to become even more embarrassed. Thankfully, we were split apart before she took the first punch and continued to try to fight me until she got expelled from school.

I guess the point is that men and women are so different.  Men are aggressive and would have probably both just started swinging without the need to fight with their words the way we did. Men just erupt. I don’t have an eruption button which actually I wish I did. I wish sometimes I could be more aggressive and stand up for myself when things bother me. Instead, I pull back into my little shell.

I will say this, about myself. When I became a bartender it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wasn’t looking for a job when the owner approached me and asked me if I was in “the business” when I lived in Danville. At first, I’m sure you can imagine what I thought with that question but then he went on to say that he was looking for a bartender for his restaurant. I told him I had never bartended before and I was a loan officer at the time, not exactly looking for a job. He stated he needed me for Saturday and Sunday so to show up on Monday to interview and I was hired on the spot.

Bartending made me grow balls. It gave me strength. The intimidated scared little girl left that bar a woman. I was made, because I didn’t have a choice, to get a backbone. I was always a social butterfly but being a bartender gave me wings and forced me to fly. Boy did I fly. I learned to joke like boys. I learned to dish it out, and even better I learned to take it. I learned that messages are spoken in different manners. Some are subtle, some are soft and beating around the bush, and some are just straight up. It’s good to be able to understand all.

Among many other feelings, nostalgia was mostly what I kept feeling while reading this chapter. It is true that the gender separation between boys and girls is very prominent at a very young age, definitely by elementary school. Girls play with their best friends which are girls and they play with dolls and girlie toys while boys play with other tough boys who like to play cowboys or cops who shoot guns.

Mingling amongst the two is almost unheard of. I recall if I even played with a boy I would be called out by all my girl friends because it was gross and boys have “cooties.” We didn’t play with them and we definitely didn’t like them. That doesn’t come until later, yup, middle school for sure. I remember being in elementary school and there was this boy that would just not leave me alone. He terrorized me so damn much that I would cry. I used to have really long hair, down past my butt and he would chase me just to yank my hair so hard. I would run from him in fear, but nobody would help me because girls don’t play with boys.

This went on for a very long time and it did not end in elementary. It continued to be worse in middle school where he would find me during recess and now make a spectacle where other boys would watch him do it and he’d run while they laughed. I became the epitome of segregating myself with my own gender to blend and hide. What a moron. I ran into him a few years ago when I was bartending, and he actually apologized for putting me through so much hell. He literally came around the bar to give me an apology hug. He is so lucky I am kind because what I really wanted to do was throw tequila in his face. Now that I think back, I should have instead of going to have a drink with him because he was pretty damn cute that day. It’s funny how things can change so much with age. His nasty hateful cooties turned into sexual tension in a snap all when I thought I still couldn’t stand the guy. Who knew?

There is no doubt that being a woman comes with many ups and downs. There are perks to being a woman for sure but there are also many downsides.  From childhood we are taught to be sweet, feminine girls. We are taught to serve our family members. We are the hostesses when people come over and we wait on everyone. At least in my Mexican culture it is that way.

Growing up, I was always very submissive and “hosty.” Maybe it’s because that’s what I was taught but it actually made me who I am now. I still have the need when people come over to wait on them hand and foot. I still serve everybody and clean up after everyone. I stand while they eat and make them their tortillas. It’s the weirdest thing apparently to others who watch me when we have dinner but to me, it’ s just normal. It was how I was brought up. My dad would sit at the table eating while we were warming his tortillas as he was eating them. We weren’t the type of family that keeps the tortillas in a bowl on the table we were they type of family that literally kept the tortillas coming as he’s eating them until he was done.

Society today has changed many things in our new Mexican-American culture. Latina women are no longer doing all of these things now that they are second and third generations and many don’t even speak the language. Times are changing and all of the “machismo” crap isn’t being tolerated any longer. Thankfully, woman are getting educated, becoming tougher making them beautifully powerful in society. Add attractiveness to all that and we can have any man eating out of our hand. That would be one of the perks I was talking about above.

Any woman and adding beauty to the eye of the beholder on top of that, can achieve anything she wants. Women know that men focus on our appearance. We know that we are being checked out whether we know it, like it, or not. It forces us to care about our appearance the minute we walk out of that door. Especially when one is single, more so than in a relationship or married. Are you kidding me, their future boyfriend/ spouse is out there and physical attractiveness will be the first thing that is seen and judged by a man.

I have many friends that have fallen into depression because they are unhappy with their appearance or they feel fat and can’t lose the weight. All because they feel judged in their daily lives and are unhappy with their relationship situations or lack thereof. At the end of the day, no matter what people think we need to be happy with ourselves, our true selves.  We must wake up and go to bed looking at the same person every day. If I don’t like something, I change it, otherwise I shut myself the hell up and let it be. Don’t whine about it. Be about it. Either change it or shut up. Just own it proudly.

It is actually pretty interesting what a world of difference it makes to an expectant new mom or dad whether their child is a boy or a girl. It is important whether that baby is carrying a penis or a vagina and can have unclear outcomes on how the expectant parents will feel and react to the news. You would think that a healthy baby is what the parents are hoping for but that’s usually not what you hear. It’s either I want a boy, or I want a girl.

Trust me, I know. I was supposed to be a boy. I’m sure I’ve blogged somewhat about the fact that my dad had a previous marriage before my mother and had 6 daughters with her. He then left her and married my mom, ultimately having 5 more kids but let’s take a step back. The oldest child from my parents was a girl, making her my dad’s 7^th daughter. My next oldest sibling is another girl making her the 8^th daughter. Then, here comes me, “A BOY!” ….Not! He was told I was a boy and my mom said he was the happiest man alive. He jumped for joy with happiness. As a matter of fact, he was so happy he left her and went with all his friends to the bar to celebrate.  He was that happy, he left her and went to go celebrate with his guy friends. I’m hoping you can detect my sarcasm (eye roll).

9 months later, it’s labor day as in my mom is in labor with me and she gets rushed to the hospital because he wasn’t around at the moment. She had me at the hospital before he could even get there but when they told him, very carefully, that I was a girl, he wouldn’t even come see me at the hospital. He didn’t come to see me nor did he come to pick my mom up to take her home.

This is how important male genitalia can be to a person. Whether it’s because somebody wants their name to be carried on so badly or whatever the case, I would never think that a penis could drive a father to not meet his daughter. Don’t start crying for me now. It’s fine. I’m a strong Latina woman and cannot be broken. I am strong. I am independent. I am smart. I don’t allow men to dominate me. I am sweet and although they have tried to be abusive, I am not that person that will allow that dominant role that some men feel the need to play around me. I saw enough of that growing up. Before I end this, I will say I love my dad. We made up and on his death bed he apologized for my mom or whoever telling me that story. He wishes I would have never heard it and it’s ok that I have because it has made me who I am.

 

Society definitely determines what and who is beautiful. From the make-up ads, to the billboards we see on a daily basis, we are told everyday how we are supposed to look and feel based on the clothing we wear, how we apply our makeup, how we do our hair. We are taught from a very early age that a woman full of makeup is beautiful because it shows she cares. She puts an effort into what she looks like on a daily basis.

A woman who is not lazy is supposed to wake up, make themselves beautiful by dressing nice and applying nice makeup. We are supposed to comb our hair nicely so that we can look attractive in societies eye. I always asked my mom since I was a little girl why she would get up so early just to do her makeup before the whole house woke up. She would always say that it didn’t matter if we were leaving our house or not. She said it was always important to look presentable and attractive for ourselves. That of course, meant waking up an extra hour or two to shower, do her makeup, iron her clothes, dress nicely, smell nicely and put her hair in a cute pin.

From childhood I was taught that beauty was on the outside. Not only from my mom, who of course learned it and did it for my dad but like I previously mentioned, from everything that surrounded me. For a very long time I was a makeup girl. I still am, but mostly on the weekends. I wish I could be more like my mom and be presentable all the time but unfortunately, I am not. I take pride in myself, mostly on weekends when I’m at my house with friends over but when it comes to school, yeah, my hair goes into a hat and I’m lucky if I make time for foundation after dropping my son off at school. I’m a busy person and as much as I try to be like her, I mostly just can’t find the extra energy to care.

 

Today, I looked at a beauty magazine and I was not shocked to see the outcome of my results. First, let me add that there is no true way to know what someone’s race is based on their appearance, but I did my best in depicting white, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, etc, and additionally male and female.

I went through my magazine which was one I got at he makeup ULTA counter so no doubt there were hardly many men, however wearing makeup is a new trend for some me on a daily basis, so there were a few men with a full beat face. 28 of the women throughout the magazine were white, beautiful, very thin faced girls. Mostly young girls in their 20’s. There were 8 Latinas and it had 3 black women. 1 girl was Asian.

All of these women were gorgeous and unique. They had exquisite features, high cheek bones, full pouty lips, big eyes, and a full beat face. Everything you expect for a makeup magazine for sure. However, once I’m asked to count the difference in women ethnicities, there is no doubt that white women are favored to be in their magazines or as cover girls. There is no doubt that favoritism plays a huge role in society as to what is seen as beautiful and the rest of the races are just trying to catch up.

I have to assume that if it was up to the editor’s they would just keep it all white but with all the new political correctness and all of that stuff, it’s almost like they just throw the other girls a bone and keep it to a limited amount of ethnic faces which is truly sad, because every race is beautiful.

 

Gender Ideologies are engrained in you at birth. You are taught by your parents at a very young age how you should behave, what toys you should be playing with, what cartoons you should be watching that are gender appropriate, etc. I don’t think some parents ever even stop to think how harmful this can be to their children.

Growing up, my dad wanted a boy so badly. He wanted a boy so terribly bad he had 10 daughters before he had his first son. Yes, 10! He had 6 with a previous marriage and then the other 4 with my mom, and then came my brother.  From the moment he was born, he was treated differently. Us girls had to cook and clean and wait on my dad and brother hand and foot. He had to do nothing. He got to play all day and learn to be a lazy, entitled little shit. We would have to wake up Saturday mornings super early to clean the house, but he was allowed to stay in bed and sleep in.

There is no doubt that since birth children are treated differently based on their gender. Our culture also had a lot to do with it. There are tons of “machismo” that goes on in the Latino culture. From birth men get waited on hand and foot by the women. They get to go out and enjoy the bars and life out with their friends while the women stay home tending to the children and all the house chores.

My poor brother was surrounded by females. I remember he would pick up our barbies and my dad would slap them out of his hand and say those were for girls and “men” didn’t play with girl toys. My brother would cry, and he would give him a car instead. My brother was so damn spoiled I assume we resented it so we would dress him up in our dresses when we were bored and make him put on performances for us as a girl. We would make him sing and dance for us and we would just die from laughter. We knew we were so wrong, but we didn’t care. It was our way of getting back at dad even though he had no idea we were doing that to his boy.

It’s interesting how one’s ideologies of how a boy or a girl should behave is influenced from birth and socialized into your life. The culture provides you with the norms and values necessary for you to fit in with that society and with your environment.