Gender Norms

    Crazy to see about how different people view certain topics. Topics you sometimes dont ever even think about until you actually dig deep inside of a text and become interested in it. That is/was the case after reading Learning to be Gendered  by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnel-Ginet. Gender norms may are overlooked but they indeed exist. In the book, she has an insert about the various types of names given to babies and how they sometimes differed in other regions of the world. She says, "Evelyn was avalible as a male name in Britain long after it had become an exclusively a female name in America, and Whitney, once exclusively a surname or a male first name in America, is now bestowed on baby girls." In the world we live in today , parents would most likely be scolded if even considering naming their boy Evelyn or Whitney. Why? Because its sort of a self inflicted norm that we've adapted to. In a way, gender norms protects us, it gives us a safe place to hide at so that we wont have to get "judged" for our individuality. Recently, my girlfriend and I went out to dinner with a group of our closest friends and this time, we decided to switch things up, my girlfriend paid for the bill as opposed to me doing it. As expected, my friends took notice and they went CRAZY. They went as far as questioning my love for my girlfriend for even allowing her to foot the bill. Why? Because of gender norms, because I am a man I am almost always expected to take my girl out, and pay for the bill, is it right? No, its not. Do we sometimes accept it? Yes , yes we do. I see this trend of switching up gender "norms" changing at a slowly but surely pace, we may need to speed up the process.