Final Reflection:
I wanted to share all of my assignments here, but alas, there is not time and space and reason to have them all in this portfolio. They will, however, keep going forwards with me, as I see their potential for growth and future publishing. That's what this class taught me: I have a future in writing clear and hard about what hurts. Gender hurts. Not in a bad way, but a growing pains way. I grew up a bit in this class. I learned more about myself, and I observed others grow, too. I realized that I don't know everything about me, and I like that. It means I have more story to experience, and more life to live. I have blank pages in my future. That excites me.
I really loved this class. I wasn't sure if I would, and with each assignment, I dove deeper and deeper into who I am as a person, and that is love, really. Knowing yourself better. Loving yourself better.
I chose this particular piece because it was my first, and when I went back to review my thoughts at the end of the course, I still stood by my thoughts completely. It felt appropriate.
Short Assignment 1: Personal Gender Theory Essay
I struggle with how genders are different, not because I don’t see their existence, or find their presence helpful, but because I don’t see how clear-cut definitions make sense. I have always considered people to be like a paint sample chart. If you change a paint color by one number, it’s a new color. To say that we are all one gender or another feels too structured. I consider the nature of my husband and I: to see us from the outside, he is a HE. However, he does the laundry better than me. I build fences and use power tools better than he does. Does that alter our gender identity?
I suppose we are different by our appearance. We choose to look one way or another, and some of us choose to be neutral. I am treated differently if I am covered in frills and pink, versus when I am wearing my work boots and old tattered jeans. My gender doesn’t change, though. How I am perceived does, though. However, that’s all depends on how society sees me. Does that imply that its society’s problem, not mine? I seem to be doing a rather bad job of explaining how genders are actually different, and I’m doing a better job of saying it’s too vague to bother explaining at all.
As someone who works with livestock, I see animals as being defined by their sex, but gender is never a consideration. We as humans need more than the basic minds of animals, and we have elaborate mental associations with Self. From my own perspective, my gender has always been She, but with a healthy dose of Something Else. I do not cling to the concept of divine womanhood. I revel in the neutrality of the grey areas. I am Woman, but I am also Grey. However, this is not “different”. It just IS.
I know that “difference” is just the way that people who are gender normative use to describe scenarios outside of Adam and Eve. I have never been structured that way, so I see no range of unusual. I see a range of possibilities, all of which is within a spectrum that is normal for the human experience. I was raised with parents who were black and white, and yet I never clung to their ideas. I just knew otherwise, as I could never see the benefit to having rigid rules regarding our self-expression.
I could never say that I’m right. I just know what my hearts sits well with, and what defines my personal experience. Nothing in this life is sure, except death and taxes, and I hope more people can grasp that, because being “sure” about something is a slippery slope. I know nothing to be true. I know everything to be a part of the expanding Universe, and subject to constant growth and deeper understanding. Gender is just one of those ever-expanding aspects of this Universe.