X: Fabulous Children's Story

X: A Fabulous Child’s Story is a fantastic story by Lois Gould. It centers on a fiction experiment where a set of Parents raise their child genderless. This baby’s name is simply X and it is raised with both girl and boys toys, clothes and lessons. X is taught to be a person, not to be a boy or a girl. Obviously, this upsets many parents once X goes to school, but it is discovered that X is actually the most well-rounded and normal child the school psychologist had ever seen.

            This story was so impressive to me because it really gets you thinking about gender as a social construct. Gender is a completely taught behavior, not a learned one. Boys aren’t born with the knowledge to like blue, trucks and violence. These are all taught just like girls are taught to like pink, not be too rough and enjoy dolls more than superheroes. These behaviors are what is keeping gender-norms alive. As a functional society, we don’t even really need to introduce gender to our children until puberty. There is no benefit to drilling these gender norms into our children’s heads before they can even talk.

            This story reminded me of a very interesting news report from a few years ago that centered on Baby Storm. Storm’s parents decided that it was unimportant for the world to know Storm’s gender and that they would raise him or her without the constraints of gender norms. This of course became a media circus and people demanded to know Storm’s sex. The parents never waivered, and to this day it is unknown to the public whether Baby Storm is a boy or a girl. The parents have decided to let Storm announce his or her gender when Storm thinks it’s time. I think they've made an excellent choice, good for them. 

Caveman Masculinity: Finding Manhood in Evolutionary Science

Reading Martha McCaughey’s 2008 article “Caveman Masculinity: Finding Manhood in Evolutionary Science” opened my eyes to something I experience every day, but have never really noticed. McCaughey analyzes how evolution and historic male behavior are used out of context to explain masculinity, male sexual aggression, and ‘normal’ male behaviors. People have been using cavemen as a justification for male violence, claiming that men cannot help themselves because they have genes and behaviors inherited from their prehistoric ancestors. According to this theory, sexual aggression, rape, and promiscuity are due to the urgency to reproduce back in caveman times. Men claim they are attracted to younger, attractive women due to their reproductive viability because as cavemen, they needed to reproduce quickly. “Men are told that their sexist double-standard concerning appearance is evolutionary,” (McCaughey). Society has been lead to believe these ideas because they seem scientific and have factual evidence, so the caveman ideology has become a social norm.

In my opinion, evolution is not a valid reason for male aggression. Men cannot act however they please and blame it on their manly, caveman genes. Had cavemen passed on behaviors to us, I would have the urge to wear a fur pelt and live in the wilderness, which I definitely do not. I do believe that genes can account for mental illness or aggression, but not from cavemen and certainly not for all males.

If Men Could Menstruate

While reading the "If Men Could Menstruate" reading, all I could think about was Beyonce's song "If I were a Boy". Both the song and the reading talk about the double standard that exists between men and women. The positive things that men do would have a negative connotation when applied to women and the negative things that women do, would have a different spin for guys.

Take menstruation, for example. For some girls, it may be an embarrassing time of the month, but if men could menstruate, and women could not, this wouldn't be the case. For men it would be a masculine competition. Men would brag about whose cycle lasted longer, lost the most blood, etc.

Gloria Steinem said that in this world where men could menstruate that women would be considered unclean "without the monthly loss of impurities". Women would be viewed as dirty, yet in some cultures today, women are isolated during their menstrual cycles....for being dirty. So basically women are considered unclean when they have their periods and even when they don't. Women can never win.  As a woman I find it extremely frustrating that double standards like this exist. 

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Hey Everyone! I'm Kirsten Wojacek from Morristown, New Jersey. 

I'm a freshman studying Biology here at Penn State and I'm excited to get to know everyone better! 

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My name is Cassie and I'm a freshman business major from Little Silver, New Jersey. I'm interested in this class and excited for the semester!

Hey Friends! This is Kaitlyn checking into our beautiful new blog! I'm a Senior at Penn State taking Women's Studies 100 and I can't wait to share my thoughts with this blog.