My Observations on My Parents and Gender Roles

   

      Since from an early age I've learned about gender roles from my parents I decided I wanted to take a closer look at the roles my parents had in my life of forming my views of gender. Growing up I had a very stable home, and I'm very thankful for that. However I was very young, around two or three, both of my parents had to work to support ourselves. My dad would work during the day and my mom would work during the night. Then when I was in about 4th grade my dad got a better job so my mom was able to stay at home. I liked all the attention I got. I started to notice that nobody in my family respected what mom did as she stayed at home. My dad's job was the one that paid for our food, school, clothes, and all the other things we wanted to do so what he did was well respected by both my brother and I while we ignored what my mom did. I think this is one of the reasons I feel the need to go into business and get a good job. This is so I know I'll be productive. I think in this way my parents are examples of gender stereotypes.
    I think in some ways though my parents don't agree with stereotypes. My dad doesn't like making decisions so for a lot of major decisions in our family it is decided by my mom. Also my mom is in charge of our family's financials and paying the bills. My dad also helps my brother with his homework, and takes him to school.  I think seeing how my parents fall into some stereotypes and break others shows me that you don't have to be a cookie cutter of what the stereotypes say you should be.

Issues that are Important to The While House Project

    The White House Project focuses on women's issues in politics. They help women get training so they can run for office. This helps the government be more representative of our citizens. The way they help this mission is by putting on different events to help educate women on how to get more involved. These events are Go Run, and Go Lead. The next Go Lead time is Wednesday March 16th at 5:30. It will be held at the Mile High United Way. Here's the website where you can RSVP  http://twhp.convio.net/site/Calendar?id=101102&view=Detail .
    I think putting on events is what The White House Project does best. They have it very organized, and it is really easy to find things on their website. They also have both a facebook and a twitter that help you stay updated on their news.
    One thing I think they need to work on is their advertising. They put on so many great events and have so many resources to help women I just don't think people know very much about. If they were better at getting the word out they could help out more women in the community. An idea is advertising their events at Colleges, in newspapers, and on different websites. Once they have spread the word about their mission they could do a lot more things.

Expectations with the White House Project

    I've helped out the White House Project twice now, and I've started to have some expectations of what to expect in the future there. My two main expectations are that I'll learn more about politics, current events, and how women are involved; I also want to learn more of the business side of things about how charities operate. 

    I've always been interested in politics and I think this would be a great way to learn more. There are so many women who are influential in today's political world. It's inspirational to see the things that are possible for me to do. The White House Project puts on many different events that showcase these women. Now that I'm involved I can attend these events, and with women's history month next month it will be a great chance to celebrate the progress women have made. 

    I'm a finance major so naturally I'm interested in the business sides of things. I want to learn how charities run compared to other companies. I've realized that charities run not too differently from other businesses. 

    I have these expectations based on my previous times volunteering, and my conversations with Katie. I realized how much work they do with women's issues, and helping to train women to be future leaders. This is what gave me the impression that I'll learn about women in politics. The reason I thought I'd learn about the business side is because while I'm in the office I've seen work getting done ranging from setting up catering for events to thinking of ways to raising money by fund raising. This way I can get an idea of all the work that goes into running something like The White House Project.

Feminism?

    Whenever I hear the word "Feminism" I cringe. I've always thought of a feminist as a bra-burning, men-hating woman, and I never could identify with that. Since I couldn't understand this I always steered away from anything having to do with feminism. After I read the chapter in Gendered Lives that discussed feminism I realized it isn't as radical as I thought it was. I also learned that there have been different waves of feminism and different ideas of what it can mean.
    The type I most connected with was Liberal Feminism, this is where they believed that women should have equality in all aspects of life. This seems like such a basic concept to me.  I agree that women should enjoy the equal rights. One thing that worries me about feminism is that while we focusing having equal rights about positive things we forget that if we want equal rights that also comes with negative things like the right to fail. Just because you have equal rights doesn't you will always be successful at what you do. Let's say a man and woman apply for the same job, and while a women has an equal right to that job she also has a equal right to not get that job based on qualifications. The job should be given to the most qualified candidate because that is true equality, and I think that's often ignored.
     I know that feminist movements have impacted my life though, because without them I probably wouldn't be in college.I also wouldn't have all the options for my future that I have now. I've been raised to believe that with hard work anything is possible. I've never considered my gender when I thought about what I wanted in my future.
    After reading about feminism I think it will make me be more thankful.. It made me more grateful for the women before me who stood up for my rights, and I'll be more appreciative of the opportunities in my life.  Also I won't have such a negative view of people who describe themselves as "feminists". I also will start trying to be more aware of women's issues that are going on around me.

My First Interaction with my Organization

I've signed up to do my charity work with the organization The White
House Project. There goal is to help empower women in  the political and
business arenas. I emailed them and I'm going to start going down to
their office on Tuesdays. I'm very excited to get started with my
volunteer work. I haven't had very many interaction with doing volunteer
work, and I think this will be a great opportunity for me. I'll learn about different problems that are facing, and the people who giving their time to help these different isssues.

Conversations about Gender

Gender is something we talk about in our lives without even realizing that we're talking about gender. The earliest memory of talking about gender is from when I was about 3 years old. I wanted to go outside and play but my mom told me that I had to brush my hair before I could play. I really wanted to start playing and didn't want to brush my hair, and I remember my mom saying "Don't you want to look pretty?"  Although this may not sound like it's about gender it really is. There are a lot of pressures on girls to be feminine and care about how they look. A little boy would never be told that his hair was too messy to play. Then the most recent conversation was also about the pressures women have about their appearances. I was talking to this woman and we were talking about working out. She said something about how we need "to look hot because Valentines Day is coming up". She was saying that to get a man you had to be looking good. This emphasizes the expectation that women must take care of their appearances. I think I need to start thinking about the way I talk about gender in conversations even when I'm directly talking about gender.