Boys vs. Girls

Today we had a bit of "fun" discussing the roles and cultures of males and females. We divided the class into two groups (boys vs. girls) and had each team answer certain questions about the opposite sex. It's easy to answer questions about what we do, but it is much more difficult and challenging to think about what the opposite sex does. As such, here are the questions you had to answer:

1. What jobs do women/men have?
2. What extracurricular activities do women/men participate in?
3. How do men/women treat/respond to the opposite sex?
4. How are men/women portrayed in society?
5. What does society expect men/women to be?

To put it lightly, we got some very interesting results. Instead of breaking free of the stereotypes, that's what most of you wrote down. For example, women are supposed to be modelesque and be housewifes. Likewise, men are supposed to be garbagemen and be the only money-maker in the family. What's shocking is that it is 2013 and all of you still think this way. Have you never seen a male nurse? Don't women do more than shop and cook and clean? If we still have these cages around our gender, then imagine how hard it was for Sandra Cisneros to break free of that mold almost 40 years ago. She moved out of her house to live out on her own and become a writer. That is no easy task, especially in the time period she was living in. I hope you all learned that you need to stop putting these cages around each other. Stop perpetuating the stereotypes that confine your opposite gender. Today, we live in a world where men and women are entitled to the same rights (unfortunately, that's not true for all parts of the world). So live up to that expectation. The more you stereotype the opposite gender, the more the stereotypes of YOUR gender will confine you.

When we jumped back into Mango Street, we saw that first-hand. In "Boys & Girls," Esperanza talks about how boys and girls live in different universes. Boys were not allowed to play with girls because it was believed they had nothing in common or it would look poorly on the family.

As for "My Name," Esperanza gives us a description of her name (much like all of you did in your I Am Poems). She talks about how she got the name from her great-grandmother, a wild horse of a woman. But her great-grandmother was forced into marriage and was never happy afterwards. She spent her whole life sitting by the window looking out. Esperanza is determined not to end up like this and will do anything in her power to stop it from happening. We'll see how it goes...

DEETS:
In-class:
--Boys vs. Girls Activity
--Read and annotate "Boys & Girls" and "My Name"

HW:
--None. Lucky!