Comm iii presentation

Gender Communication in Social
Institutions: Ch. 7 Family
By: Tiffany Currier
Monday, April 28, 2014

The importance of talk
about gender and sexuality
within the family
At the end of this chapter, it lists suggestions that could help
families try and bend gender roles or ideas into a more gender
neutral way to avoid stereotypes:
Parents contribute to all chores, cooking, cleaning,
repairing, etc. Despite sex of parent.
Allowing children to play sports,
despite sex of child.
Buying gender neutral toys.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9028479/Couple-
raise-child-as-gender-neutral-to-avoid-
stereotyping.html
full interview with Beck Laxton, and her story about
raising her child Sasha as gender neutral.
Beck Laxton: "Stereotypes seem fundamentally
stupid. Why would you want to slot people into
boxes?”

Our text, in this chapter asks me a couple
of questions regarding Sasha and his
gender, and sexual identity.The text asks
“why is gender-neutral parenting receiving
so much feedback? How do you react to
the photo of Sasha? Do you have an
overwhelming need to know Sasha’s sex?
Why?” (pg. 142).
I will answer these questions for
you:

why is gender-neutral parenting receiving
so much feedback?
Beck Laxton, “"I discovered later that I'd been described as 'that loony
woman who doesn't know whether her baby is a boy or a girl', she said.
"And I could never persuade anyone in the group to come around for coffee.
They just thought I was mental.”
There is so much feedback because for people who are
set in their ways- meaning that they never even consider
raising a child gender neutral, or think of gender
stereotypes as a bad thing, have a very hard time
accepting, or understanding families that do choose to
raise their children as gender neutral. It is confusing
because they don’t know what to call them, they think it
may be harmful for the child.

How do you react to the photo
of Sasha?
My ﬁrst glance at the image of the child, I didn’t think
“oh a little boy” or “oh a little girl” .That is only
because I have been researching and studying and
becoming less ignorant towards these lifestyles. But
before all that, I would have taken a second glance at
the child to determine the sex of the child so I can
then connect what I know is a boy, and what is a girl.

Do you have an overwhelming need to know
Sasha’s sex? Why?
Before reading the story? No. But as I read the interview, I
became interested.Although I know they chose to raise
Sasha as gender-neutral. I couldn’t help by wonder what is
the sex? Every person is either male or female biologically. I
work with a parent who raises their child as gender-neutral. I
have had to practice in my mind before speaking with her to
refer to her child as gender neutral and by not calling her
child by him, he or she. But by referring to them as they. I
had to practice this in my mind because I am so used to
calling to other people’s children by their sex, and not by
their gender identity.

Friendship
Cross-sex friends
I ask myself, why is having cross-sex
friends at a younger age easier than
having cross-sex friends later in life?

Dawson’s Creek. Cross-sex and
same sex friendship and
relationships.

Meet the friends
Dawson Leery Joey Potter Jen Lindley
Pacey Witter
Jack McPhee

Joey and Dawson:
Joey and Dawson have been friends since
they were very little. They slept over each
other’s house and even slept in the same
bed. They played together. It didn’t matter
because they were innocent children.
When Joey and Dawson reached
the age of puberty, things
changed between their innocent,
cross-sex friendship. They started
to have feelings for one another.
Intimate feelings of love, and lust.

The relationship between Joey and Dawson as the
television series goes on, they go from innocent,
to mature.They develop their relationships both
identifying as male and female in love with one
another. Best friends since childhood.
Joey had romantic feelings ﬁrst, Dawson followed a
short time after and the story from there, involves
an on and off romantic and friendship relationship
between them.

Jen and Joey
Same sex friendship between
Jen and Joey. Jen comes into
the picture, sweeping innocent
Dawson off his feet. Jen and
Dawson have a romantic
relationship. Mean while Joey
has romantic feelings for
Dawson.This creates tension
between Jen and Joey.
Jen and Joey are friends. But Dawson
always come between the two girls, and
hinders their relationship.

Jen and Jack
Jen and Jack’s cross-sex relationship:
Jack is openly gay. Jen has daddy issues and
does not trust men. Other than Jack. Jack
identifies himself as a male. But participates in
manly identifiable traits like Football, fraternities
etc. This very detail about Jack, appears when
Jack dates another man, and in their first
meetings, this other guy has a problem with
how Jack lives ‘gay’ by not acting gay. Jack
proves that gay isn’t a particular way of life.
One can play football, get good grades, live in
a frat house and be openly gay just as much as
a gay person who does not participate in
gender specific Idealoligies.
Dawson’s Creek is a television series that
demonstrate teenage angst, along with struggling
with identity, and maturity, and modern day
culture of the 90s and early 2000s.The
television demonstrate what the text talks
about in this chapter about pressure on dating,
marriage and heterosexual relationships. (pg.
145-149).

Gender roles within the family:
Mother Father
Daughter Son
It takes a man and a women biologically
to conceive a baby. That baby will either
be a male or female. (biologically) As the
child grows, they will take part of the
family and be held responsible for
household duties, and participation asa
family member. fulﬁlling their role as the
child.

Lets take those four roles into perspective:
We know what culturally, the ideology of being a women is, being a man,
essentially the roles for both male and female.
If we take those ideology of gendered roles in the family, and
switch the roles around, would the family still function?
The text talks about fatherhood and the
engagement of being a father.
“The norm has been for fathers to play more
emotionally distant, wage-earning roles, then
an alternative is for fathers to play more
interpersonally active, emotionally engaged
roles in the day-to-day care taking of their
children and other family members“ ( 159).
“the reality is that many men
are primary caregivers” (159).

Growing up, I never really had a mother. I
mean I did, she lives in my house, she is my
parent. But as far as gender roles the
ideology of a mother, she had been absent
due to illness. My father on the other
hand, had to play the role of both my
father, and my mother.Although my
mother played the emotional part, my
father was my core care taker, and
provider growing up.
As unfortunate as our situation was, our family still functioned in healthy ways, and still remained
connected, and close knit like I would expect my family to be. It would have been the same if it were
my mother taking part as both roles instead of my father. Regardless, it doesn’t matter of their sexual
orientation, or even gender roles within our family. Our family would have functioned either way.This
applies to same sex parents as well.This chapter discusses the same sex parenting as well as cross sex
parenting, and both situations seem to function.

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