Despite world’s level of development and advancement, gender bias and social norms, the rules which implicitly or explicitly define how we behave still exists. The society still expects us to behave in a certain way which when we go against it reacts in a way that can badly hurt our feeling, injure our ego and affect our social development (Heddleton, 2014). In comparison with the story of “Oliver’s Pink Bicycle.” through this essay, I am going to reflect upon my childhood highlighting how my life perception was inconsistent with societal expectations .
Growing up as the only son amongst my seven sisters i.e. our first borne sister and two pairs of triples following me, I believe affected the prism through which I perceive life. At a tender age I extremely enjoyed playing with dolls and by the age of 7, I could shade tears before my mum could allow me try on her lipsticks or even wear her high heel shoes. As for my dad who worked for the US Army as an analyst was never in the house and as such I did not grow up watching soccer or the American football. All that I watched was the Mexican soap operas and talk shows which my sisters watched. By the time I was reaching my junior high school, though I was quite good in physics and mathematics, I longed to work as a beautician, applying make-up on models.
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Things, however, took a strange turn when I made my visit to our school's career development department which was mandatory in our school. Though my career coach understood my career wishes, he went to great lengths explaining why I had to change my perception and embrace a different career line. I shared my concerns with my close friend who did not know I was harboring such wishes and all they could say is that I was a ‘sissy.’ their statement hurt me and although I had to re-format my brain and my system, I was still confused at how people could not understand how passionate I was about my career choice. Could not living close to my dad be the reason? I always queried myself. Though I was liberalized to choose whatever line I wanted, my coach insisted that my career choice would not auger well with the societal expectation and besides I had better grades to compete for other lucrative opportunities. That left me confused and forced me to accept that gender stereotype do exists.
Gender norms, a subset of social norms are defined as the behavioral expectations of an individual regarding their sex or gender. Though not explicitly stated in our today’s world, there are certain specific roles preserved for men and those preserved for women (Nass & Yen). In my case, handling of beauty products at their end or usage stage was perceived as a female role. My interest in the beauty products was blamed on my close association with ladies which was not my fault. Neither my career teacher nor my friends considered my welfare in their advice and sinister comments about me respectively. Also, I was damned in either course of a career which I could choose. By following my heart’s wishes, I stood to be ridiculed by my friends and probable the conservative section of the society. If I took on a new line of career, I could be in constant conflict with myself doing something I don’t like to impress the people I really do not care about.
Eventually, before I completely caved in to the idea of making a complete turn around in my career choice, I talked to my father about my wishes. With a complete understanding of the situation, my father suggested that I marry the two worlds i.e. take a career path which will see me employ the meta-analysis knowledge from mathematics and physics and work closely with beauty products. Today, I have majored in a course which will guarantee me to work with beauty products and in close proximity with models. Being a liberal idealist, I believe in following my dreams and not conforming to societal pressure.
References
Heddleton, K (2014). Social Norms and Gendered Expectations. Retrieved from https://kateheddleston.com/blog/social-norms-and-gendered-expectations
Nass, C& Yen (2010). The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What We Can Learn About Ourselves from Our Machines . Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition
