Sociolinguistics Reading Response 1
So you know how in my last post I said I was going to start posting my assignments from class after they get graded. Well, here’s the first one! This was basically an introduction to the course and I got a 10/10 points on the assignment. It was pretty easy and I’m actually learning quite a lot in this class even though today is only the third class period. I’m actually working on today’s reading assignment right now but I seriously needed a break.
But anyways the assignment was based on this reading:
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Here is what I wrote for the reading response, warning, it does get a little personal. All views are my own and are not reflective of anyone or any other entity.
Reading Response 1. 8/25/22
Chapter one from Eckert & McConnell-Ginet acts as an introductory text to gender. There are four principles of gender that the book covers, 1) Gender is learned. The majority of the first quarter of the chapter discusses how gender is learned. For example, before birth gender is enforced with people asking if the yet-to-be born baby is male or female. Then at birth gender is most often enforced with the naming ritual observed in most cultures. However, a distinction is made several times throughout the chapter that not all names are gendered. But aside from naming, gender is learned through watching and active/passive direction from adults. I myself have a rather strange experience when it comes to learning my own gender. Because my parents did not enforce, or even exhibit, strict gender performance, such as the division of labor between my mother and father, or enforcing gendered play for my sister and I, I had a hard time understanding why other adults outside of my family structure consistently enforced gender stereotypes. And honestly I feel that because it took so long for me to experience gendered socialization in adolescence I feel that I might be behind my peers when it comes to performing and understanding femininity. It would be interesting to see studies done on people like me who were not raised with strict gender performance in the home but were exposed to it in later childhood from outside the home.
But I digress, the second principle is that gender is collaborative. For example my name, Cameron, is mostly perceived as a male name, and especially because of its spelling. Having this name has shown me throughout childhood and well into adulthood how having a gendered name can affect one’s interactions with gender and how gender is acted upon me because of my name. In childhood I was made fun of and called a boy (derogatory) more times than I can count, despite being a cisgendered female. This even led to me changing my name for several years in adolescence to something related but more feminine (which as an adult I regret.)
During my undergraduate studies a pre-calc professor (who at the time of the following event had known me for 2 weeks) was handing back homework and calling students by name and referred to me as “Mr. Cameron [redacted].” Whether this was an honest mistake or intentional harm I am still unsure. And in my professional life as an adult, others who have not met me yet often refer to me as “sir” or “Mr.” [redacted]” in written correspondence. The shock on people’s faces, and their exaggerated, and often offensive, reactions to my correcting them or them being corrected by meeting me in person is further personal evidence of how gender is learned. In the chapter, however, the examples given for gender being collaborative were much more focused on gendered play styles.
The third principle is that gender is performed. As I have said previously I was not exposed to overt gender performance by my parents growing up, however, when I was exposed to gender performance as a child by my peers and other adults in my life (i.e teachers and friends’ parents) I oscillated between fierce participation and fierce rejection of gendered performance before settling into my gender as a late teen and performing more consistently with how my peers perform femininity. The book gives examples of how this is done by showing what gender affects in terms of an individual’s actions and choice which include but are not limited to: voice pitch, social and personal identity, the way someone talks, walks, and dresses, how people choose to interact with others of the same and opposite genders, the value people place on individuals and groups in society, social capital/hierarchy, convention, ideology, emotion, desire, sexual partners, and career choices. Again this is not an exhaustive list but things I noticed and wrote down while reading.
The last principle is that gender is asymmetrical. This is a principle that I know all to well and can go on for hours about, however, I think I will save my feminist-centric rants on this particular principle for later. Instead I will leave it at that this asymmetry prefers males in society over females thus leading to the oppression and subjugation of females in the social order as well as in personal relationships, institutions, religion, domestic life, childrearing, etc.
Lastly for this reading response I will end with this quote from the chapter that I feel sums up the reading really well. “Gender Ideology is the set of beliefs that govern people’s participation in the gender order, and by which they explain and justify that participation.” (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 2013).
Anyways, I hope y’all enjoyed reading this. Don’t steal my work though, it’s already been graded and proven that it is my original words and thoughts so like just don’t plagiarize.
