Let's start by discussing what it means to be a man/male from what I observed at Sealine. The men were the ones who drove everyone to Sealine and were the ones who did all heavy lifting. Now both those actions could be seen as society's way of socializing men, but at the same time by doing these actions the men are showing signs of masculinity. The notion that men are the strong, independent, and the protectors comes from gender polarization and how it becomes the frame that men who are born with primary sex characteristics must stay within. What I also observed is how men are the only ones allowed to drive the water scooters, and that the girls who wanted to have a turn on them were only allowed to do so with a male companion.
I witnessed something that might be considered a normal reaction from a little boy, but when I thought about it again from a sociological point of view I saw how socially constructed standards of masculinity and femininity are instilled in us from a young age. One of my younger male cousins was asked to put on his sister’s jacket, but refused angrily stating that he wasn’t going to wear a “girl’s jacket”. Now, the jacket didn’t have any indications of it being a girl’s only jacket. The main reason behind his refusal to wear the jacket was because it did belong to a girl, and that boys don’t wear feminine clothes. That there was an example on how gender-schematic impacts the decisions that either sex makes about their life.
Not only does gender play a role in the lives of men, it also does so in the lives of women. My aunts and female cousins were the ones who did the cooking, cleaning, and keeping an eye on the children. Gender polarization affects the way that they live their lives. The clothes they were much more feminine, they spoke in a softer tone, and they sat in specific ways. Women are made out to be the weaker gender, the dependents, and the emotional ones. I realized that more so on the beach as the women truly did depend on the men to defend them and make sure that they were secure at all times.
As humans we comply to the gender ideals that we have be socialized to accept. It’s acceptable for a man to have hairy legs, but frowned upon when women do? The awkward conversation about hairy legs actually took place among a group of women who I was sat with, and surprisingly when one of them admitted that she didn’t shave her legs she automatically was negatively sanctioned. I’m pretty sure that a) the men were not having this conversation and b) if a man showed up with shaved legs he would be negatively sanctioned as well. Men and woman may be of different biological make ups, but I believe that whether a person is male or female is irrelevant to what he or she can or can’t do. I woman could have been the one driving the car down to Sealine, like my mother did. A man could just as well have been the one to be the one stood behind the grill, just like what my uncle did. It’s all social construction that keep males and females from being human and just experiencing life as person as opposed to a member of a category.
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