The New Woman

Throughout the years the typical role of a woman has been to be a stay at home mother. However, more recently, this norm has been challenged and we’ve been seeing more and more women leaving the house to join the workforce. This is a great thing because it means more and more women are become independent and not having to rely on their husbands to support them. And while it’s a great thing that women are becoming this independent it can also be hard for them to learn how to balance work and family life. I searched online to see if there were any sites that offered any help to women who were having trouble balancing their job and family. Right away I found a very informative site.

Workingmother.com is a site especially designed for women who are working and have families. This site is meant to help women balance their family life and their work. If you know any working women with families I recommend you inform them about this site, it’s very helpful. Check it out for yourself here.

Homophobia Lost? In UK, Straight Guys Kiss Each Other

Sociologist Eric Anderson is reporting that in Britain straight males are starting to engage in same-sex kisses with their peers.

Based on in-depth interviews of 145 British university and high-school students, Anderson and his colleagues discovered that 89 percent had kissed a male heterosexual friend on the lips at some point. A total of 37 percent had engaged in "sustained" kissing with another man, Anderson said. The men all identified as straight, and they didn't see the kisses as sexual.

"These men have lost their homophobia," Anderson said. "They're no longer afraid to be thought gay by their behaviors, and they enjoy intimacy with their friends, just the same as women."

[...]

The United Kingdom is less homophobic as a whole than the United States, Anderson said, but Americans should expect acceptance of men kissing on our shores soon enough. Research on American college soccer players suggests that 20 percent of those men have kissed another man, which is a harbinger of the trend, Anderson said.

It's not yet known how the trend of men kissing extends to non-University segments of the British population. Anderson plans to extend the research to minority men and low-income men who aren't in college.

Growing acceptance of same-sex kissing doesn't mean that homophobia is gone, just that masculine ideals are changing, Anderson said. His theory, put forth in his book, "Inclusive Masculinity: The Changing Nature of Masculinities" (Routledge, 2009), is that in times of homophobia, men police their behavior to avoid being seen as gay. When homophobia fades, men can relax and explore behaviors that don't jive with the traditional masculine ideal.

"Decrease in homophobia has positive effects for heterosexual men as well," Anderson said.

Thoughts? Does anyone think that such "enlightened" views about how heterosexual masculinity can be constructed will ever cross the pond and reach the United States?

Has equality become fashionable?

I found this article about how the fashion industry is progressive in the sense that they are constantly blurring gender lines. Often female models will dress in typical male fashion and male models usually have very prominent androgynous features. The article mentions a model named Jo Calderone (who is widely recognized as Lady Gaga dressed as a male).

This comparison reminded me of another celebrity who has recently been playing the gender bending game: James Franco. For those of you who don't know, James Franco (click here for his IMDb page) recently dressed in drag for the cover of Candy magazine.

It could be that pop culture is shifting away from gender norms, if only just for the "shock value" it provides. Whatever the case, this could potentially be a huge step in breaking down gender barriers... Now it's just a matter of time to see how long this gender ambiguity will stay in vogue.

Afghan girls pretending to be boys

I read an interesting article in the New York Times about how many Afghan families are fooling society into thinking that they have a son by treating treating their daughters like boys. They are not referred to as son or daughter, but instead "bacha posh" which means "dressed up as a boy." 

In Afghan, boys are seen as much more important and are highly prized. Mothers face immense pressure to conceive a male child, and people will pity them if they have only daughters. Mothers who don't want to have another child, like a woman named Azita Raffat, who wanted instead to advance her political career, decided to change her daughter into a son. She introduced the idea of being a boy by saying, "Do you want to ... do more fun things like boys do, like bicycling, soccer, and cricket?" 

The gender roles in Afghanistan are much more pronounced and strict than they are in the U.S., and these girls-turned-boys are able to practice "masculine" traits such as athleticism, aggressiveness, and defiance without fear of breaking cultural norms. Mrs. Raffat says of her daughter, "[She has] adopted all the boys' traits very soon ... the attitude, the talking. She has nothing of a girl in her." This of course implies that "girl" traits are submissiveness, obedience, and subdued.


It was interesting to read about how these girls, raised as boys, had to eventually change back as they went through puberty and their bodies changed. They had to start wearing burqas and learn how to socialize with women. The girls interviewed in this article were not particularly happy about changing back. A woman named Shukria Siddiqui was raised a boy until her parents arranged a marriage for her.  She refers to her male years as her "best times" because she was able to be more outspoken. The man she married allows her to wear trousers around the house sometimes because he knows it makes her happier (cue for the "aww"). He once tried to beat her, but never tried it again after she hit him back. Retaliation is seen as a masculine trait and is taboo for a woman to exhibit. 


Unlike in the United States where defying gender roles is becoming more of the social norm and can have more to do with personal choice and preference, in Afghanistan, your gender identity can make or break your economic welfare. A ten year old girl named Miina dresses like a boy and works to earn money for her family. Being a boy is the only way for her to work, as girls are not allowed to. Having a son also increases the family's status in society, if only temporarily. 


To be a male in Afghanistan is to command respect, be able to work and earn money, to have more freedoms. One girl-turned-boy says she would rather be a boy and doesn't want to change back: "People use bad words for girls. They scream at them on the streets. When I see that, I don't want to be a girl. When I am a boy, they don't speak to me like that." She is the same person; it is just her gender that decides how society will treat her. 


Pictures here.