Gendered Communication

Okay, my thoughts are still dwelling on the rather “intense” conversation my group engaged in during class. This conversation was sparked by statement two on the Beliefs About Sex and Gender Issues worksheet. Now I just want to make it clear that truly I’m not personally bother by what was said of anything like that (just wanted to reassure you Prof. Scott). I'm writing about this because after a few days of thinking about I realized that the “intensity” of our conversation itself was a part of gender representations.

So, statement two said “Young children need an at-home mother at least for the first year of life.” The group was comprised of three other women, Shannon, and me. Shannon and I said it was generally false, the other three said it was generally true. Then one of the other group members began to tell us why children should stay at home with a parent until they’re one year old. A little calm conversation began with each person explaining their reasoning. Then me, being the psychologically inquisitive person I am, asked everyone whether they had stayed at home with a parent or not. When it was discovered the three members who said the statement was true had indeed stayed at home I suggested to the group that our upbringings influenced our beliefs. That’s when I’d say a distinctly female way of speaking defensively and offensively began. A very mild “cat fight” if you will. Shannon and I were told how babies need to be at home with someone, and that you can’t always trust daycares. Well, I wasn’t going to just sit there and listen to what I personally knew to be false so I rebutted by using Shannon and I as an example, explaining we were both in daycare as infants and weren’t scarred by the experience, Shannon agreed with me. Then one of the other group members responded by making a personal attack that she tried to fix or brush off afterwards. She asked us how old we were, when we said nineteen and twenty she responded in a manner similar to, “Oh, well that explains it, you’re too young to understand what it’s like to be a mother.” Then she said, “Just kidding.”

The point I’m trying to make by recalling this whole narrative is that classically women are too hard on each other. We judge each other’s decisions too much and try to put others down. This has always bothered me for one important reason, (I heard this on TV at one point) if we make it okay to put down each other then we give men the green light to do it as well. Sometimes I wish we could all just stop and see this, and live in the unrealistic blissful harmony like at the end of “Mean Girls.” Knowing that in the near future that would be almost impossible is what keeps me indecisive about having children. I want to raise children and have a family, but I also don’t want to have to give up a career and part of my identity like in the one episode of “Sex in the City” when they go to the baby shower in Connecticut and see all of the former lawyers and brokers unemployed, worrying about diapers, and also judging the single women who hadn’t conformed to their societies expectation of women yet.