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Due to having heard a few veeeery heteronormative discussions and jokes this week - in podcasts I listen to among other things - I've been reflecting a little on how lucky I am to have grown up as "inoculated" to that as I have.
I have two parents, a cis man and a cis woman. They're now in their mid-70s. Growing up, I never thought there were things "only men did" or "only women did" because my parents were never like "how every woman/man is".
Of the two, my dad is the cleanliest. That is, they both like to keep their home neat, but my dad loves cleaning. He led the charge every Saturday, and sang while doing so. He still does. He genuinely enjoys it. He's also the one who's into musicals. Of the two, mom is the one who's into action movies, dad generally finds them boring. But they aren't a complete role reversal of gender stereotypes either. Dad is the one who enjoys watching sports and does most of the repair jobs around the house re: using tools. My mom does most of the cooking (though my dad can also absolutely cook and does so fairly often). They've always been very keen on keeping things equal. If one of them cooked all the food, the other one did all the washing up. They spent an equal amount of time at home with us kids if we got sick, etc etc.
Knowing through example that people never are as simple as "this is what Men Do/Women Do" really helped me in a positive way form my own identity growing up. Not saying this has made me wholly "immune" to thinking in gender stereotypes - far from! We all live in a society, yadda yadda. But it has made it easier to question the prejudices I do have, since so many of the default things people say about "how men are" don't fit my dad or mom in the least, while at the same time sometimes fitting them. And they had/have a lot of different friends with different interest + dad have friends who happen to not be men and mom have friends how happen to not be women.
I'm sure more people than I share this experience. Just struck me today and I wanted to write it down for future!me to remember :)
In other news, I'm doing my best to catch up with the Snowflake Challenge. Because challenge #6 is a very visual one (a scavenger hunt), I posted it over on Tumblr since it's a much swifter process to upload images over there. Link to my challenge nr 6 reply - one of the pictures is of my cat~
I have two parents, a cis man and a cis woman. They're now in their mid-70s. Growing up, I never thought there were things "only men did" or "only women did" because my parents were never like "how every woman/man is".
Of the two, my dad is the cleanliest. That is, they both like to keep their home neat, but my dad loves cleaning. He led the charge every Saturday, and sang while doing so. He still does. He genuinely enjoys it. He's also the one who's into musicals. Of the two, mom is the one who's into action movies, dad generally finds them boring. But they aren't a complete role reversal of gender stereotypes either. Dad is the one who enjoys watching sports and does most of the repair jobs around the house re: using tools. My mom does most of the cooking (though my dad can also absolutely cook and does so fairly often). They've always been very keen on keeping things equal. If one of them cooked all the food, the other one did all the washing up. They spent an equal amount of time at home with us kids if we got sick, etc etc.
Knowing through example that people never are as simple as "this is what Men Do/Women Do" really helped me in a positive way form my own identity growing up. Not saying this has made me wholly "immune" to thinking in gender stereotypes - far from! We all live in a society, yadda yadda. But it has made it easier to question the prejudices I do have, since so many of the default things people say about "how men are" don't fit my dad or mom in the least, while at the same time sometimes fitting them. And they had/have a lot of different friends with different interest + dad have friends who happen to not be men and mom have friends how happen to not be women.
I'm sure more people than I share this experience. Just struck me today and I wanted to write it down for future!me to remember :)
In other news, I'm doing my best to catch up with the Snowflake Challenge. Because challenge #6 is a very visual one (a scavenger hunt), I posted it over on Tumblr since it's a much swifter process to upload images over there. Link to my challenge nr 6 reply - one of the pictures is of my cat~
