Tough Guise/Killing Us Softly

It really doesn’t seem noticeable until seeing a film like Jackson Katz’s the boxes that we confine each gender to. And then after watching these films it seems to be the only thing I notice. This isn’t the first time it’s come up either, we saw it when reading Baby X, but what I can’t understand is how to create change. If these images of what is female and what is male has become fully ingrained in society, so much so that it is unconsciously passed along to new generations, is it possible to reverse it? Even though we saw the pure degradation of women through advertising in Killing Us Softly, it seems ironic that women actually have an easier time pushing the boundaries of their gender roles. Maybe the first battle is getting people to admit there is a problem. To be able to address these issues we must first acknowledge that they exist.

Maybe to see change we need an army of baby X’s. What advice can we give parents of new babies to try and decrease the continuing cycle? It seems that the stories of parents fighting against gender norms are unique. They may be accomplishing a small piece toward societies improvement as a whole, but what is the cost. The cost is the unique family fighting against the norm. It takes courage and determination to reverse something as ingrained as this. Unfortunately, this world seems to be lacking in courageous and determined people, especially in this area. It is most likely a large struggle for parents to overcome their own life education that girls must be feminine and boys masculine. To watch their child walk out into the world pushing gender norm boundaries must be quite the dilemma for parents who are programmed to only want to do the best for their children and keep them safe. People who fight gender norms must be selfless, they are fighting for something that most likely will not be resolved in the near future and they have to have enough courage for those who will come after them.