Displays of Gender-Specific Behavior in a Family Gathering

      While visiting my hometown over the weekend, I had to attend a family gathering. Unlike our normal family gatherings that occur every weekend (which include only around ten immediate family members), this gathering included three of my grandmother's first cousins once removed, my half-great uncle's children and their children, and other relatives I could not even name. Needless to say, it was a large number of invitees–– so large that the dining table did not fit.

The dining table that only fit the fifteen seniors of the family

      Common perceptions of Saudi Arabian family gatherings would immediately hold the assumption that they are gender segregated. That is not the case with all gatherings, as it differs between families, and it is definitely not the case with this gathering. Fortunately, due to this lack of segregation, I was able to observe displays of both male and female "power" in this gathering.

What was not the case in my family's gathering.

      Males in the gathering sat down for the majority of the gathering's duration. They spoke of serious matters. Whenever a topic would become increasingly grim or sensitive, a man would typically immediately change the subject by the means of comedy, such as ridiculing the issue at hand in a light-hearted manner or cracking a random joke. As predicted, the only time the men got up was when the lamb (the main meal of the gathering) was ready to be served. For readers unfamiliar with Arab cuisine, the lamb was served whole––head, limbs, and so on. Three men had to carry the lamb to the table, an act that can easily be considered a public display of masculine power by many.

       Most of the females in the gathering never actually sat down. They would task themselves with helping the maids set up the table and serving juices and dates to the guests. Those who sat down engaged in typically female conversations. Mothers discussed schools and children, while younger females discussed recent restaurant openings and the latest trends. Eventually, more serious social topics were discussed, such as the recent changes in the sponsorship system in the country. As one may expect, though, this topic was only discussed by the women as soon as a man initiated the topic and then involved the women in the discussion. This is no way indicative of a lack of intellect on the women's part, certainly not from a sociological perspective. This is merely indicative of what topics seem to be socially acceptable for women to discuss amongst themselves, even if the women are well-informed of social matters such as the Saudi Arabian sponsorship system (a system that is also implemented by the country's GCC neighbor Qatar).

      Interestingly enough, a strange manifestation of segregation was also noted. While the gathering was strictly not gender segregated, the majority of the invitees had the tendency to isolate themselves by gender anyway. Younger females, including myself, sat in a further, more isolated part of the room. It was isolated enough that we could not see the other side of the room but still hear the rest of our family converse. The men and older women, such as mothers and grandmothers, were seated in the main, larger section of the room. Nevertheless, they, too, somewhat divided themselves by gender. Some women sat with the men and some men sat with the women. I found that it all depended on the topic that was being discussed at the time, and was not due to any particular social discomfort with the other gender. The same could be said about the way I was seated with my younger female relatives. We probably only chose to be isolated because we wanted the freedom of discussing our lives abroad as international university students.

      Despite changing times, displays of both masculine and feminine behavior remain the same. The same concept also applies to expectations of masculine and feminine behavior, and everyone acts accordingly to avoid social "punishment". Despite the fact that at some points during the gathering, I felt that I did not want to discuss food and fashion, I felt that I had no other choice...somewhat. While I could have initiated a serious topic with both the males and the females in the family, my attempts would have been dismissed most likely due to my young age and gender. While that is in no way a sure determinant of intelligence, and while everyone in the gathering most likely believed that, society constructed it otherwise. In such a large setting, everyone feels that it is safer to stick to the boundaries set by social norms. I am almost certain of that because I know that in our smaller weekly gatherings that only include my immediate relatives, I can more confidently discuss serious matters and I would be taken seriously. Despite the fact that all of my immediate family members were present, that same confidence was not present due to the socially sensitive situation we were placed in due to the large number of family members, all with differing ages and, of course, genders.

CMUQ event

The Student Majlis of CMUQ had an event that was on Thursday, the 21^st of March. A DBQ event (Dodgeball and Barbeque event). For people who don’t know what’s dodgeball game like me; dodgeball is a game in which players on two teams try to hit players in the other team and they must avoid being hit themselves. This event happened in the green spine outside CMUQ building. Many students participated in this event, and the teams had different genders.

Masculine tasks

The male students made all the preparations for the event. It needed the carrying out of heavy equipment such as the BBQ fireplace. According to sociology, all societies categorized people based upon sex and gender. This seems ‘natural’, but it is a social construction. The male students did all the arrangement, setting up the cones in lines for the dodgeball game and prepared all the food and things needed for the BBQ.

A non gender-polarization event

Many male students were saying that this game is for boys only, and girls are not capable of playing it. This game needs masculine actions such as the throwing balls to the other side and hit the other team. However, many female students cross the gender-polarization concept. They think they have the ability to do masculine activities. And so, many female students participated in this game. There was a team called ‘women in black’ that had all female participants, and were strongly excited to compete with other teams.

According to sociology, there trends to be a higher degree of conformity to prescribed gender roles. Those who do not obey the ‘rules’ of gender face social punishment. However, in many societies, it is easier for people to accept the idea that females are the one who cross the gender-polarization concept than male. Many societies are not accepting the new image of the male version, the sensitive and soft man. But remasculinization process is always takes over all boys in their earlier lives. They grow up having the traditional masculinity idea; boys love to be featured strong, competent and powerful males.

 

Although cooking is known as females’ responsibility, but the male students toke the charge of the BBQ. The boys enjoy doing the BBQ in the trips or the events, because usually they do not cook in houses, so they feel free to do the cooking when they are with their friends. And maybe the reason the chose BBQ is the that it is the easiest way to cook food.

Role-models

The term role model in sociology generally means any "person who serves as an example, whose behavior is emulated by others". Who is your role model? Who do you look up to? Is it a scientist? A scholar? Or maybe your own parents?

Having actors as role models has been something that’s been going on for long now,  seeing how the actors play certain character, and the audience might fall for that certain character, but at the same time, not differentiating between the character and the actor/actress. Especially children.

One of the reasons I decided to write about this certain topic is that I remembered a little chatter between me and my friends about Miley Cyrus. How she was only seen as Hannah Montana, a role-model for little girls, and then how she evolved to a totally different example, a bad one. (1-2)

And as for boys, their role models might be from WWE(World wrestling Entertainment), which is an entertainment programs that target males from age 18-34, and also children. But how do you group children with 18-34 years old males? These role models are certainly not good ones.

Why is media portraying these people as people a child should consider a hero? Why are most kids these days not consider scholars, scientists as heroes and role models these days? Is it because the whole world is focused on self-entertainment in this century?

There are many other "role-models" to be listed but I thought that these two stands out the most.

Gender-neutral children?

Gender is a very controversial issue in today’s world. Many women find themselves more masculine than what’s acceptable in the society, and many men find themselves more feminine that what’s acceptable in the society as well. These rules that society forms creates many stereotypes about the two genders that may limit the chances they have in life. For example, the glass ceiling prevents many women from achieving high management position just because of their gender. Likewise, in some countries, men are forced to serve in the military for two or more years, which takes a lot of the time they can use for studying or working.

Despite these rules that society entails about gender and identity, many people choose to deviate. Some females and males dress and act in the way society thinks how the opposite gender should. So, because these people are breaking social norms, they get sanctioned, formally or informally. If these deviations happen in Saudi Arabia, for example, as a sanction, these deviators will be sent to the authorities. On the other hand, if these deviations happen in Lebanon, the deviators are likely to get sanctioned informally from people around them.

Moreover, a number of parents have been trying to raise gender-neutral children. They refuse to tell the gender of their baby. They dress them in both female and make clothes. Paint their room with gender-neutral colors, as well. One of these parents live in the United Kingdom, and they taught their kid, Sasha, to absorb both genders into his identity. They tried to keep their child’s sex as a secret, but once the kid entered school they had to announce that their kid is a boy.




Many people critique these parents who try to raise a gender-neutral children. They claim that its unfair that parents make these decisions for their children, because it may make them look as freaks in the eyes of their schoolmates and get them bullied at school. When they grow up they can choose to adopt some aspect of the other gender or change their gender if they want, as they say. But even if the parents choose to raise their child according to the gender rules assigned by the society, they are still making the decision without their kid’s approval. The only difference is that the chances are less that they will get bullied at school.




The question still remains whether it’s possible to raise a gender-neutral child in today’s highly gender-polarized world. If the person is gender-neutral, which restroom will he/she use, and which gender should they check in application or official records?

The dumba$$ and the donkey a$$.

A person's sex is an ascribed master status as it dominates all the other social factors he or she has. No matter what race, ethnicity, or occupation a person has, the first thing that is noticeable is their sex. "Sex is based on primary characteristics, the anatomical traits essential to reproduction." People often confuse the terms sex and gender, however in sociology they are separate terms. Gender is defined as a "social distinction based on culturally conceived and learned ideas about appropriate appearance, behavior and mental and emotional characteristics for males and females."



In society individuals tend to be segregated based on their personal characteristics, including gender. Some of these segregation's are indicated clearly, such as bathrooms that visibly show male and female images, while others aren't directly indicated, such as clothing stores. One thing that is considered as a form of gender polarization, yet we usually fail to consider is insults. Insult words are usually used to directly attack a person's gender. Society has distinct perceptions about males and females and insults target these attributes as a form of sanctions.





A great example of this is a recent incident that happened with me last week with Haifa Wehbe. Haifa Wehbe is an Arab, and sometimes international superstar. She supposedly sings, acts and models, but that is debatable. Basically, she is the Kim Kardashian of the Arab world; talentless and exposes her body and sexuality for fame. I recently found her twitter account and was looking through her timeline, so I just had to say something. Considering she is a famous celebrity with tens of thousands of followers, I never thought she would even bother or have the time to reply back to me, so I called her a dumbass. Big mistake. Only a minute later I got a direct reply back from her saying "did you look at your face? Coz it sure does look like a donkey a$$." I was in disbelief and for many reasons. I couldn't believe she even had the time to reply back to me, I couldn't believe what she said to me, I couldn’t believe she would be so immature and I couldn't believe she used dollar signs to spell out ass. Keep in mind, we are speaking about a 35 year old woman, who also happens to be a "mother." I replied back to her immediately by calling her wh*re and once again, a dumbass.







It was a only a matter of time before I got a wave of insults flooding my timeline, all from her crazy and psychotic fans. Looking back at the insults I realized that the majority of them were gender polarized and were meant to directly affect me, specifically as a female. I got called all sorts of names, both in Arabic and English. Words such as b*tch, sl*t, wh*re, ugly and sharmouta were thrown out at me. Haifa also got her share of insults from her haters. Most of which were prostitute, ugly, fake and plastic.Once again, words that affected her image and her sexual behavior. It was so funny seeing everyone getting excited over such a petty "cat fight". Some random person even said "bring out your claws kitties. Meow." I found this reference quite hilarious because any fight involving women is usually called a cat fight and if you were to call a fight between men that, it would be demeaning to their masculinity.







Aside from insults we also received compliments. They were pretty much the opposite of the offensive slurs. Remarks such as queen, gorgeous and beautiful. While these insults and compliments that both Haifa and I received were different, they had one thing in common- they attacked our femininity. We can see that the things females value the most are related to their physical image, sexual patterns and emotional traits. I didn't take anything personally and I had a really good laugh from all this, even though some of the stuff was intense. Basically as someone put it, I "gave Haifa a 'Wa-Wa' that she couldn't handle."

Double Standards

Double standards are principles that are unfairly applied in different ways to different people who are in similar situations. They can be applied to races, cultures, but most of all, men and women. It is a common misconception that women are the only people who endure double standards, but in reality, both sexes deal with having to be judged or “defined” by double standards.

A common example is marriage. If a man is entering his 30’s and still isn’t married, he is seen as a driven individual focused on his career. Whereas if a woman isn’t married by the time she’s in her 30’s, something must be “wrong” with her because nobody asked for her hand in marriage. Age difference between couples is also judged according to gender. It’s becoming socially acceptable for a man to date or marry a woman 20 years younger than him but a woman is “cold-shouldered” or shunned down upon if she chooses to date a younger man. Men on the other hand could be seen as ‘the bad guys’ in situations where women are seen as victims. For example break ups, if a man ends a relationship he’s seen as a jerk, regardless of what the legitimate reasons might have been. However, if a woman ends the relationship the man ‘must’ have done something wrong for her to end it. Men are also belittled if they decide to take on the role of homemaker while their wives financially support the family, however society has deemed it more than socially acceptable (if not preferred) that women tend to household duties while the men work. Working women who are in relationships with working men, still expect them to pay when they go out or indulge them with presents and flowers, while at the same time, still wanting to be treated as an equal in other aspects of their relationship.

The media is also a very powerful tool in reinforcing double standards. Women are constantly portrayed as beautiful, thin and perfect, an impossible ideal that many young women strive to achieve. Although there are “model-like” ideals for men in the media there’s still a much wider range presented. Male actors can be older, chubbier, bald and not necessarily attractive to sell a product. This confuses young girls in particular because they are constantly told their character is based upon their physical attributes.

The list of double standards men and women undergo is endless. They happen more often than we might think, but the stereotypes and labels we grow up with over the years play a huge role in distracting us from noticing them immediately.

Transgenders and Films

According to sociology, gender roles - based on male-female differences in behavior and appearances are socially created. Although primary sex characteristics determine a person’s sex, their behavior is determined socially. Society sets their physical, behavioral, mental and emotional traits.

Although there is no clear line separating men and women because of transsexuals, in most societies, transsexuals are looked down upon, because of which many of them tend to undergo sex change operations.

Even in movies, cross-dressing and drag have had a long history in the film industry. Starting from Hollywood classics like “Some like it hot” to “White Chicks” cross-dressing was preferred over having a transgender on screen, although several movies have had the role of a transgenders, it was only in the late 60’s and 70’s that transgender performers were introduced as actors to act as a transgenders in movies. However the pool of well-known transgender actors is considerable small.

In the new movie Gun Hill Road, Harmony Santana plays the role of transgender, being a transgender herself on screen, which hasn’t always been the case. These days the film industry is trying to tell transgender stories from a transgender's perspective itself.