Little Boys and Purses

Today at work a mother came in with her son. Nothing out of the ordinary. That is until he asks to hold her purse while she tried on a pair of shoes. My first thoughts were, aww how sweet what a little gentleman he is at such a young age. When she handed him the purse he went and sat on the sofa as she stood in front of the mirror admiring her selection. Then he proceeded to dig through the purse-typical naughty little boy behavior right. He digs and digs until aha-her cell phone. Ok-we're still in normal behavior mode. His next actions were a bit off to me. He picked up the purse and put it on his shoulder and walked towards his mother. She didn't say anything about him carrying her purse.

Now what puzzles me about this was his age. I place my guessemation around 8 years old. He was obviously old enough to understand that purses are for ladies. If he were around 3 or 4 then it would be a little more understandable-but 8?? Now maybe its because I grew up with the old saying drilled in my head "dolls are for girls, trucks are for boys" that made me find this behavior odd. A few questions ran through my mind as I watched this little boy. Is this the Should children be steered in direction to only engage in activities specifically related towards their gender?

I put so much thought into thinking back to stories of how many adult gay men stated that they played with their mothers/sisters makeup, hair, clothes, jewelry. I'm not saying in any way that the little boy was gay-he could have just been having fun with a bag and a phone in his eyes. Yet there is the question of if parents steer the behavior based on gender at a young age-will it determine the child's sexuality? Or are people just born with natural ways of their opposite sex?

I'm no expert but I would think that by not addressing such issues at a young age will cause a bit of confusion as they grow into adolescents. Then there's always the case of if you pressure a child too much they will be more reluctant to tell you their true feelings (ie, a father pushes sports on his son when he takes an interest in dance or cheer leading). This may cause intimidation or fear in a child,

There are so many different angles to look at something like this. There will never truly be a right or wrong answer just insight and opinions.

Bill of Sale

Since we've been having a lot of discussions about old magazines and news articles, I thought this Bill of Sale was quite interesting to share. It was actually sent to me via email.

We've all seen things like this in history text books but whenever I see something like this is never fails to shock me each time. This was the sort of advertisement found in newspapers just 175 years ago. People for sale simply because of the color of their skin

It's like reading a car auction almost. And the terminology used is ever so degrading. Whench???Mullattoes? Human beings dipicted as farm animals. This just takes us back in time to see how far we've come as a human race.

This weekend I went and saw Tyler Perry's "A Family that Preys". If you've ever seen one of Tyler Perry's movies, he never seems to disappoint his audience. The movie was excellent and factored in a lot of elements such as friendship, family trust, and self-worth.

After talking about the movie with my friend whom I had seen it with, there was one part in particular that she didn't like that made me notice a pattern in most of Tyler's movies and a lot of other movies that has become a cultural norm; domestic violence. I thought back to his past films and certainly there is at least one incident where one spouse is physically assaulted by the other. Now here's the kicker- all except one film did the audience think it was acceptable.

In "Diary of a Mad Black Woman", Kimberly Elise's character is abandoned by her husband of 18 years for another woman. He strips her of everything that they share together; money, home, car etc. After her husband is left paralyzed from a car accident, she steps in to be his primary caregiver. During this time she takes advantage of his paralysis by mistreating him. She leaves him in soiled clothes, hungry, and at one point almost knowingly lets him drown, yet the audience found these actions to be okay.

Perry's "Why Did I Get Married?" examined the lives of four married couples and their trials and tribulations. Jill Scott's character faced infidelity of her husband with her best friend. When he admits to her of his infidelity at a dinner party she hits him in the head with a wine bottle causing him to pass out. Again this was acceptable by the audience.

Perry's latest film "The Family that Preys", also touches on violence when Rockmond Dunbar's character smacks his wife across a restaurant bar because of her admission to infidelity with her boss. To no surprise the audience accepts this behavior.

Lastly, "Madea's Family Reunion" was the only film that displayed violence as unacceptable. An unhappily engaged woman is constantly abused by her fiancee' for not being the perfect woman 24/7 he so desperately desires. Here we see the innocent preyed on by the weak-minded.

In each of these films, with the exception of "Madea's Family Reunion" the audience cheered and applauded during the point at which violence occur ed. I can remember being in the theater and hearing shouts of "hit him", "smack her", "knock him out". Although for entertainment purpose only, the message was still that violence was indeed okay given the criteria of the situation.

In no way am I biased, because we see these patterns in many other movies. I'm just depicting the characters in recent films written, produced and cast by a very remarkable playwright. We have all witnessed films where we cheer when the battered wife gains courage and strength to seek physical revenge on her husband. We think to ourselves it's okay because he deserves it due to the way he treated her. Yet its not okay. We have to find an alternative to violence.

Violence has become equivalent to sex in the media; it's used because it sells. The media does an excellent job in keeping us informed of shootings, kidnappings, robberies, etc. We see violence everywhere, movies, video games, the news, magazines and books. Yes indeed it is the job of the media to keep us informed but where do we draw the line?

The ladies after 5

Dear Blog.

After the discussion in class the other day I couldn't help but to ponder a little more. The clip we viewed from Project Runway showed a group of men, who happened to be drag queen performers that were having costumes designed by the shows contestants. While in drag the contestants referred to the drag queens using the pronoun she-natural right? Well is it also natural to use the same pronoun when their not in costume?

So I spoke with a good friend of mine who happens to be a drag performer himself, and his opinion was that if it walks like a duck its a duck. Meaning that if a man is dressed as a man he's to be referred to as Mr./Sir and vice versa. With transgender roles being so prevalent today society has to be culturally sensitive when referencing someone of this nature.

In my opinion if someone wishes to be accepted as one gender then they must practice the lifestyle of the gender on a 24/7 basis. Society is confused enough and the last thing we need is to have a set time schedule to differentiate a persons gender. In a nutshell-just call it how you see it.