Salient Social Identities

This post doesn’t necessarily have to do with any of our specific readings, but instead the essay prompt about our most salient aspect of our social identity.  For my essay I wrote about my race and gender.

It was interesting to actually decide that my race and gender were the most salient aspects of my identity.  I’ve just recently been interested in gender issues, but as I was writing the paper I could remember other instances where gender has mattered way before I acknowledge that it did. Therefore I’ve been wondering what does that mean? It took me a lot longer to acknowledge my gender as a salient aspect of my identity than it did with race? At first I thought maybe I was too young to understand gender issues, but I decided that couldn’t have been it.

Gender roles are heavily enforced but subtly. I work for a sociology professor who has a blog. Part of my job entails reading the comments posted, but in order to understand what they are talking about I read the blogs first.  I am always a little surprised by the blogs that my professor post about gender norms, just because I am learning about how gender norms are subtlety embedded in our American way of life. For example Amazon has a line of products for babies and the name of their line is called Amazon mom. At first most people would not have a problem with the name Amazon Mom, but it reinforces the notion that the woman is responsible for childcare. This is related to one of our first readings about the way gender is constructed. Judith Lorber points out how seeing father taking care of his children creates such a scene in New York City:

            Today, on the subway, I saw a well-dressed man with a year-old child in a stroller. Yesterday, on a bus, I saw a man with a tiny baby in a carrier on his chest. Seeing men taking care of small children in public is increasingly common-at least in New York City. But both men were quite obviously stared at-and smiled at, approvingly.  Everyone was doing gender-the men who were changing the role of fathers and the other passengers who were applauding them silently.

I’ve noticed this happen in New York City and I also been guilty of being part of those who stare and applaud them silently.  We have internalized this attitude that the women take care of children that when we do see a father take care of his children like a parent should, we are all thrown off. Yet Amazon Mom seems completely normal to us.  I believe it might have been hard for me to recognize these gender norms because they are so embedded in our social lives since we were children that you forget to question it.