Journal 2

Growing up, the gender binary has always been very much enforced, not just in my individual and social interactional levels of family and peers, but also structural levels like schools. I think that I only started seeing issues with the gender binary and how oppression on gender comes into play when I was later in highschool. It was always “just the ways things were” for me in my perspective. As I’ve gotten older, especially now as I am getting more exposure through all the readings about systems of oppression and cycles of socialization that we are doing, I am realizing more and more how my past ignorance has not only perpetuated gender norms and heteronormativity, but also my internalization of these norms have made it hard for me to unlearn all of it.

A specific example of hidden curriculums that I have noticed is especially in schools. In singapore, in elementary school, girls and boys were asked to walk in two seperate lines. I never really thought much about this, but when Gretchen pointed this out during the video and talked about the implicit gender opression behind it, I had a sort of “aha!” moment because it was something that I have overlooked and never even thought about, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that not only does it enforce the gender binary, it also enforces heteronormativity. Another thing that I am thinking about is how in singapore, several middle schools are segregated into “girls schools” and “boys schools”. I remember my mom’s explanation for this was so that “children can focus on their studies and not think about anything else”. Back when I was a child, I simply accepted it and did not think more. But now, I am thinking more about how this a implicit hidden curriculum for guy-girl relationships.

Reading about the cycles of socialization has me feeling a little helpless. I feel really trapped in this cycle, even when I am now aware of everything that is happening around me. I feel like I want to make change and to break out of this cycle, but I also find it extremely hard for myself to unlearn everything that i have been socialized to learn about gender norms and culture. I think that this is what makes it hard for people to change, and I am constantly having this battle in my mind of ways that I should be thinking and ways that I am currently thinking. I think taking this course has really challenged me to expand my mind and to challenge it to change the very embedded norms that I have learnt.