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“Being Gay, Coming Out” Gendered Expectations “You can’t play with He-man, he’s not for girls!” This phrase still echoes in my mind as I reminisce about my childhood playtime. As I reached for a He-man action figure from the toy box, I was handed a Barbie doll or a My Little Pony figurine. At that time, I was too young to realize the great chasm that gender had created for such a simple task as playing with toys. However, looking back, it becomes clear that gender, itself, plays a key role in the everyday lives of boys and girls. From my experiences with the He-man doll, one can deduce a certain boundary line for activities between girls and boys. By having shared interests, girls and boys contribute to the “act of gender”. Although there is not overwhelming support, boys find it more rewarding to interact and play with boys, and girls to interact and play with girls, also girls more often gravitate to housekeeping corners and doll-play, and boys to the area with large blocks and toy cars. Because girls enjoy the same activities as other girls, and boys enjoy the same activities as other boys, a boundary for gender is marked. In choosing to play with a He-man doll, I crossed this boundary. I shouldn’t have tried to play with the He-man doll and acted like a boy. However, it is still considered “OK” for me to act like a boy because I was still young. Over the life course, peers and society will act differently about the way female and males are “suppose” to act as age goes on. When teenage girls try to dress like a tomboy, other teenagers will look down; laugh at them as well as talking bad about them in front of their face. In addition to that, if a teenage boy tries to dress like a girl or even has a girly voice, he would get many looks and attention from his peers. His peers would be thinking that he’s weird and the “gay” word will come out of their mouths. Same as adults, as a man acting girly will consider as being gay but other adults would not care or even spend the time to analyze gay people. If a straight man passes a gay man on the street, I think that the straight man would just think to himself, “Oh he’s gay, no big deal,” and if a woman is holding hands with another woman, and a third party which is also a woman passed both of them on the street, that woman will think “oh, they’re lesbians” and continue to walk away.
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