Gender Expectations

Because of the last little test and our current presidential election, I have done some thinking about gender. The culture in which we grow up, the parents we had, what we watch on television or in a movie, what religion we practice, all are factors in what we expect as women or men. Certainly biology plays a role, but sometimes, even in a farm herd, it's hard to separate nature from nurture.

When my daughter was a little girl, she liked me to play Barbie dolls with her, but she would become insulted when I'd have my Barbie be a truck driver or some other equally inappropriate, to her 10-year old mind, profession. When she grew to be a woman, being an archaeologist, my daughter did things that were dangerous and made her mother shudder when she would hear, but throughout her life she had learned to not limit her choices based on her gender alone.

A few years ago in Tucson, I had a friend walk around my home and say it all looked so masculine. I didn't take offense and did know what she meant-- strong, intense colors, sculptures of men larger than sculptures of women, art that was of the West or strong abstract designs, nothing frilly and nothing pink. I didn't decorate it that way because I was putting down women anymore than I played with my daughter as I did because I wanted her to be manly. It's because of not limiting oneself by expectations of anything except what suits the individual; and if that happens to be pink and frills, go for it-- man or woman.

There are obvious biological and hormonal differences between men and women. Until hormones kick in, all babies look much the same regardless of sex, but at a certain age, the differences become apparent-- no matter what a parent tried to create.

I grew up in a generation where women had certain roles and expectations. My mother, although she was a stay-at-home mom, was also a woman who pulled on her boots and helped a ewe birth her lambs, helped run a dairy, was as apt to spade up a garden as my father. I saw the gender differences but also that they didn't have to be the limitations some would have us think. Mom did have more expectations that she pushed onto me (due to the era) than I pushed onto my daughter or son. It was a time where girls did one thing and boys another, but even then I could see some of that was not nature but rather nurture.

Many cultures encourage while others enforce roles for men and women, as tragically we are seeing now with Iraqi fundamentalists literally killing women who don't keep their hair covered or who chose the wrong color of scarf. Once again male dominance, using religion, is closing over women in Afghanistan.

To a much more limited extent, some of that kind of expectation is in my country also. It is impacting the current presidential race with women who say they are voting for a woman because she is a woman-- or men who say they are voting against her for the same reason. To me, either are equally wrong.

Some gender expectations don't work to our advantage-- a few add to the joy of life viva la difference. We just need to watch for which is which and not let ourselves be limited in ways that detract from a full life.

The photos here are a few gender photos from the farm. Commenters had asked how the calf was doing from Pasture Melodramas (she's doing great). Top picture is of her, after being fully treated, and her mama heading through the gate to the pasture where she and another little one (second photo), born at the same time, immediately hooked up again.

Calves can be as as close to each other as siblings-- spending more time together than with their mothers. In this case, one, a little bull, will be castrated and someday eaten while the heifer lives out her life as a cow producing more calves. Their fates are mostly determined by gender.

This last photo is of two of our rams. Is that 'testosterone' in the lead there or what? I mean he's so masculine that he illustrates everything about being macho.

That ram, nicknamed Gabby by my husband, lives out his life as leader of the flock, dominating the other males [until one gets stronger and takes over his position], and taking his pick of the females. I don't know how he learned to be as he is. I think it's got to be mostly nature but part nurture as sheep or cattle raised apart from herds have to be trained when they enter them as to correct behavior. (By the way in flocks, other than in breeding season, the males hang out together. If he can't find a bunch of rams to hang with, he prefers the cattle.)