Georgia Stucki

FHS 2400
04/03/2020
How does this assignment (or the whole course) connect with what you learned in other
General Education courses?
Family and Marriage Relationship reminded me of the concepts we focus on in
Sociology. Sociology focuses on how gender roles influence how we act in society and how
society influences us the same way when it comes to our gender. Sociology focuses on how we
communicate socially with each other and why we may socialize some ways more than others.
Family and marriage talk about how our families and the way we treat our relationships can help
influence our gender and the way we learn to act. The assignments I have used as my reflection
pieces are “Switching Roles” and “Gender Equality”. I chose these pieces because they both
focus on gender and how different things would be if we were taught them differently.
The “Switching Roles” assignment reminded me that I do not always have the same
perspective as everyone and that everyone is battling their own battle just like I am. If I were
raised the different sex I would have a completely different life but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t
be the same person. I may be the opposite sex, a male instead of female, but that doesn’t mean
I still can’t be the emotional person that I am now. The difference would be how I would be
raised to deal with those emotions. Being a male I may be told to hold that in and act more
“masculine” even if my feelings are valid. Being a female I get told that emotions are something
we need to deal with and you can more freely express them. In Sociology, we focused on the
concept of if boys and girls were raised the exact same way we would have to reconstruct how
we communicate to the opposite sex and the same sex as well. We would have to eliminate the
phrases “man up” or “you throw like a girl”.
The “Gender Equality” assignment was one of the first assignments that made me sit
down and how to realize that we may never be equal but that doesn’t mean we don’t have
value. Another general course I have taken that spoke about the concept of “color blindness”
was Social Work and how the ideology of “color blindness” has actually more negative aspects
than positive. The ideology of color blindness focuses on not seeing black and white but seeing
everyone as equal. The ideals sound good on paper but when practiced start to isolate people’s
cultures and uniqueness around them. I started comparing “gender equality” to “color blindness”
and found that they may be the same thing. If we view both genders as equal we may lose sight
of the strengthens/ weaknesses and uniqueness that each gender and person bring to the table.
I have loved taking this course and have learned lots of concepts along the way that
make me feel closer to the people around me. I have gotten a better perspective of my own
gender and identity and how to recognize the uniqueness in others as well as my own.