Gender

April 26,2011

Reflection paper on Gender, Sexuality, and Relationships
Growing up in a Latin community I definitely saw a lot of gender roles and the importance gender and sexuality have in a relationship. When I was growing up my grandma and my great-grandma both told me stories about what their lives were like. They were both the same, they graduated high school, got married and immediatelystarted having kids. Not one of them worked a day in their lives and this was seen as completely normal, at least in their society. They spend their days raising the kids and taking care of the house, while their husbands worked all day. On the other hand my mother graduated high school, went to college, got married, started working and then started having kids. She worked for about fifteen yearsbefore she became a full-time house mom. So although I grew up in a community where the norm of the male having to be the one to work and the female having to stay home and take care of the house has just recently begun to change, my parents have always encouraged me to be very independent and encouraged me to study and have ambitions to work and be able to make a living on my own.
Having myparents support me and encourage me to study and make a living on my own I have learned the importance of being able to rely on myself. Even when the social expectations are for the male to be in control and handle the relationship, I have always been very independent. In regard to relationships sometimes I have difficulty opening up and trusting people. I don't like to feel vulnerable, but at thesame time I like having that one person whom I can always talk to and rely on, during those few moments when I can’t hold myself together on my own. I have learned a lot about myself from my past relationships. I have learned that my morals and values are a lot more important to me that what I thought they were, that I am very good at forgiving but not very good at forgetting and I have learnedthat I do not have the power to change people, that people have to choose to change on their own.
In my family we are not very open and talkative about sexuality, but we are open and talk a lot about our relationships. My parents are both very respectful in not getting involved in my relationships, but they are very good at making sure they get their point across if they have any concerns. Theyhave throughout my life instilled in me a very solid set of morals and values that define who I am and how I look at relationships. One of the biggest challenges I face when it comes to making friends and starting to date someone is making sure that I always stay true to my values. From past experiences I have learned that it is nearly impossible to find someone that has my exact same set of valuesand morals, and that compromise and learning is always necessary. There are certain things that I feel very about, for example drug use and sexuality.
Sexuality is one of the things that I feel very strongly about and that I think is something very personal and intimate. From my parents and my family I have learned that sexuality is not something casual and where I was raised it isn’t. It is themost personal thing between two people and coming here the mentality that I have seen is very different. To most of the people I have met it is something rather casual and no very personal at all. For me, because it is something to personal, it is sometimes difficult to find someone at this age and point in time that respects my decisions and accept them.
Relationships are things that alwaysneed work. No matter whom it is with, whether it is a friend, family member or someone you are involved with, relationships are always evolving. When reading the Cory chapter about relationships I really liked the part about conflict and dealing with communication barriers, because it got me thinking as to how I personally deal with conflict and how this could be affecting my relationships with...