Gender: During Thanksgiving and the Difference Between Arcata and My HometownTo

Topic: Gender


Source: Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 24th, also, the beginning of the semester 


Relation: On Thanksgiving Day I noticed how Gender Roles have somewhat changed from traditional to more modern. Also, I observed the importance of gender back in my hometown in El Dorado County and how gender isn't as important here, in Arcata. 


Description: I have two relations to the topic of Gender for this blog.

The First, of which are my observations I took during family gathering on Thanksgiving Day this year. On Thanksgiving. my oldest brother, my parents, and I went to my aunt and uncle's house to see their family and my other aunt and uncle's family as well. We usually go there, be social for a couple hours while all the food is being prepared, eat the food, have dessert, and be social for a little but longer. I observed my family as most of them were in the kitchen preparing the dinner. 
My mom and dad, both of my aunts, one uncle, and one female cousin helped to prepared the food together, while me, my brother, three of my male cousins, and another female cousin watched the 49ers and the Ravens play football for a couple hours. I noticed how this scene probably wouldn't have happened. 


My second point brings up the difference I have noticed between the importance of a persons gender depending on the environment in which the person lives in. 
Back in my mostly conservative, very judgmental, town of Shingle Springs in El Dorado County, gender was (for lack of a better word) important to most adolescence. Not so much me and my friends, coming from a very liberal, no on prop 8, kind of a view. I accept everyone, which was very different from most people from where I came from, whether they might look or act homosexual or different. 
I am currently dating a boy who went to the same high school as I did. He is pretty skinny, wears formfitting clothes, and has long hair for a guy. How he looks and acts made some, very closed minded, ultra conservative, homophobic people at our old school think that he was gay even though he isn't and might have been dating a girl at the time. 
Coming to Humboldt, one doesn't typically see the same type of people that mostly went to my high school. People here, in my opinion, are much more open minded and less hung up on the stereotypical roles of gender.    


Analysis: During Thanksgiving, probably around the time Thanksgiving started to be celebrated until a couple centuries ago, gender roles were more prominent than they are today. A pretty even amount of males and females took part in both preparing our meal of Thanksgiving and also relaxing and watching the football game. If I was to place my family in a more stereo-typically gender defined environment, all of the women would probably be the ones in the kitchen and the men in the living room with their beer belly guts watching the football game. Instead, there was an even amount of males and females doing either one. 
I'm not sure if most families are like mine during the holidays, but, coming from my perspective, I think our gender roles, as a society, have somewhat changed by having males and females work together to get the food ready to eat while the rest relax.   

I would like to go back to the point I was making about the difference between the importance of gender in the two different places I've lived in. 
In my opinion, I think that more conservative areas, like my high school, trend to place more importance on gender roles in comparison to more liberal areas like Humboldt. This could also be because this is a college, full of slightly more mature people than my high school. Even so, I feel more comfortable dating my boyfriend here than if we were dating at our old high school where we would have probably been made fun of because our hair is around the same length and we are about the same body size. 

The Ideal Family in Humboldt County

Topic: Ideal Family Forms

Source: The Farmers Market in the Plaza around noon on Saturday November 12th 

Relation: Observing the "ideal" family in Humboldt County and comparing these observations with past family ideals from generation to generation.

Description: Yesterday, my friends and I went to the last Farmers Market in the Plaza. After looking at all the vendors, we settled down for awhile on the lawn to watch a puppet show and enjoy to sun. While sitting on the grass I observed the families that were surrounding us. In fact, every time I hang out at the Plaza during the day, there are always families there playing and having a good time. Many of the parents at the Farmers Market were sitting with there kids watching the puppet show too, laughing at all the jokes the puppeteer was making that the children were too young to understand. Most of their parents let their kids sit as close to the stand as they wanted without the parents constant supervision. Other parents let their kids climb the tree across the lawn and they didn't seem to worry about the younger ones falling. While other mothers and fathers chased their children around groups of people standing. I even saw one father swing his daughter around in circles by her feet while she screamed in excitement. As I watched these families play together in pure bliss, it reminded me of my childhood when my dad picked me up and swung me around and let me climb the highest trees. I thought that this was the ideal form of what a family should be like, at least in the culture I was raised in.

family at the Plaza

Analysis: By observing the typical happy family in Arcata, I found the type of family relationship that I thought to be ideal for my future. Yet, it also made me think of how the form of a family as a whole has changed through the generations. My mom told me of her childhood and her relationship with her mother. Being the oldest of 6 siblings and part of a broken home, my mother helped my grandmother with the younger children, other chores around the house, and also providing a proportion of their families income. 

Nowadays, my mom would never ask me to provide the household with money, even though I have been raised to loan her money if she needs it for a short period of time. My mother would also never ask me to help raise her children, even though I don't have younger siblings, I wouldn't be totally responsible for them. Also, my mothers freedom as a child was much more strict than childhood was. I was allowed to run around outside, climb trees, go to my friends house as often as I wanted, eat more candy than she was allowed to, catch bugs, and have a boyfriend whenever I wanted when I was older. My mother had many more responsibilities when she was younger compared to me.  

My mom also told me that she never wanted my brothers and I to have the same childhood as she did. She wanted to be able to fully provide for us and for us to always have our father around. In my mothers point of view, and also my point of view, I think I was raised in a good family and had a wonderful childhood according to my norms.

my family