This is the blog for the Freshman Humanities Seminar on Gender and Society, Claremont McKenna College, spring 2013. It is open only to students enrolled in the class. Please post links related to the themes of the course. You can also post comments or questions on our readings, reflections on outside events that you attend, and notices of upcoming events of interest to the class. To generate discussion, please also read and comment on other postings. Check back regularly for updates!
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In the article about Storm, the parents mentioned that they believe "children can make meaningful decisions for themselves." I found it funny that even though they believe this, in the end they were the ones who made the decision for Storm to be raised without an identified gender. Doing something like that obviously has raised a lot of questions and comments (good and bad), and the child did not get a say in the matter. Although I agree that stereotypes can feel pushed onto a child, the act of not revealing the sex can make life hard for the child as well. Also, in the second article, Laxton said that stereotypes are "fundamentally stupid." Again, I can see that perhaps there are times where stereotypes have negative impacts on people; however, I also believe that stereotypes have value. Some are created instinctively and we need to be able to see the importance in that. We need to understand where these stereotypes come from and be able to distinguish the stereotype from the individual. Although a stereotype may be true, it may not be true for a specific person.
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