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Last Friday on the train in Erfurt there was a very ugly case of xenophobia and racism directed against a young Syrian. A German man
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Stereotypes fade as soon as people see groups as more the same than they are different.
Welcome, Kenny!
This is one of those never-ending discussions that gets everyone riled up. I often wonder about gender identity, especially when a sexist comment (one that reduces me in some way) catches me on the wrong foot.
Anyway, so I tried the Gender genie http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php and – lo and behold! – found out that I blog just like a woman. Should I be surprised? Proud? Relieved? Just grin and bear it? I wonder whether we really want to know that – but perhaps our gender identity is more deeply ingrained than we really want to believe 😉
Thanks for dropping by!
I loaded the Gender genie too with different pages of content from my website. On one page it was female and 3 other pages male. Analyzing the words which Gender genie uses to score the content, I could not see the gender of them. The most interesting part of it for me is that someone created it. That is the engineer in my head 🙂
To be honest, one of the things that I (male chauvinist pig) like better about living in Germany than the U.S. is that it’s okay to talk about genders in groups. I think there are things that men do more than women–and not all of them are good, I certainly take too much from my wife for granted (typisch Mann!)–and, of course, the opposite is true, too. Recently, I told a group of students–mostly women–that I think it’s possible to ‘raise a child on a reasonable budget. . . unless, of course, your wife is a woman.’ The women laughed the loudest, because they were familiar with it.
That said, I do think we can get trapped in our stereotypes and wind up limiting ourselves. . . often I’m too stupid to do something that I see as being ‘girly,’ even if I know I’ll enjoy it. And I know women who’re worried about not seeming feminine enough. . . and I think that’s a handicap.
Meh. I don’t think I’ve contributed much to this conversation, but I don’t think the stereotypes are bad, in general. (Just so you know, I scored twice as high for male keywords than for female on the gender genie.)
Hi Toby!
Yep, I’d definitely agree, it’s much easier to talk about gender things over here. And it’s a relief to have a good laugh. I like it when men do man things, you know, so am I a chauvinist too? Sure, of course.
I’d say that if stereotypes are fun and help us save face, yes please, by all means, bring them on!! But it’s always nice to be able to get back out of the box afterwards.