N-Identities

     

In the process of writing a paper on N-Identities, I realized that I had a lot of questions lingering around. Gee doesn't really touch on how N-Identities change from when they are given to us to when society gets a hold of them. They are still the same identity, nature made me a girl, but society gave meaning to what a girl should be. I concluded my paper with this paragraph:

The N-Identity is what it is. You can’t change it or give it back once it’s given to you. It’s the stereotypes that accompany your N-Identity that I would like to see change. I often times wonder what it would be like if we didn’t push gender roles onto children the moment that they are born. I strongly feel that we handicap our youth’s growth of what they could be by immediately pushing onto them society’s ideas of what they should be. If a little girl doesn’t read fairy tales of being rescued by a man all the time, she would have a better chance to grow up and be a stronger woman who only depends on herself. Maybe then she will have a chance to learn that she is strong enough to rescue herself, that she’s even strong enough to rescue other people including men. Our N-Identities are nature given but the minute we get them, society takes a hold of them, gives them meanings, which automatically give men power, and strip women of power they never knew they had.

I was thinking of my niece while I was writing this. Ana is now 5 years old, and she's the coolest kid ever. When I went to visit her a few weeks ago, her mother told me that the reason her relationships have been so unstable is because she watched too many princess movies as a child and believed in happily ever after. She went on to say she will not do the same to Ana. She wasn't going to expose her to the world of Snow White, Bell, Ariel and so on. I asked her how she planned on keeping her daughter away from those tales, because those stories are everywhere. She said that she can control what goes on in her house and what her children are exposed to. When bed time rolled around, Ana was told to go to the book shelf and pick out a bedtime story. I couldn't help but chuckle when Ana came back with a book that had all of the major princess fairy tales in it. I asked Ana where she got the book, and she said that her mom bought it for her. The moral of this story is that even when we make a conscious decision to avoid falling into the trap of common stereotypes that stem from our N-Identity, we still do it because it has become like second nature. Ana's mom didn't even think about the fact that she was bringing into her home something that she had tried so hard to avoid because it was so "normal". It's the most normal thing for little girls to read princess books. She was so busy trying to avoid the movies and the toys that she didn't even think about the book having the same message.

I can't help but wonder what the world would be like if we didn't impose stereotypes on what children are supposed to be like? What if we let boys and girls play with both dolls and trucks without pushing them into one direction that is considered normal or gender appropriate?