FINAL blog assignment

As a white, middle-class heterosexual female, who is pretty girly at times and used to be a poms dancer and cheerleader, I have done my fair share of upholding societally induced dominant norms and expectations.  However even though I feel like a lot of norms can be harmful to society, I don't believe what I do is harmful in itself.  What is harmful however is schemes like the marketing industries, and how societies can pressure people into conforming to ideals that they don't personally believe in.

However since I've been in college, and met and learned about new and different people I've been able to compare the environment that I grew up in, Colorado Springs, with Boulder which I consider a pretty safe environment when it comes to expressing one's individuality and not fearing repercussions from people who disagree.  As for personally protesting these expectations, I'm still not too sure how to do that.  I do see myself as helping because I try to face discrimination in anyway with a strong and determined face and educate people that essentially, people are people, and they should not be judged for their character based on their personal preferences and/or appearance as in terms of race, religion, etc.

I think however that this time in our country, with the impending presidential election, is starting to bring about a great deal of change that involves such acceptance.  The possibility of having the leader of our nation be either a black man or a white female, has the potential to open up people's eyes to the fact that the world does not consist of one singular type of person.  Already the fact that these two candidates have made it this far shows that our country has grown enough to start a sort of societal revolution.  As for me, I think that living in the U.S. at this time makes me kind of understand two things: one, that as society makes progress towards breaking norms, there will always be those who oppose it; and two, that a lot of things previously deemed a 'choice' because they are supposedly just now appearing, are beginning to be seen as 'natured' rather than nurtured.

9th Blog

I've actually thought a lot about the notion of choice in one's sexuality.  I have an extremely born-again Christian family that does not necessarily grasp concept of Darwinism and instead place their faith in the divine creation.  As a result of this, they also do not believe in a 'gay gene' so to speak of, and believe that homosexuality is a choice, and thus can be prevented.  Growing up half a country apart from the majority of my family I wasn't influenced in their beliefs, and thus have been able to make up my own mind about this matter.  

I believe that one's sexuality is not a choice, but it's biological.  Not nurture, but nature.  There are too many cases that show that simply trying to suppress an attraction to the sam sex is useless and usually only results in a bad ending.  I think that who you are attracted to is only socially constructed in the type of person; for example physical attributed and personality types, but the sex of the person in question cannot be personally chosen.  In addition to this I believe that people can also be attracted to both sexes, and it doesn't have to be secluded to just one specific sex.  

Society can and does influence a lot people behave and their beliefs, and I think that the normative heterosexual relationship is most definitely influenced and is portrayed to be what people should abide to, but just because people put on a show doesn't change who they are truly attracted to.