Nameless
As much as we hate to admit it but the first thing we do when looking at a person is to judge them according to their appearance. It is done automatically, the instant you see a tall person most people would assume that he or she plays basketball. Our brain likes to organize things and it is human nature to create stereotypes. Names are often the second aspect people use to analyze a person’s personality. A person’s name gives familiarity and connection to others, it’s the reason why one of the first things people do during introduction is to exchange names. However, just like a how a person looks, names face many stereotypes. Most of these stereotypes come from ethnicity, a person with name like Azeem or Muhameh faces significantly more “randomly selected” searches while going to an airport than a person whose name is James Johnson. Incidents that include races are always a huge headline in the news, but what about gender? How much pressure do we give kids, by assigning them gender difference name?
When an infant is born, one of the first responsibilities the parents have to decide is that baby’s name. It’s something that parents argued and spent months looking to find the perfect name that will stay with their offspring for most of his or her life. As stated by Social Security Administration , the top 3 names for boys are Noah, Liam, and Mason and the top 3 names for girls are Emma, Olivia, and Sophia in 2014. It is within the norm to give you baby boy a strong name while naming your daughter something cute and delicate. According Genevie Vaughan For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange, chapter 5 “The Concept of Man” she stated
“Perhaps the greatest (and smallest) mistake humanity has made is to give our babies opposite gender names.”
By giving babies gender specific names, we instantly felt into this norm society set up for us. We are constantly told that men are supposed to be tough and strong and women are supposed to be delicate and cute. On TV, build boards, music, and movies men are supposed to be in control while women are the support. We have been bombarded with what society expects of a male or female. But how often are people stop to question the severity of this? How would a person who is homosexual feel about the pressure put upon them? What of a person that doesn’t follow these norms? Do we alienate them and make them feel unwanted?
“We need a new word-gift for all of those small creatures who are our greatest gifts to each other, to the future and to themselves.”
In Sweden, Hen has made it in the National Encyclopedia. Hen is a gender-neutral pronoun that can be applied to objects and people who don’t wish to specifically identify as male or female, and it is official third pronoun in Swedish. In this definition Swedish have taken what Vaughan suggested and they have created a gender-less title for both male and female. However, I don’t think this is the solution, we need to solve the problem. It can be the start, but I think education is the real solution. Without the knowledge, people will have to resort to what media show them. The media has a huge influence in how people think, dress, and look. Most often people don’t realize how big of an impact media has on their life. This is my first gender class in college and I think it has changed how I look at the world. Before this class, the subject was never brought up and I know it existed but it was never discuss. Talking and learning about about gender in this class has definitely question my morals.
