Gender in the workplace, a life choice

     While we enjoy doing what we love, our social construct only allows for us to partake in what society deems is ok for us, or so we’re taught.  We often are full of judgment when we see a person doing a job that we feel that they can't normally handle, or if they can handle it, it's because they must be out of the realm of cis-gendered things.  An example that I want to share is the interesting look that was taken at female firefighters.  A job that is primarily filled by men, and not just any men, men that enjoy being in a very tough and dangerous job.  Men are known to feed off of the gender or masculinity of other men, in the book it’s known as “performing virility”.  So, it really throws off the masculine growth when we have women enter the field, many egos will no longer grow at the rate they once would’ve.  So it’s very hard for a women firefighter to be accepted as the men are subconsciously thinking, “I have nothing to learn from her.”  It’s well known that a smart firefighter beats a brawny firefighter any day of the week. This really doesn’t fit societies view on what women should do for a living and it really should make us question our stereotypes.  When it comes to communicating, people believe that women in this career would probably be emotional wrecks and not be able to handle the job and would be a strain on the team’s resources.  According to the article I’m using as the supplemental reading,” The masculine heroism associated with firefighting has been attributed to its military overtones according to Greenberg.”  I feel that a lot of the sexual harassment that the chapter speaks about can happen in some less normative ways, ways that are more unspoken and are stagnant in the brains of a lot of people; it’s a feeling that we perceive things and don’t really acknowledge that we’ve done anything.  A good example of the harassment is the original hiring of an individual, why they are in the position is often based on the role that someone feels will fit well at one firm or another.  Firefighting is extremely interesting when learning about how we communicate between genders, many of these women can’t be themselves, or are constantly performing their gender. 

     Is it wrong to say that some women are doing the career as a form of resistance?  Does it empower some women to go through life working a job that most would deem out of the cisgender norm? Here, Patricia Buzzanell reminds us, “focus more on the ways that people incorporate resistant thinking and behaving into their identities and interactions.  Resistance takes many forms.” (DeFranscisco and Palczewski, 2014. p.4725).   So really, people have a hard enough time dealing with women and their roles in the military; so this job, which is in close relation, in theory, is pretty close to that feeling where women just don’t belong.  A problem that occurs in these occupations is how management goes about meeting the quota for diversity in gender employment.  Since people feel that there must be a fair representation of the female gender, management goes about filling the void with an attitude and aura that says that women are just needed for that sole reason, to fill the quota, not that they would be a good addition to the team; at the same time, sometimes a woman is hired to has very masculine traits and is more like one of the guys, this allowing the team to feel more aligned with safety, as the more masculine female could probably manage to do better work than a more feminine counterpart.  The way that communication goes, people are unknowingly being guilty of becoming a hostile work environment, this is because of the perceived coercive action in that these women have to play the role they were hired for.  So when it comes to communicating, a lot of women in the field feel that they are trapped into playing this role they are hired into.  Often, a more feminine woman in the field would be a victim of girl watching, a trivial thing to men, but a real form of sexual harassment for women, objectifying them in every way.  Since the woman is viewed as a “game piece or object” instead of an integral role in the field.  I posit that, as the book says, norms can be altered, and they change over time, but what’s slower to change is our view on the binary; how different sexes can adapt to a job can be just as inflammatory and hard to swallow in our society as any other issues we have been brainwashed into holding as our own thinking or the “way it should be”.  For some women to come in and intentionally change the way we look at some careers, like these brave female firefighters, we should try to spread the knowledge that any gender is more than capable of stepping out of their societal norms and being able to possibly have a hugely positive influence on very tough jobs.  Women don’t need to become more masculine to do a job, this is society, women who stick to who they are can change the way things are done, for the better, because of fresh thinking, a lot of good can happen.  The reward that a female can get from doing a great job as a firefighter is cut short by them having to play a role, now, doesn’t that sound really wrong?  

1)  Why do we feel that certain jobs don't allow multiple genders to partake?

2)   Heroism, is it masculine?  Why do we feel so aligned with a masculine view of heroism?

3)  Sexual harassment, is unspoken harassment worse than the plainly obvious verbal harassment?

The Social Construction of Gender in Workplace Organizations.

This week, we explored work as a gendered and sexed institution. While we are now aware that family and education are two arenas in which gender is developed and maintained, one might make the error of assuming that work is a reprieve from such gender constraints. That is, once someone transitions into the work force they are no longer a student in a class room, and when  an individual leaves for work their family stays at home. Unfortunately, our social constructions of gender do not yield to the doors of the home or classroom, and gender/sex is thusly mitigated in the workplace as well. As is prominent in the public psyche, DeFrancisco and Palczewski (2014) note the wage disparities between men and women, citing that women make 82.2% of men’s earnings (p.187). Looking through the critical gendered lens, we find that this disparity exists as a function of sociocultural practice, as Madden (2012; as cited in DeFrancisco and Palczewski, 2014) found that it was not that women had inferior abilities compared to men, but rather, the sales opportunities were not duly granted to them by comparison in stockbroking positions. Therefore, it is not that women are less capable than men; patriarchal systems imbedded within organizations do not afford them the same money-making opportunities. I feel at this juncture, it is important to note that patriarchy is not one particular man (or even a particular group of men) actively oppressing women, but rather, a system in which males and masculinity are privileged because it’s simply considered the social norm.

Part of the way in which organizations become gendered/sexed is related to the way in which we define and assign work. Of particular interest, I feel, is the fact that our definition of “work” is not related to function, physical demand, or required skill, but merely contingent upon whether or not an individual is paid for a particular task or tasks, and is consequently gendered. DeFranscisco and Palczewski (2014) illustrate the gender relationship well in examination of the term “working mothers.” Working mothers are females who have birthed children, yet continue to work at jobs outside of the home. The inference here being that it is the paid labor which is work, and thus significantly different than, and additive to, the domestic duties of a female (or, perhaps otherwise-gendered person) who is raising their children. Moreover, a perhaps parallel term, “working father,” is not only non-existent in western colloquial discourse, but carries with it a sense of awkwardness; it is assumed that the male of the relationship will continue to work regardless, harkening back to the idea of the “nuclear family” discussed in the previous chapters.

Regardless of the gender/sex of an individual, upon entering the work force they are entering a gendered/sexed organization. Those of us working in corporate environments are woefully aware of the position of the abstract worker –a bodiless, sexless, emotionless worker who does not procreate (DeFranscisco and Palczewski, 2014. p.192). This definition explains the way in which communicative behavior in organizations is influenced by gender; while organizations center their ideologies around the abstract worker, in reality, workers do in fact have bodies, sexes, emotions, etc. The abstract worker seems to be the organizational ideal from which men and women deviate and thus expose differences in gender. Perhaps the best example of this is Albrecht’s (1999; as cited in DeFranscisco and Palczewski, 2014) finding that pregnancy is often framed as a “disability.” As such, when women need to take time off to bear and raise children, they thus deviate from the characteristics of the abstract worker and draw attention to differences in gender. Men, by contrast, do not typically take maternity leave and are able (or, rather, encouraged) to fulfill their organizational duties in lieu of child birth, keeping them closer to the schema of the abstract worker.

DeFranscico and Palczewski (2014) further the organizational element of gender in the work place by invoking the situation of transpeople who transition to their identified gender while working. What are profoundly interesting to me are the findings that while transgender men often enjoy higher status in the workplace after the transition is complete, transgender women often experience a diminishing effect on their perceived abilities and status within an organization. It would seem, then, that our judgments about work-place performance are almost inextricably linked to gender/sex, and furthers the rather disturbing, yet realistically visible, idea that employees in workplace organizations are viewed within the framework of the abstract worker.  Vidal-Ortiz (2009) offers a unique perspective on the experiences of transgender women –namely those of color, or ethnic decent. For transgender women, employment upon transition is neither guaranteed secure or obtainable. While transgender men may reap certain sociocultural benefits in terms of their treatment by co-workers post transition, transgender women may experience the opposite effect: having their employment terminated during transition (Tesene, 2012; Vidal-Ortiz, 2002). While feminist debates have excluded prostitution as from women’s labor possibilities, he brings the vast deployment of a female workforce outside of the middle-class parameters of decent employment. Vidal-Ortiz (2009) argues that the negative assessments of transwomen –particularly those of color- may reduce their possibilities to work outside of street economies such as sex work (p.100). Yet, he also brings to perspective the notion that transwomen of color experience similar stereotypes to other nontransgender sex workers, opening up earning potential denied to them by other institutions. Sex work, while reifying stereotypes, also serves as a site for liberation, rather than oppression, for transgender women of color. Drawing from both the text and supplemental reading, I propose the following questions:

1. While “stay-at-home mom” is a rather ubiquitous term, “stay-at-home dads” are now on the rise. When you hear the latter phrase, what are your thoughts? What kind of judgments/assumptions do you make (or think are made, in general) about “stay-at-home dads” based on our culturally-constructed gender roles? How do you think this relates to the “nuclear family?”

2. How does the definition of abstract worker (a sexless, bodiless, emotionless individual who does not procreate) make you feel? Do you agree or disagree that most workplace organizations structure their communicative practices to this effect, and why?

3. At the end of his opening vignette, Vidal-Ortiz asks the reader “what is your figure of the transwoman of color?” Taking an intersectional approach, answer this question, and explain how our communicative construction of gender may influence your answer. How do you think her experiences might diverge from/converge with other transpeople, and/or people in general?

March 18 Education: Education is a Gendered Institution, Classroom Interactions, Title IX

   When a child first enters their first stage of education, they do not realize that they are entering a growing stage and up to 12 years of education. According to the textbook, Education is one of the most important influences on one's life, and a good education can contribute to raised income, career options, health, and quality of life. In other words, the authors are saying that education is not only about the information that we receive but it is more about the skills that are develop and how we take those skills and make them major aspects in our life. Moreover, education tends to have an effect on identity, one’s self esteem and overall one’s life. Education has always been that place where you learn values and biases of the culture that become sort of presumed. Education is an institution with the potential to be a great equalizer--a promoter of individual growth--but much of its history has been about being the great divider (Ruane and Cerulo, 2008). In making this statement, Ruane and Cerulo are saying that education itself is something that can be considered being a healthy issue that has gained to be positive and civilized and an issue that has history that tears us apart from the issues within. Although, education history is significant for its inception, it has become important just with the issues that divide the classrooms and the educational institutions. From learning about the history of education, public education was originally intended for White upper-class boys who had what it takes to get a decent education. It was then deemed that during the time of African American slavery in the United States, they were all prohibited from being able to learn how to read or write. This was a way that was known as controlling them. Although they were in a controlled environment, they eventually were able to still learn how to read using a Bible. Before public education was established poor people and certain ethical minority persons were not able to obtain en education. In the textbook, it tells us that public education is an education for all and did not become the norm until the mid-1900s.

                During this time as well, society did not look at just everyone being able to obtain an education. As stated before, education was only intended for White upper-class boys. Defrancisco and Palczewski states, “Only white women from wealthy families could obtain higher education before the 1900s, and even then they were discouraged from taking courses in what were considered the masculine domains of business, science, and mathematics.” In making this statement, they are explaining on the type of people that were looked at to even be considered to receive an education and how much they were stereotyped in being a part of a wealthy family. During those times, women were not always looked at to me smart but to be raised and taught how to become a good wife for a successful husband.  However, this comes to the question, “How is public education considered for all people if only a certain group is excluded because of what the norm is?” Many educators had slight concerns that bringing forth girls and boys together in an educational institution would slow the pace of teaching due to the adjustment for women. It was thought that working side by side with girls would feminize boys and would bring out the masculine aspect in education. Critics not only worried boys would become effeminate; they worried boys would become gay (Kimmel, 2012a; Minnich, 1998). The essence of Kimmel and Minnich argument is that taking a masculine setting out of education would make the learning a little softer spoken and less masculine. Eventually, as the time passed, women became more successful in education and many of the majors and careers still remained unusually gendered. Most educators believed that the career options that were made for women were, secretary, teacher and nurse, all in which were not required to have a degree. Going back to what the textbook states what a nuclear family is and what a nuclear family consist of which is  the male is the primary wage earner and the female is the primary homemaker. In other words, this is saying that regardless of what society lives by now according to the history of women being brought up they have always been known as to do only certain things that women do.

Along with the coeducation issue within the history of education, race and ethnicity also played a major role. There was eventually an assimilation that the government was creating so that immigrants were put into learning English and more about the United States. Defrancisco and Palczewski writes themselves that, "Despite the push for assimilation of immigrants, schools in the South remained racially segregated until forced to integrate after, in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that separate schools are never equal in quality." This statement explains that Brown v. Board of Education was an argument dealing with coeducation with establishing black and white students unconstitutional. Advocates believe single-sex schools help counter underachievement, low self-esteem, drugs, teen pregnancy, and gang violence (NASSPE, 2006a, 2006b). This makes a point on how sex-segregated education divides students by gender which many think that it takes in account gender or sexual orientation. But in reality all of this affect a child comfort in a same sex educational program.

Hidden curriculum is norms, values, and beliefs as a byproduct of education that people often fail to question.  This became an issue because it is almost like being taught something in school but not knowing the entire information about. In other words, hidden curriculum is something that is condensed for the sake of controversy etc. In the textbook it states that curriculum is gendered in terms of what is taught and to whom. In other words, certain subjects or topics are meant for a certain gender. For example, Woodworking is a class that would be geared towards more of males instead of females. But as far as hidden curriculum goes, it makes clear that a critical gender analysis must go further than simply comparing women and men for possible differences in educational experiences. (p.169)

To speak about Classroom Interactions, Sociologist Margaret Andersen (2011) describes schools as "the stage where society's roles-roles defined by gender, class, race, sexuality, and age-are played out" (p.304). Classroom interactions are simply ways that students act depending on how the teacher treat them. It is stated that although most teacher education programs now include some form of diversity awareness, Sadker and Silber's (2007) review of curriculum revealed that gender is largely missing. This statement deems to be true because of the different ways teachers treat their students and most teachers do not know that the way they teach in a coeducational class can affect each gender. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for all boys or all the girls to be punished because of the behaviors of a few (Kramer, 2005; Kimmel, 2012a). Both Kramer and Kimmel points out how it is not of the norm for all boys and girls to not get punished for someone else within that classroom doing something wrong.

Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 was formed in 1972. The textbook states that, it declares that no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance" (20 U.S.C. 1681). Many believe that Title IX is just for the sake of participation in sports but it was created for all educational practices. Yes, sports is seen to be something that would need more attention as far as bringing some equivalency but other educational practices were things that needed to bring some rights to students and their issues within an educational institution. The textbook also states that Title IX promises all students the right to education without bullying, sexual harassment, and other threats of violence. Even though Title IX did not too much support educational practices when it became effective, it gained a long term effect and gave support to many over the nation in education and in sports.

Based on the readings, here are some questions for you all:

 1. According to the textbook, hidden curriculum seems to be something that people fail to question. Why do you think hidden curriculum or any curriculum is not always questioned?

 2. Classroom Interactions sections speaks about how it is not acceptable to intentionally segregate children by race, but acceptable to segregate by sex, Which do you think is acceptable and not acceptable and why?

3. Speaking and reading about Title IX, what are your thoughts about what the purpose of this act is? Do you think this plays a major role in education today?

March 20th Education: Performance Gaps, Peer Pressure, Bullying, and Harassment, Gender/Sex in Higher Education, Emancipatory Education

Peer pressure as defined in the book is to conform of the norms of the group a person wants to be apart of (Swan, 2005). Peer groups have the same if not more influence on adolescents identity as their parents do. In the article by Dorothy L. Espelage, it states that by giving into peer pressure, is a form of acceptance and can help the adolescence gain popularity, which is becoming more and more important in schools today.

Research done by Craig and Pepler, (1997) showed that people in a peer group influence others in the same peer group to bully other students.  Bullying is defined as, “repeated negative events, which over time are directed at special individuals and which are carried out by one or several other people who are stronger than the victim” (Aluede, 2008, p. 152). The statistics on bullying is truly sad. In the textbook, it shows that only one out of nine students reports bullying others and that nearly 33% of middle school and high school students report being bullied. Going back to the Espelage article, researchers believe that the transition of children going from middle school to high school can cause stress, which can result in bullying behaviors. Who do bullies decide which other student to bully?

Homosexuals get bullied because they do not perform the same masculinity as heterosexual men do.  Heteronormativity describes how social institutions and policies reinforce the presumption that people are heterosexual and that gender and sex are natural binaries (Kitzinger, 2005). Heteronormativity is a central component of peer pressure. In middle school and high school, boys and girls find that by having a boyfriend/girlfriend of the opposite sex is a continuation of efforts to declare one’s heteronormativity (p.223). Nearly 85% of LGBT youth felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and over 40% of LGBT youth were physically harassed.

Both boys and girls can be either victims of bullying or the bully. Researchers found that female harassment is less physical than male harassment. Harassment in the dictionary is defined as the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands. Not only do middle school and high school kid experience harassment but also people in college as well. In 2006, the American Association of University Women held a survey to examine how many women have experienced sexual harassment at a college level. The results showed that 62% of all college students reported being harassed verbally or sexually. Females are likely to be the target of sexual jokes, comments or gestures, where men are more likely to be called gay or homophobic names. Students who are either gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender are more likely to experience harassment than heterosexuals.

The phrase “the feminization of higher education” has been in the popular press for years. It expresses how more women are seeking college degrees than men. Where one study shows that more women are going to school and earning degrees in every racial/ethnic group, another study shows that women are still only making 82.2% of what men earn according to The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (2012). Career choices are still heavily influenced on gender roles and expectations. Gender/sex also plays an important role in higher educations in two other places: the professoriate and sexual violence. In 2011-2012, women made up 45.5% of the facility at bachelor’s institutions, 46.1% at master’s institutions, and 38.1% at the doctoral institutions (AAUP, 2012). Women are to be judged by actual accomplishments, and men are more likely to be judged on their promise (Wilson, 2004). Michael Messner (2004) points out that being a professor continues to be gendered masculine. If a male teacher acts masculine, he becomes a better teacher. If a women teacher acts feminine, they are hard to be recognized as a good teacher.

For education to be a truly equalitarian institution, people must embrace emancipatory education: education practices that seek to challenge accepted categories, unexamined norms, and represented practices. Bias in education needs to be eliminated. Bias can limit a students ambitions and accomplishments, affecting them throughout life. The bias tied to gender/sex, educator Timothy Frawley (2005) notes “polarized approaches to education fail to recognize a middle ground for children who are not strongly gender-type masculine or feminine. The aim should be to not only stop labeling children as such, but to also accept and encourage androgynous behavior for both” (p. 222). Most changes in education curriculum have embraced the gender-specific model that targets one sex. A gender-relevant model includes both girls and boys, as it attempts to make the gendered dimensions of social life and education a part of the discussion.

Another approach to gender-sensitive and gender-relevant education focuses on teaching styles. Teaching methods, themselves contribute to liberatory or oppressive educational experiences. The alternative is connected teaching (hooks, 1994), which suggest that learning is more accessible when topics are concretely related to others’ individual life experiences rather than taught in abstract ways, isolated from context. Education professor David Sadker (2002) argues schools should cherish individual differences because “gender stereotypes shortchange all of us” (p. 238). Each person must demand an education.

Based on the readings, here are some questions for you all:

1.     Children who get bullied are do not tell an adult because it is considered a normal part of school. How are some ways adults can approach children about being bullied and peer pressure?

2.     The book states that there are many reasons for not reporting sexual violence. Which of the reasons do you believe is the number one reason why sexual violence is not reported?

3.     Between the gender-sensitive model, gender-relevant model and connected teaching, which do you think is the most beneficial to students?

Families- Communication & Diverse Structures

Families- Communication & Diverse Structures

Departing from the myth that there is only one “normal” type of family, the textbook discuses flexible and diverse family structures in today’s world, and jumps away from using the term “the family” which suggests the that there is only one, by instead saying “families”. By saying the latter, it opens up communication about the wide variety of family structures that are actually in existence within and across cultures. The ideology of the nuclear family brings forth assumptions about what it’s like to be apart of one “perfect” and normal family.

Communication in a family is powerful in determining relationships and identities among family members. Communication within a family structure is a heavy influence on what is appropriate behavior within the family identity. Children from even at a young age play an active role in constructing gendered/sexed identities in the family (Ehrensaft, 2011; Kane, 2012; Malpas & Lev, 2011) In constructing these identities, children search for verbal and nonverbal cues to figure out what is being deemed acceptable and appropriate gender/sex behavior within the family structure. These cues often help a child to determine who they feel most close and comfortable to, or most accepted by. Cues could include who the child goes to for comfort when hurt, or who they go to for playing games and doing activities with. In playtime with a child, parents tend to give children gender-specific toys to promote what is “appropriate” for the gender role of the child, and children tend to choose those gender-specific toys once understanding the suggested gender sex & identity. In this way, at a young age selecting toys and objects that match a certain gender role or identity at a young age, children gender/sex themselves. (Eliot, 2009) The book suggests that siblings and birth order also seem to influence gender identities within a family, where younger siblings will model older siblings’ gender behavior, for example a girl who has 2 older brothers that are into sports and play hockey, the girl might find herself to show masculine identities and into sports more than a girl without siblings or a girl who instead has 2 sisters, or younger brothers.

The role of the parents in a family structure are becoming more diverse and in transition. Heterosexual marriage between a male and female father have been the norm in American society and the domestic labor roles of the two became constructed. Domestic labor issues often come into the discussion of gender/sex in family communication because domestic labor not only produces household goods and services but also generates gender roles (Coltrane, 1989; Hochschild, 2003). Historically the role of the man in the family was to be provide financial support for the wife and children, being the “bread-winner” gave the male the role of bringing home the means for the women to fill the home with food and supplies, clean and attend to house-hold chores, and also care for the children of the family. Housework typically was distributing unevenly in most American households, but as the 1950’s emerged and women became more affluently involved the workforce, household roles were put in question. As roles were unevenly balanced in the home, this was one of the clearest indicators that of the continuing influence of the nuclear family norm. However, gender/sex distribution of household work is closer to being balanced than ever before, in a coupled parental household that is. An

Contrary to common assumption, many parents living in the United States are single; they are single because they are divorced, widowed, or never married to begin with. The ideology of the nuclear family challenges the lifestyle of single parents, declaring them to be inadequate due to the expectation for adults to be together as a couple. When a single parent has a children, people opposed to this situation assume that the child will miss out on important social learning that coupled parents could provide. An example would be the thought that a girl might come out as a “tom-boy” due to being raised by a single father. This situation suggests that a father is more emotionally distant and not capable of raising a daughter to develop an interest in things other than those of the father.

Despite the norm being for adults to be coupled, it is interesting yet how a pair of adults can be labeled just as inadequate or if not more inadequate if they are a same-sex couple, or claim a gender other that those that align with what is considered hetero-normative. Recently non-heterosexual couples have been gaining increasing social acceptance due to legalization of same sex marriages. Research has examined whether having gay or lesbian parents have actual systematic differences in parenting than heterosexual couples. On page 160 of our textbook it states: “No significant differences have been found in psychological well-being, self-esteem, behavioral problems, intelligence, cognitive abilities, or peer relations. There is no evidence that the children of gay or lesbian parents are confused or uncertain about their gender identity” (Pg.242  Walsh 2012) Further existing research shows that the majority of children from lesbian and gay parents grow up to identify as heterosexual, just like most children from heterosexual parents. (Patterson, 2000)

Included in the transition of families in the United States is the growth of accepted transgendered persons and raising transgendered children. A transgendered person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression doesn’t necessarily match their assigned sex. Transgender is independent of sexual orientation. Transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, asexual, and some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them. The term “transgender” is often used as an umbrella term to incorporate the previously referenced identities as well as a variety of other gender-variant persons. Hines (2006) defines transgender as referring to “individuals who have undergone hormone treatment or surgery to reconstruct their bodies, or to those who transgress gender categories in ways which are less permanent” (p. 353). Not all persons who identify as transgender may take steps to transition to another sex category or even away from one at all, but many do choose to engage in identity transition of some kind. Transition takes many forms, and a disruption of this gendered family role system may compromise traditional notions of “family”. Green (2000) suggests that once a person has disclosed a “deviant” sexual or gender identity to family members, any continued family relations after that point are considered voluntary—this implies that transgender identity could be a deal-breaker for family relationships. This runs contrary to our cultural conception of family as a system of non-voluntary or obligatory relationships (Segrin & Flora, 2005).

Based on the reading, here are 3 questions for you all:

1) How can our society as a whole benefit from understanding the transition from  “the family” to “families”?

2) How do you think adults can encourage gender flexibility in children?

3) Does studying communication & gender within the family structure affect the way that you reflect on your own family/ies experience(s)?