Creating Gender- Causing Traumas

      For my final project, I originally intended to tackle the topic of Toxic Masculinity by focusing on the experiences my male friends had when they were growing up of times they were called out for pursuing an interest that was outside of the male gender normalities. However, after attending my Aunts baby shower, I realized how early we begin to place gender ideologies onto children. Everyone was talking about what sex they thought the baby was going to be and sharing their hopes for either a boy or girl. After this event, I decided to open up my topic and ask all of the individuals in my friend group. My friends and I do not see gender in the realm of friendship and we have the best times when we are all together. From the results of this project, I am at awe of how vividly we all remember the exact moment we were corrected for a habitat that was considered for girls or for boys. It was interesting to see what they felt about the correction and how their personality today reflect those moments. Although, I guarantee that they had more experiences, I felt that the first one they mentioned had to have been the most jarring. I created a video through iMovie and included their words, with visual representations behind it. After we all discussed our experiences, I explained to them the teachings of this class and the assignment. They all agreed to allow their names and some dug up for me the items in the past that were targeted for discipline. Here are some stills from the video to help understand the topics talked about in the video below. I'll be forever grateful that this class allowed me to understand more about what makes me the person I am today, allowing me to work on demons I did not even know were there. 

https://youtu.be/RevJOSYDyGE