Multiple Perspectives Of Gender Within The Chicana, By Juana Maria Rodriguez

Before this course introduced me to the multiple perspectives of gender within the Chicana/o/x context, I never really had a full idea of it. My understanding of gender was solely shaped by the media, leaving me with a surface-level understanding. I always thought of gender as a simple way to express who you are, but nothing further than that. I never thought or questioned the complexities behind someone's gender identity or expression. I never thought about it within the context of a marginalized group. I used to believe that people of all races thought about gender the same way, and similarly, I believed that gender affected everyone the same way. My concept of gender within different cultures wasn’t developed because I hadn’t been exposed

The way that Juana Maria Rodriguez explained sexuality illustrated its intricate connection to gender identity, providing a new way to understand these concepts. Rodriguez explains sexuality as social identification derived from sexual choices, romantic desires, and social affinities but it also has a foundation in political identifications and historical contexts. Rodriguez's definition of sexuality helped me learn about the complexities of gender because it helped me understand that it isn’t just a form of sexual expression, but also has societal and historical factors that shape an individual's identity. This broadened my understanding since I started to learn that gender goes into multiple realms of knowledge. This broke my assumption that gender was a simple one-way concept, but in reality, it is a concept with multiple branches. Although I was learning about the concept and complexities of gender identity and expression, I was still learning it in a broad context without involving culture. Even though they were explaining the terms within a Chicana/o/x context, I still didn't understand how the Chicano culture plays a role in

Through the first weeks of this class, I didn’t comprehend how culture affected someone’s gender identity since I believed that they had nothing to do with each other. It was within the middle of the quarter when I started to realize how culture and gender identity started to intertwine with each other. I began to understand how culture is a big part of many parts of our lives, which is why it plays a role in the way we choose to express ourselves. Since culture encompasses norms, values, and traditions, it impacts the way people within that culture perceive gender and influences the way they express their identity. I realized that since Chicano culture has traditions and values based on Catholicism and indigenous beliefs, it develops a traditional approach to gender identity. This realization shattered my assumption that everyone perceived and thought about gender the same way. One reading that was able to shatter this assumption was “Beyond Machismo.” In “Beyond Machismo,” Aida Hurtado and Marinal Sinha talk about how Latino men have an idea of what it means to be masculine, anyone who derives from those ideals is seen to be less masculine and