Breaking Gender Norms

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Starting off, I will identify some outliers that may have skewed the results of this experiment. First off, I was not present in class the day we formed groups so I had to break the gender norm with just me and a friend. Secondly, the only way I was going to dress up as a women on was if it was on halloween. I know that on halloween it is more acceptable to break such gender norms, but maybe not so much in the context of where I wore this costume. So, as mentioned above, I decided to dress up as a women and go into a place where this wouldn’t be normally accepted. Since I traveled home for the weekend, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, I decided a good place to go and break this norm would be the local mall. Our mall is located near a few high schools, and is always busy. My friend was to observe the surroundings by sitting at a table in the food court while I ‘strut’ around. Since it was halloween there were plenty of other people dressed up, but whenever a guy dresses up like a woman it turns heads. This is why I felt this would be a good way to break the way …show more content…
I didn’t have chance to renormalize this norm because I wanted to get of the mall as quick as possible. Now that I’ve experienced this, I realize I was uncomfortable because society has told me that I must dress like a male, and not to attempt dressing as a female. Anyways, my observant friend noticed many reactions but, a few of the top reactions were teenage boys heckling, and/or pointing and laughing, and adults reactions were for the most part just staring. I think the teenagers acted as one would predict, and so did the adults. Typically teenagers don’t really have self control when seeing something out of the new, so they pass judgement out loud. In comparison, the adults in this situation would just stare, which doesn't mean they aren’t passing judgement, it just means they are holding it

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