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Assignment 5

Gender and sexuality at River High is mostly shaped by the environment to which students are exposed to. C.J. Pascoe claims how students begin to explore their identity through sexual conversations and activities. The interactions adolescents have everyday structures their actions accordingly to a fall under a category of gender. She uses various examples to show how the system employed in the River High molds the gender and sexuality of their students. One of the scenarios she mentions is when they are performing in the Mr.Cougar competition. The response from the audience is key to the outcome of the competition and molding of gender. When the behavior of the student seem too feminine or too masculine the crowd will cheer or laugh. This shows that the gender is categorized by the way their voice sounded, or the body movements they made that somehow fulfill the expectations of the audience. Also, teachers played a role in the formation of the gender and sexuality of the students. When the principal places a dress code for the students it creates a form of inequality and a division between gender. There were times when teachers made jokes about sexuality to their students to address the topic but at the same time not being open to the students views on sexualitty. Mr.McNally was the only teacher that freely explained his students about classifying gender. However, he continue to joke about another student physical appearance looking too feminine. His interactions with the student vary but it created an environment where students were able to create their own definition of themselves.  Furthermore, the comments teachers made based on their experiences in the dances showed how they somehow allowed the students to dance how they wanted. But before the dance students were given the dance rules. Limitations were constantly made by the teachers but students always behaved expressing their own identity. There are various environment by which gender is defined based on each individual own persperctive.