Personal Narrative: My Gender Autobiography

I was born on March 08, 1995 at roughly seven pounds. When I was extracted from my mother, I was given the gender of a male with the appearance of my male body parts. My mother used to say to me, growing up as a toddler that I had so much hair like former American Football player, Troy Polamalu. People had always assumed that I was a girl, therefore my mother had to correct them and say, “No, he is a boy”. Growing up a toddler, I was always wearing some type of jeans with a sports shirt and shoes that were mostly colored black or blue. As I grew older, I gained interest in baseball, wrestling, and the military. I always wanted to play with action figures such as GI Joe and wrestling celebrities in addition to imaginary flying in an apache helicopter or taking command in a battle tank. Advancing to my pre-teen years, I wanted to play baseball, which is considered to be mostly a boy sport. It was at this moment, that my gender was a boy. Progressing to my teen years, I started to observe my father and learn my gender on his roles as the man in our family. I noticed that my father was already taking charge in the house and giving me orders that I needed to complete. Going through middle school, most boys had some type of sports backpack while the girls

had Barbie doll backpack that were pink. Moving on to around the ages of 17-19, I was observing more the differences in the males and females, especially when I enlisted in the military. Going through basic training, more males were enlisted in combat Military Occupational Specialties (MOS), while females were not allowed to enlist in a combat MOS. When I got to my first unit, and I went into male rooms, I noticed how most males were unorganized with shoes, hats, and accessories laid out on display, versus going into female rooms and seeing make-up, perfume and pictures of celebrity crushes out on display.
Growing up a teenager, I begin to wear companies of clothing in Ecko Unltd, Old Navy, Zumiez, and even Gap. I wanted to separate my attire from females by wearing anything that had blue, green or black in it. While learning my gender of a male, I began to notice the things that men should encounter growing up from a boy. With having a father figure in the house, when he had to go take care of errands, he would also take me with him so I can learn the very basics of the man role in the family in addition to study how the father needs to know the needs of the mother and complete any additional tasks. Such as, knowing what is needed in the house to keep it standing due to bills that need to be paid.
While already having two strikes against me being a black male in society, my father taught me that life is always going to be harder for me compared to other races and genders. According to The US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), thirty-two percent (1529 total) total of victims that were in the 4,813 “Arrest-Related Deaths” (ARD) were black which represented a greater proportion of ARDs (Hoston, 2016). With these statistics, it goes to show that being a) being black and b) a male in society, we are already set at the bottom of the totem pole compared to other races and genders who are part of the “majority” group who have higher, more allowed privileges then we do.
Have you ever gone to the gym and before you started your workout, noticed the appearance between males and female? Well, I have a few times. Most self-confident males wear sleeveless shirts to show off their arms and chest as a point to others that they are big and strong. Moreover, majority of females like to wear spandex pants, and a sports bra under a somewhat large t-shirt. Now, if you were to sit back in the gym and look at how many males tend to observe women, most of the time, it is all the time. About 14 percent of women are intimidated by the thought of men judging them (Sanghani, 2015).
Women in the military has not been a huge issue but dealing with combat Military Occupational Specialties (MOS), has been taken to a higher degree. For years women wants to enlist under the 11X series such as an infantryman. There were numerous reasons why women were not allowed or could not compete with males dealing due to the fact that a lot of upper body strength is required throughout training in addition to lower body strength for walking long distance with forty plus pounds of gear in a time sensitive environment. Conditions such as medical issues play a factor when females try to keep up with males on the battlefield. In the early days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attrition rate from basic training for females climbed to 17%, for a number of reasons, to include muscular-skeletal injuries, as females were most likely to develop stress fractures, which includes pelvic stress fractures, which are difficult to treat (McGraw, Koehlmoos, Ritchie, 2016). Recently, there has been conferences to discuss the positives and negatives of allowing female Soldiers to re-class into a combat MOS and also attend Officer Candidate School (OCS) to become an Infantry officer. To a certain extent, this may seem like a alright idea, but you have to take into consideration the amount of dedication and hard work that is going to be needed in order for a woman to lead men into the battlefield. Thinking outside the military for a second, some men already have a problem with a woman being their supervisor or boss. Jumping back into the military, if having a woman over a man is already disliked, imagine what is may be like dealing with this situation downrange when you have bullets flying over your head.
Having many females in the military come with the consequences of women having the fear of rape. Even though men and women work together on the force, some men still have the tendency to express to women that men are still the dominant gender thus committing sexual assault. Research suggests that from one-quarter to one-third of military women are sexually assaulted during their time in the service (Suris & Lind, 2008). The most widely studied type of trauma in female veterans is sexual assault, which encompasses childhood sexual assault and sexual assault that occurs while serving in the military (Suris, & Lind, 2008).
Dating back to the early 19th century, women were always the ones to stay home to cook, clean and nurture the kids while the men went to work and made the income.

With this being said, in the military for dual military couples, this is not the case due to the fact that the man and woman are both working. With both genders working, it is longer a woman stereotype that the mother will cook, clean and nurture the kids. Even though I am not married and don’t have kids, if my wife and I were both military, she will not be the one to always have to follow the woman stereotype nor would I follow the man stereotype. Who says that the father of the house cannot perform the same applied task as the mother, if not even

better?
In conclusion of the woman gender in society, many men think that there are the supreme gender. They have the mindset that women should not and cannot compete on the same level as them. Men are not going women the opportunity to express themselves to show their capabilities. Gender inequalities still happens worldwide and there will never be an agreement from majority of the men side that women can do a good as the man can.