Gender Movement I Most Identify With

I have learned a lot about gender in the past couple of weeks in my Gender and Communication class.  I am suppose to pick a movement that I most identify with, but within specific chapters of my book.  I read the chapters and there is not a specific movement in the chapters I read.  My solution to this is to talk about what I most identified with in the chapters I read.  In Ch. 8 of Julia Wood's book, Gendered Lives, Communication, Gender, and Culture, she talks about the pressures to conform to femininity and how college females cope with the pressures.  The most intriguing part of the chapter talks about how college females feel pressured to achieve "effortless perfection : to be beautiful, fit, popular, smart, and accomplished without any visible effort (Wood p.198)".  I identify with theory of effortless perfection because when I started college I wanted to look sexy and smart without lifting a finger.  I wanted to be the one in class who knew all the answers, but also the girl that every guy wanted to go out with.  It sounds a little egotistical, but I was still young at the time, and it was my first year at college.

Another part of the effortless perfection is the culture of romance.  The culture of romance deals with the fact that college women are "discouraged by barriers to their academic achievement" and the "intense peer pressure that emphasizes attracting men as more important than anything else woman do (Wood p.199)".  I was personally in a culture of romance my freshman year of college. I started my freshman year at the University of Northern Colorado as a Chemistry major.  After my first semester, I went to talk to my adviser in the science department about my academics and what I wanted to achieve with my degree.  My adviser told me that it wouldn't surprise him if I changed my major soon because I was a woman in a man's field.  He also went on to say that he didn't see me going any farther in the field of science because I wouldn't be accepted in the field and the only way he saw me getting anywhere is with my looks.  I felt very discouraged after this meeting with my adviser.  Right after the meeting, I went straight to the English department and switched my major.  I know I probably should have stood up for myself and told someone about my meeting, but I felt powerless.  I stayed at UNC for three more semesters til I decided I wanted to go to a different college.

The culture of romance and effortless perfection impacted me enormously.  I switched schools because of it, but it also did something positive.  It made me realize that I wanted to go to school to learn, not to pick up guys.  Once I realized that, my academics started to rise to another level.  My self esteem also went up. I still cared about how I looked, but not for other people, but for myself. I wanted to make sure I looked healthy and happy for myself.  I feel that my experiences with these theories or movements will benefit other women who have the same experiences that I had.  It will also benefit younger girls who haven't experienced them yet and can be a cautionary tale for them.  These experiences that I went through will be able to help girls, like the ones I will be helping at Smart Girl, and I am so glad for that.