Unit 2 Project- Creative Nonfiction

Sexual Tension 

As a society, we see discourse communities in everyday life that go completely unnoticed. Two major discourse communities that are very prevalent in todays world is the battle of the sexes. The way people interact with each other almost always relates back to gender. The way that males might communicate with other males is completely different from how they would talk to females. This is a part of life, I mean after all, opposing sexes are mentally wired differently. It is common knowledge and even science has proven this fact. However, this causes for an extreme amount of tension between sexes. Although this tension sometimes goes unnoticed, in my high school it was hard to ignore.

As I walked into high school on my first day, one of the first major differences from middle school were our principals. Not only was my principal and vice principal now both women, but they both were also lesbian. Going to a high school everyday where I had principals that were women who were openly lesbian was a different vibe then what I was normally used to. Now I had no problem with this fact, however it was just going to be different than having a male principal which was what I was normally used to. The discipline might be different, they might have different agendas and rules to follow and also might be a lot more sensitive toward different topics than a male would. Although, many would believe there would be no difference compared to a male principal, it had a huge impact on the types of activities our school would partake in. Many times women and their rights would be promoted throughout the school through posters and other media that students would view throughout the school. It seemed ironic to me how they were talking about how women are oppressed yet they hold the highest position of power in the institution which was the high school. Even the teachers were predominantly female which causes some major discourse issues when attempting to have class discussions. As a male in the school I felt as if I was overruled many times in classrooms simply because females, including the teachers, would automatically team up on an argument I had proposed. I felt like I wasn't able to show who I was as a person because women would always portray the men in the classrooms as less mature and in effect, not as intelligent. Although us guys would sometimes say stupid things I'll admit, in high school we were extremely limited in talking out as compared to women. Girls would always get first dibs on anything we did, and every view in all of my history or sociology classes would always end up on how women are oppressed and how they need more attention, higher wages and equality. Although they are correct to a degree, I believe that it could be toned down a bit. This expression of views would just make the men in the school angered, and more likely to poke fun at women as a gender. Women need to be heard I agree, however in a public school setting, it only allows for a bigger polarization of sexes.

A girl in my class had an idea shortly after the super bowl commercial that was released by the female hygiene company, Always, which expressed how the saying 'you throw like a girl' is offensive. Her idea was to express this throughout the school as well. This girl then created an Instagram account which asked all girls to submit a picture of them playing a sport, or doing something they love. These pictures were all then compiled into one huge collage which was titled 'We Throw Like Girls' in the library. The saying is looked down upon by women because it teaches society that throwing like a girl is a bad thing. Now although this is true, there are also things in society that oppose men as well. Societal norms teach men that they need to act a certain way to be successful and there are many things that make us feel confined to this notion as well yet there is no campaign for that. Men like myself throughout our high school were fed up with all of the pointless attention only women were getting in the school. Because of this, many guys lashed out on this girls Instagram, offending some sensitive women by simply stating their mind. These posts were immediately brought to the attention of our principal who even called the gentlemen who made the comments down to her office. It seems quite unfair how someone who was only stating his mind in an argument can get disciplined for doing so. People nowadays are so sensitive to everything we do as a result of growing up in a sheltered environment like this one. The genders became so polarized throughout the school that people would be getting in arguments about gender everyday. It got to the point where guys would even argue that cheerleading isn't a sport just to rile up the girls even more. This led to hatred and would create a barrier between the two sexes that nobody was prepared for.

Instead of creating more polarization by promoting one gender, we should be promoting equality and how both genders are able to do whatever they set their mind to. No one gender is superior to the other and we need to see this. We should take notice of certain things in society that do oppose one gender, however we need to see the other side of the argument as well and see that standards in society are created for both genders. There is still a standard of men to be looked at as the leader of the house and for the woman to be the stay at home mom to take care of the house and kids. This standard in general needs to be challenged and in order to create change, bring awareness to the bigger picture. Awareness to only one side, will only create for more tension between the genders. Being in this environment really opened my eyes to the effects of tension between two discourse communities and how everyday these communities clash. We need to be able to come together to recognize the differences and problems with each community and be able to get past them in order to solve collective action problems between the discourse communities.

Gender in an institution, such as a high school, facilitates power through the organization and creates tension, and discourse problems among members. According to Karen Lee Ashcraft's Gender, Discourse and Organization: Framing a Shifting Relationship, within David Grants The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Discourse, discourse is "an outcome or reflection of one's gender identity" where "discourse becomes a vehicle of self expression" (Grant 276). Communicating automatically establishes our gender and self expression without us even realizing it. This is completely natural and until we realize this, the tension between genders will never go away.

One of the most famous movies of all time shows these communities in dissonance throughout, as well as exploits the common roles each gender typically plays especially in an institution such as a high school. The 1978 movie Grease shows how people, especially in high school, find their own group usually of the same gender that stick together. Typically, they are always at odds with another group usually of another gender where there are often discourse problems that create for even bigger problems for each other. For example in this clip, Grease Gender Discourse, Danny Zuko, the leader of his gang the T-Birds, fell in love with Sandy over the summer who is apart of the Pink Ladies. However, now that Zuko is in front of the gender groups he needs to keep his reputation in tact and is willing to sacrifice his relationship to seem cool and apart of his group. He starts off excited to see her however, after realizing that the guys were watching he immediately started acting cool and not caring about her presence. This is a shallow tactic, although he seems to regret his decision by the end, his decision already caused more tension between the gender groups. This movie is a great example of tension between gender discourse communities in an institution especially a high school. It is so easy to get caught up with the differences between gender which is shown a lot throughout Grease. Even the moral is quite oppressive towards women. The movie shows how in order for a woman to get the man she needs to change for him. This is a terrible moral and highlights the polarization of genders even more.

Although in my situation women seemed to be the dominant force, men seemed to be the much more prevailing force throughout Grease. Both perspectives are wrong and unjust. People tend to get hurt when you make generalizations based off of their gender. This is just part of the way we had grown up as this tension between discourse communities is even written in our history books. We see this tension throughout everything we do. We have tendencies to think that because we are a certain gender, it means that we shouldn’t be confined to what the standards are that are set to that gender. However, we need to see that these standards will always be there. Men will always be looked at as the one who needs to get a job and deal with the pressure that comes with the responsibility of his role as family provider which is shown in the play written by Arthur Miller, The Death of a Salesman. The husband Willy Lohman is put under so much pressure to support his family that he ultimately commits suicide. Many times, we fail to recognize this side of the gender perspective and usually just see how women are confined to their role as housekeeper and family caretaker. However, if a man is a stay-at-home-dad, he is looked at as someone who is weak and cannot provide for his family. It truly does work both ways and these generalizations will not get better until we, as a society, find a balance between gender communities. It is general knowledge that there will always be dissonance between men and women. This is why we have to try and find a happy medium of this dissonance and make sure one side isn’t oppressing the other. Although equality is hard to achieve, we can get pretty close if we notice that when we communicate, people express their gender through the terminology and discourse that they use. We also need to take note of the differences between communities and be accepting of them. Especially in an institution like high school, gender discourse problems can cause a nightmare that nobody wants to address. However, it is still necessary to address them directly if we want to truly create change and bring about equality between communities.