I Am Woman: In a Feministic Society, What is a Woman?

At the turn of the millennium, and up until today, it seems as if our society is suffering from a unified gender crisis related in part to enormous media influence. The social norms that parents have been bestowing upon their children for decades now become questionable and less idealistic. However, in the traditional household I've been raised in, under two loving parents-both strong in personality and faith, I feel that my grasp on my own personal gender is still rooted in who I was meant to be, not who I was told to be.

I am the second daughter in a family of five. My sister is three years older than me. As a child, I had a variety of toys. I did have the traditional dolls, dress-up costumes, and pink bicycles. However, I also had some non-traditional female toys. As a ten year old, I began a rather extensive collection of baseball cards. I developed a growing passion for sports in general. I also played my first T-Ball game as a six-year old. Possibly a minor indication of a slight Electra complex, these were all activities I could handily participate in with my father.

As I grew to be of age, I began playing sports-volleyball, basketball, and eventually track. In grade school, I was one of four girls in my class of about twenty-five to participate in basketball. I remember the other girls doing more stereotypically feminine activities, such as cheerleading and gymnastics. I specifically remembering questioning myself, "Is what I'm doing here a girl thing, or a boy thing?" It did segregate me from the pack of girls in my class...which in a small private school could be a very painful thing. I continued to plug away at my athletic involvement. I was moved up in seventh grade to play with the older girls for both volleyball and basketball. I took more flack from the girls in my class to the point where I really had oly one female friend in my own grade.