Breaking a social norm? Definitely something easier said than actually done. Riding the elevator up and down while pretending to meditate, kissing everyone you come in to contact with or even just dressing like a boy for a day. Brainstorming ideas is easy, and even pretty amusing to try and think of all the ridiculous things you can do and actually have a reason to do it. The hard part is building up the courage to do it. To know when you leave your house for the day that you are going to be stared at and talked about. Knowing all this and still being able to follow through with it was probably the biggest challenge of mine.
After a lot of thought, I decided to wear my Dalmatian onzie for the day. Its nothing super extreme and its nothing that caused a huge up roar. It was just enough to show what its like to dress just a little different, to be just out of the 'normal' circle. On campus, I didn't feel too much of a spot light on me. I know a good bit of people and felt like I was joking about it more than I was feeling judged. The real judgment came when I was at places like Walmart. When I was at places that were more open to the common public, thats where I felt the spot light.
Going through this assignment has somewhat opened my eyes to a couple things. First off, the way society, especially young women, judge people. We look at people a certain way based on what they're wearing, how they're talking, what they're listening to and even the people they surround themselves with. We never look at someone with bright pink hair or a crazy fashion style and think 'wow that person has a lot of confidence for wanting and striving to stand out and be unique' we instead think 'look at how weird her outfit is' or 'she's not going to get very far with that color hair'. Why is it that a lot of our population is brought up to look at someone who may dress differently than them and judge them immediately? Although there is still is discrimination and racism in schools, I think it is time we start not only teaching love of other ethnicities and races but also love of all people no matter skin color, nationality, outfit choice or preferred pastimes.
Kelly Jo,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about the cultural and social norm that you chose to break. It was interesting to learn that we both experienced the same initial fears and we were both nervous and uncomfortable to go out of our comfort zone. I think it is significant that you distinguished feeling different when you were on campus and surrounded by many of your friends, compared to when you went to Walmart and you did not know the other shoppers. I image this is how other people who move here from a different area of the world must feel. I agree that it is much easier to branch out of one’s comfort zone when being accompanied by friends or family.
I feel that you made a good point when you explained how we are so quick to develop negative thoughts about others without thinking through the situation. You explained that “we never look at someone with bright pink hair or a crazy fashion style and think 'wow that person has a lot of confidence for wanting and striving to stand out and be unique' we instead think 'look at how weird her outfit is' or 'she's not going to get very far with that color hair'”. You are so right and I am guilty of having similar thoughts. Hopefully after experiencing first hand the effects of breaking a cultural norm we will be able to help prevent others from having to experience what we felt.
Kelly Jo,
ReplyDeleteOh how nice it would be to wear pajamas around all day long. You would think that college kids would be okay with you wearing pajamas all day long. However, we all know how judgmental our age group can be, especially women. Before knowing anything about a person, we make a judgement on them. We have no idea why they dress that way or if they are going through something rough during that particular time. Also, I would have thought that going into Walmart would not have produced that many looks. You see so many different people in Walmart no matter what time of the day you go. Thinking about it now, I see that we as a society are quick to judge no matter what. Even though it is completely off the wall drastic, you definitely broke a social norm and learned what it felt like to stand out.
Through this activity I, and I think most people in the class, have definitely learned that we need to think and get to know people before we judge them. I really liked how you said that it took confidence to do what we did, as we knew that we were going to be judged, but that is not how we view other people. Instead of looking at some one and judging them because they are different than us, we could view them as confident for being willing to go against the crowd and do what they wanted to, to be one of a kind.
Haley
P.S. We should all wear our pjs one day!