Chapter 3: Culture

Culture is one of the main aspects about what makes a person unique. Everyone is different but culture makes you who you are. One of the main parts about your culture is hand gestures. Around the world, hand signals can mean very different things. In this Youtube video, you will see the difference around the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCo3wSGYRbQ

When my family and I visited Paris, we often found ourselves receiving bad looks. We did not understand what we were doing wrong. Until one man told us the hand gestures we were making were very derogatory. We did not mean to do so and we felt horrible and embarrassed after.

Chapter 4: Costumes

In chapter 4, we discussed this topic of costumes. When I think of the word costumes I think of Halloween, but this is definitely not anything like that. This is more of an act within yourself rather than a physical outfit. When I think of costumes, the first thing that comes to mind is a person’s customer service voice. Typically when people work in customer service, they put on a different face and a different voice to meet the needs and expectations of the customer. No matter what kind of person you are, the customer is always right. There is a video on Youtube and it shows perfectly what not to do and that clearly some people do not put on a costume for the proper audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTbHwnxCGaI

I truly believe that it can be difficult to keep your persona correct with certain people. Especially if you are with two separate groups at the same time. It is a hard pill for me to swallow that I have to act different around certain people because I would like to think that I can just simply be myself but what does that really mean? Can you ever truly be yourself if you are constantly having to put on a show for people?

Gender Socialization

We are taught at an early age that blue is for boys and pink is for girls, but at what age do we realize that blue and pink are simply colors and not a label? It is difficult to tell someone that they can do and be anything they want except for XYZ. I think it is important to teach kids at a young age that they can like any color they want or have any profession no matter what their gender is.

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