My Gender Norm Activity By Joana

I am what you might call an average twenty one year old female who works and goes to school here at Hunter College. But what is20average or normal to me is not for every other twenty one year old female who attends Hunter College and works, so is the statement above correctly stated? A norm can be broken down into many categories and each person has a different set of norms from the other; it is what we as a society set as the unwritten rules. For this particular assignment the Gender category comes into play. I am a female and therefore society (including myself) expects me to be a particular way. For my Norm activity I decided to choose an activity that wasn’t a Norm for me as a female but other females do consider a norm or at least their norm, wearing sneakers! I usually only wear flat shoes or sandals, when I do decide to wear sneakers they are usually very feminine, for example Pumas. I don’t consider myself very feminine, but for some reason over the past two years or so, this has become my way of dressing and expressing myself.
I decided to do the activity on a Friday because it was a day that I had work. I am a supervisor at CVS/Pharmacy in Brooklyn a few street blocks away from my house. I didn’t feel comfortable coming to Manhattan in sneakers and therefore choose this day to do the assignment. I also felt that I might get more of a r eaction from the people I deal with on a regular basis. I found these sneakers that I had not worn since sophomore or Junior year in High school, which makes it about 3-4 years that I hadn’t worn them. They are black and grey low top Nike’s, very masculine if you ask me. As I was walking to work I kept looking down at my feet because I felt really weird. Not only did my foot feel really uncomfortable in them but my feet actually looked really big and it made me self-conscious about myself. It was as if everyone was staring at my huge feet! I didn’t feel right and I get really nervous about actually getting to work and what my co-workers might say.
One of my friends that I work with was the first person to say something about my sneakers. It was actually the first thing she even said to me, even before saying hi. Her exact words were “WOW your actually wearing sneakers, what happened?” This made me laugh and begin to explain why I was wearing them at all. It was hysterical! Other co-workers of mine began to notice also so I had to keep explaining myself. For some reason I felt an obligation to explain why I was wearing sneakers, aft er I explained and everyone knew my situation I began to feel more comfortable wearing them. All of a sudden I felt kind of sporty. I was almost acting like a different person, I’m not sure if it was my particular mood or the fact that I was wearing the sneakers but I know I was acting like a whole different person, almost a little more masculine if you ask me.
Overall it was a fun and interesting activity! I’m not to sure what I expected out of it but it did tell me more about myself and the norms that I have created. Since that day I haven’t worn sneakers and I’m not really intending on doing so.