Gender Roles... From the Eye of the Beholder

As people we assume that the fact of be a man or a woman make us different. Society predict someone abilities, interest, capacities and activities that the person can perform by knowing the sex. We think that we almost can know everything about a person based on the gender. Also, often if we know the sex, we limit the capacities of a person.

A few days ago I read a internet page that says “Women “Take Care,” Men “Take Charge:””. Many times when you ask a person to describe a woman they visualized her like fashion, clean, fragile, and emotional person. People identify woman with activities like take care of the house and people, cleaning, go shopping, take care of her beauty and make charitable. On the other hand if you ask to describe a man they surely describe him like strong, outgoing, unfeeling and lead person.  So if you mention activities that are related with risk, have control, strength and dirt, people immediately assume that man performs these things.

            Most of the stereotypes we use to differentiate women of man are inculcate by a chauvinistic society. These societies have the fault that this thought still present at this time. All this thought became from generation to generations. It begins with the fact that parents teach their son to play sports and play with cars, and teach their daughter to play with dolls and practice ballet. At this time the children learn to differentiate girls thing of boys things. Sometimes the parent even scolds the boy if he plays with a doll, and this make him reject “girls things” or vice versa.

            At this time many things change about the women roles in the society. Time ago women can’t go study, work neither have the chance to participate in politics. Time pass and the women got tired to be illiterate, uneducated and stay in the house. Women began to reveal and prove that they can do whatever the men do. Now at this generation the woman are treated with the same privileges than man. Also, are more the women that are study than men. So who knows and with time the roles invert completely (because in some cases already is in this way) the men stay in home and the women go out for work and make money for the family sustention.

To conclude, society stereotype people by their sex. When the truth is that knowing someone’s sex may tell us a lot about him or her biologically but it tells us very little about him or her in other ways. Knowing someone is a woman does not tell us that she is a good chef neither a good professional. Knowing someone is a man tells us nothing about his sports achievements neither his emotional problems. All of us are the person we are because of our experiences and cultural formation. The different things that define us as person, professional, athlete or students are independent of our gender.

Tribes and their Rituals

Though the years there have been discovered thousands of different tribes. Not only these tribes differ  in location and language, they also differ in their ritual and beliefs. Even though a lot of tribes have disappear because of colonizers and their impositions there still a large quantity of unique and awesome tribes that people should learn about. It is very interesting to learn about different tribes so we could know what are their different rituals, clothing, paintings, and more, and of course learning the meaning for them. It is important for the world to keep these tribes growing and do not extinct them, such like in the past.

Some of the most interesting tribes I have found are the Kayan Lahwi tribe and the Mursi tribe . The Kayan tribe, also known as Bwe people, located in Northern Thailand. These group of people are identified because the women use rings in the neck (brass neck coils), which symbolize beauty. The women who use this neck rings are known as giraffe women to tourists. At five years the girls start using the rings and through the years the coil is replaced by a longer one, compressing the collar bone to the rib cage (not elongating the neck per se). Usually Kayan women do not remove the coil, only to replace it with a new one. The muscles atrophy, the collarbone bruises and get discolored, so women prefer to wear them always. Also, when interviewed, they said "after using it for ten years continuously, it feels like an integral part of the body".

The second tribe that caught my attention is the Mursi tribe. This tribe is located in Ethiopia and have a population of 7,500 habitants. They are considered to be agro-pastoralists and belief that there is a major force who controls everything, which they call Tumwi. This force is found n the sky, but can manifest as a rainbow, bird, basically through nature. They believe that the priests are the ones that communicates them with God. Some of the rites they undergo are the insertion of lip plates in women. Girls' lower lips are pierced at 15 and a large pottery or wooden disc, or plate is inserted. These are worn by unmarried women to dance, and by occasions they attract tourists and they earn some extra money. Males of the tribe perform a ceremonial dueling, male violence, to mark their identity.

As we can see tribes can be a really interesting topic of study. Seeing how they live and how different each one of these tribes act can be an awesome thing to research. Knowing about these different tribes and how their cultures work, how their beliefs difference from ours, what they belief is "beautiful" toward what we belief is beautiful can be a great thing to study in the different cultures. But even though with a lot of differences we are still, in some point the same, humans.

References:
Kayan people
Mursi people

Health Professionals: Creating Conscience

Medicine practicers can be called egoist and interested because they work for the money, to get rich. I am not saying that all doctors are the same, there are some that are like that and are just interested in the fame and money gained. I plan to study medicine in the future but I don't I thinks I do it for the money, I mean the money is necessary to survive and have a live, so I am not saying I will not need or want the money. The money is an essential thing to survive in this world, and the humans as  selfish people is really necessary for everything. On the other side I want to become a doctor to help people get better. In my case I want to become a pediatric oncologist.

When we start to watch how people, in this case specifically doctors, choose in what they want to specialize we observe that they choose specializations, not more easy, but a little less complicated such as cardiology, gynecology, orthodontics, and others. As selfish people of course people search for what is more easy and gives more money, less for more, but what people do not understand is that there are a lot of health professionals that already practice all that and that we need more people to study other and new specializations to help in the future. In my case as I said, I want to become a pediatric oncologist. I know that being a oncologist is one of the most difficult and frustrating specializations of medicine, because in much cases you would not be able to save the patient. Even worst being a pediatric oncologist is more saddest because these are kids that are starting their life and you maybe could not save them.

I want to become a pediatric oncologist not for the fact that I will win a lot of money, it is because I would do everything that is in my hands to help the little kids that came to me almost dying and deserve to live a long life, and one without suffering or pain. From the point of view of an anthropologist I can say that people is supposed to be selfish, I mean they want what is best for themselves and their progeny and family, because their genes are what matters. But what would it be life if you just focus in yours and not everybody in the world? I believe is very important to keep helping one another so we can create a better future, without little kids suffering when they are just starting to live.

Priests: Save Role Models?

In a study made at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey in January to May 2014, in my Anthropology class (ATRO3005) we were given the task to interview  a person from a social group and make an ethnography. By making this interview we are supposed to generalize about the population of Priests in Puerto Rico and the United States. In my case I chose a Priest or the ministers of divine cult and and specially in the major cult act, the sacrifice. They are the ones the serve as intermediaries between men and God, divinity. I mean Priests, according to the christian law are in charge to carry out God's service.  During the interview I ask him about different topics such as: How did the idea of becoming a priest came to mind? About the priestly pathway, the CVII, and finally about the church crisis. 

Some of his answers were that the idea of being a priest came because he had a lot of influence his uncle and two brothers were in the same path, so he felt the necessity of becoming a priests to keep going on. When he told us about the priestly pathway he started at 12 years in the School of Priests in Spain. Also he talk about how he made two bachelors degrees and how he went in missions to different places, one of them being Colombia where he was in charge of teaching in a school and where he help construct streets and houses for the poor people. He also talk to me about the votes he had to made to becoming a priest. The three votes he had to profess were: obedience, poverty and chastity in order to become a priests. When I asked him if sometimes he doubt that that was the best decision he has made, he answered yes, sometimes he doubt because maybe he was a selfish person and wanted to have a kid in the past, but then remembered why made it and feels better, because he is serving God and following his rules. 

In conclusion, when I finish my investigation work, or ethnography, I could observe how the life of the priests is a one where they need to follow some strict rules. And a breach can be the end of their path as Priests. I could see how oaths are the base of everything. I mean, priests make the oath of chastity where it is prohibited to have sexual relations with anyone. We could see how that has affect so much the title of some priests, there had been found so much cases of pedophilia something that leads them to the exile of these people from Church, removing them the privilege of being Priests. Even though that is happening we can not generalize, these group of persons had started to fall and had some problems because of others, something that is not fair because it is not a collective thought, it is individual and what some made does not mean is going to be made by others.