Finding Our Identities

Hello! I’m Sophie, one of the AGE UP second years in the media group. We began our session with a dinner, provided by our Top Chef Cooks, of make-your-own sandwiches with an assortment of breads, cheeses, meats, veggies and all the good things that sandwiches are made of. The sandwiches were accompanied by milk and an overload of carrots with ranch dressing.
Our guest speakers today were Genna and Zara who led the activities about Gender and Sexuality. We broke into small groups of about 12 and introduced ourselves, not only with our names, but with our preferred gender pronoun: he, she, they, her, him etc. Activity #1 was to answer the three following questions: What physical traits, style decisions, and behavioral traits differentiate genders?

We took the lists we made and weaved it into activity #2. Genna and Zara labeled the sides of the room: one side was Arnold Schwarzenegger the other was Paris Hilton. They asked personal questions as we placed ourselves on the spectrum of Manly to Feminine based on our opinions. The most interesting questions was “how do you see yourself?” vs. “how do you think others see you?” The amount of movement indicated that it is impossible to base people on their gender appearance. This activity encouraged AGE UP girls to not base someone’s identity on their gender. Their identity could be something else and physical or behavioral traits didn’t necessarily reflect who someone was. By the end of the session it left us with an open mind and less judgmental point of view. Then we walked through the rain to the Mercer gym for Ultimate. We would also like to thank Genna and Zarra again for their time they spent sharing with AGE UP!


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One response to “Finding Our Identities”

  1. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Loving the blog you guys, great writing and its fun to read! Pictures are equally awesome. Keep it up!