Society today structures us to serve a specific role according to our
gender.  Society has expectations of us, as a man or a woman, and it is
looked down upon if you cross the thin line into the role of the opposite
gender.  For my gender atypical act, I opened the door for my boyfriend at a
restaurant.  Also, when we were getting ready to sit down, I pulled his
chair out for him and stood there waiting for him to sit down.  Society sees
these two acts as something that a man should do.  Women are supposed to be
passive and helpless.  Because women are seen as helpless, they should allow
men to pull out their chairs and open doors for them.  Typically, women are
not supposed to perform these acts because society sees women as dependent
on men.  Where would we be, as women, if we couldn’t open a door or pull out
a chair for ourselves?  Society begins conditioning women to accept the
gender role that is set for them very early in life.  Even as children, the
gender roles have been established with toys and clothes.  Society
definitely puts pressure on both men and women to not cross the “gender
line”, which made this assignment very challenging for me to do.
        My boyfriend, Brett, and I were walking into a restaurant with my parents
and sisters.  My family had already gone in and I stepped in front of my
boyfriend and opened the door for him.  He stood there and looked at me and
I motioned for him to go ahead in front of me.  He just looked at me like I
was crazy.  He put his arm above my head and nudged me inside.  He refused
to go ahead of me.  I told him that I was only trying to be nice, holding
the door for him.  He told me that I really did not need to be nice; he
could hold his own door open.  The tone of his voice assured me that I had
really bothered him by assuming the “man’s” role and holding the door open
for him.
        When we were sitting down for dinner, I pulled the chair out for Brett and
stood beside it, waiting for him to sit down.  After a few seconds, my dad
asked me, in a very aggravated voice, what I was doing and told me to sit
down in the chair that I had pulled out.  I told him that I was pulling the
chair out for Brett.  By this time, the couple sitting in the booth next to
our table was looking at me.  The man started to chuckle and shake his head
at my response to my dad’s question.  My mom asked what had gotten into me
and proceeded to tell me that it is the “man’s job” to pull out chairs and
it was not very lady-like for me to be doing things like that.  In response
to her remarks, I defended myself and asked her why, since society today is
different from even the society that she grew up in, I could not be polite
and open doors and pull a chair out for my boyfriend.  Women are supposedly
equal to men in many other respects.  My mom gave me a look that I have come
to know as the “this is not the time or the place to discuss this any
further” look.  Brett’s face was bright red, and I could tell he was getting
embarrassed.  To avoid any more attention, he reluctantly sat down, but did
not say a word.  I could definitely tell that Brett was not happy with my
actions.  He did not say much at all throughout dinner when he usually is
very candid around my family.
        My dad and mom, who are very traditional, asked me about my actions the
next day.  They wanted to know what prompted my actions.  The role that I
had played was one of the man in a relationship.  Women are supposed to
depend on the man for everything, even little things such as pulling out a
chair and opening a door.  My dad brought up the question of how I thought I
had made Brett feel.  I once again, defended myself asking him how women
were supposed to feel about men constantly doing things like this for women,
as if they were helpless.  He followed with the expected answer.  Men are
the “dominant” gender and must take care of women.  This includes pulling
out chairs and opening doors for them.
        Brett and I had a long conversation as we left the restaurant.  He was
extremely mad at me for “making him look like the girl in our relationship.”
  He was upset because I had done things that he felt he should have been
doing for me.  I tried to explain to him that it was not a big deal, and I
was just trying to be nice.  He told me that he felt like a sissy when I
tried to open the door and when I pulled the chair out for him, and he could
not believe that I had done this in front of my dad, whom he wants to be
accepted by.  He felt that since he was a man, he was capable of doing it
himself.  I asked him whether being a woman meant I was incapable of doing
things that he could.  He did not really know how to answer this question,
fearing that he would make me even madder by saying yes.  I threatened his
masculinity by taking over his role as the man in our relationship.  It
especially hurt his ego when I did it in a public place, where others, in
particular my dad, witnessed me assuming the man’s role.
        After all of the arguing and criticism that I was facing, I explained to my
parents and Brett exactly why I had performed these actions.  I think that
they were both relieved and comforted by me telling them that this was all
for a paper I had to write.  Brett was still mad at me for putting him in
what he considered an awkward situation.  I think they all were happy to
know that I was aware that this was not the “proper” way for a woman to act.
I did not want my parents or my boyfriend to think that I was truly
changing so drastically away from the norm for women.  This was the way that
they were treating me.  I did not want them to look at me as masculine or
manly.  Our society and culture lays out such concrete gender dichotomies
that it is nearly impossible to do something that is considered the norm for
the opposite gender and to be accepted.  I felt the need to explain myself
to them so they could understand my actions and not be mad at me for not
fitting into the role of a woman that society has set the standard for.
        It took me a really long time to decide what gender atypical action to do
for this paper.  I think that it was such a hard decision for me because I
did not want to anything really drastic.  Our society and culture lays out
such concrete gender dichotomies that it is hard to cross into and play the
role of the opposite gender.  I did not want anyone to see me as strange or
out of the ordinary.  Even though I may not agree with the norm that society
creates for women, I still did not want to stray too far from it for fear of
what others, especially my family, would think of me.  Even this little act
of opening a door and pulling out a chair for a man proved to be very
challenging to me.  Society stresses men and women’s roles to be so separate
that I found it very hard to cross that line into the man’s typical role.
While opening the door and pulling out the chair for my boyfriend, I felt as
if I was breaking some kind of unspoken law for the female gender.  I did
not really want anyone to notice or see me acting in this way.  I was
embarrassed to be doing something atypical of my gender.  While I was
uncomfortable carrying out the actions, I was frustrated at the fact that I
had to justify my actions to everyone.  I guess I did not realize how
strongly my parents or boyfriend felt about the specific gender roles that
we hold for both men and women.  I felt as if I was doing something wrong
and Brett felt as if he was being treated as if he were helpless.  It is
interesting to me that for a woman to pull out a chair for a man is
unacceptable because it seems as if the man is dependent on the woman, but
it is expected for a woman to depend on a man.  Overall, thinking about and
actually performing this gender atypical activity has without doubt made me
consider the role that I am expected to play in the society in which we live
in.