. Gender norms have been prevalent in society for centuries, and they continue to be a hugely influential part of our world today. As soon as we’re born, we’re told that we’re either a boy or a girl, and are expected to act a certain way. Many say that societal pressure is intense, and school is the perfect place for developing teens to ferment on huge topics and be confused generally together. I interviewed fellow Westfield High students on the different gender expectations in society to discuss what our school thinks on the issue. Guys and girls are, of course, innately different, but we are all people. Just how different are we at the core?
. Mary Kang, 10, says vaguely, “Guys are different because of chromosomes, and they act different too.”
. Hunter Knox, 10, adds, “I think boys take everything very literal. We don’t think about stuff complicated, we take it straight on.”
. Meher Panesar, 10, says, “Guys are easy to understand, girls are a little more complicated when it comes to feelings. You never know what they’re annoyed about, you know?”
. The consensus so far is that girls are a little more complicated than guys, but upon asking about mindsets, things get a little more complex.
. After asking Vini Mandavilla, 10, about her thoughts on guys, she states, “I’m using stupid stereotypes, but most guys I meet kind of fit the image of a man: masculinity and the cologne and all that. I literally die everytime I walk in the halls, it’s so strong. There’s some guys that are nice, like Aditya,” she motions to the boy she’s sitting beside, “but the majority of this school, no.”
. Khadeeja Rafiq, 10, adds on, “In high school, I feel like most or at least half of the guys, they’re mentally more immature than the girls.”
. Hia Banerjee, 10, jests, “Guys have the emotional intelligence of a water bottle. Girls are much more self aware.”
. On a less humorous note, these different perspectives also come with unique problems that we’re forced to face.
Mary says more seriously, “I think people expect girls to do better in studying. Girls have to work harder to get into stuff, so they just have to be studying harder”. She also says, “The emotion guys show is anger.”
. Meher sighs, “I feel like girls have more stress because they have to go through constant pressure on how to fix their bodies for men. There’s a lot of standard and a lot more pressure.”
. Hia says, “I feel like girls have more physical standards. Social media can be so toxic but so helpful at the same time; there’s so much hate and support.”
. Vini says, “Your personality doesn’t determine your gender, no matter how I act, I’m a girl”.
. Alina Rashid, 11, says, “I feel like men can do a lot of the same things as women, and they’ll get praised for them, but the woman doesn’t”.
Willa Cox, 10, says, “I mean, a man can walk alone at night and so it’s different obviously, like they are different, but I’d say that they’re different in a lot of ways.”
. That’s a lot that girls have to deal with. What are the boys struggling with? Tom Dirga, 10, says, “I feel like a lot of guys my age, they gravitate towards individuals like Andrew Tate because they feel like they have nowhere else to go because they’re lonely. They look to this big guy with a lot of houses and cars who tells you to do all this ‘self improvement’ when in reality he’s just teaching them to hate women”.
Willa Cox, 10, says grimly, “I feel like it’s really sad that a lot of men feel that they can’t express feelings in order to be more masculine”.
Tom adds, “Men’s issues, they’re not as bad. We do have things that we deal with, a lot of male influencers tell you to just thug it out, they say to just go to the gym and you’ll feel better. Your body will be all strong and fit, but your mind won’t be.”
. Hia says, “Guys have a lot of toxic masculinity I feel like, and will always gravitate towards what their friends do, like I’ve met a lot of sweet guys but then their friends are terrible so then they turn into awful people.”
. Khadeeja says sadly, “I feel like the pressures of being a man are different from the pressures of being a girl. I feel like they usually don’t talk about mental health with their friends.”
. Aditya Mayan, 10, states factually, “As a guy, the world is okay. It’s not the best, it could definitely be better, it’s okay”.
. Hia laughs, “I think the world is a terrible place, personally.”
. All of these expectations are really hard to deal with. Society tells women how to look and tells men how to act, and there’s definitely a lot of pressure. Just how much of this is society’s fault, and what can we fix?
. Anya Varghese, 10, says, “Because of our society, there are things girls do which would be considered very different if a guy did it, and there are things guys would do which would be considered very different if a girl did it.”
. Vini adds heatedly, “Gender norms shouldn’t exist, you should be whoever you want to be, why do you need a set of laws to determine your gender?”
. Aditya says, “I don’t care about gender norms. You can be whatever you want.”
. Alina says, “I think gender norms are stupid. I think people should just be allowed to do whatever and it shouldn’t matter about your gender.”
. One girl, who asked for her name to be omitted, said wisely, “I think that gender norms are actually really unnecessary, because no matter what, people should dress how they feel, people should be comfortable in they own skin, at the end of the day I go home and look at myself in the mirror and not you. Gender norms are constantly changing, especially in the past couple of years. They’re becoming less present in society.”
. Catie Cowsil, 10, breaks the seriousness by saying, “I dress like a homeless little boy, I don’t care.”
. Laughing, Willa summarizes for us, “Guys are silly goofy, girls are silly goofy. We all have different struggles that are pushed on us due to society.”
. Social pressures are intense, especially in the realm of teens, but it seems like mindsets are changing. Westfield high is supportive, and its students are lovely.
