Geoffrey Doherty
Lana Oweidat
Women and Writing: 1:30
April 28th 2013
Women, College, and My Identity
How does one genuinely find their identity? Some
people say it takes their entire life to find their identity or it takes some
dramatic experience in their life that tears them down or builds them up to a
point where nothing is left but to grab hold and embrace their identity. For most
people including myself, it took a lot of soul searching and deep thought to
discover their identity “You find
your identity by disillusionment” (Discovering your identity). To find ones identity isn't an easy task and I
feel this is the way it should be ”If you don’t have
the understanding of how to develop an internal core development program, then
it’s very difficult to self-actualize who you are because you haven’t even
started”(How
to Find Your Own Identity and capitalize on It). I’m not going to tell you how to find your identity. Everybody is
different and finds themselves in different ways. I want to describe to you how
I found my identity in a household of all women. Living with all women
complicates how the gender codes were taught to me and how I internalized what
society says about women and men. This living situation allowed me to see how
society creates masculinity while giving me a glimpse in to the other side of
gender.
My Household
My
journey to discovering my self-identity begins at a young age. At the age
three, my parents got a divorce and from this point, I grew up in a household
of all women. The family members I include in this household that I feel
contributed to me finding my identity and building how I think, act, and who I
am today, is my Mother, Sister, Aunt, and grandmother. My father wasn’t
completely out of the picture, but he moved to Indiana later on in life and
made it difficult for him to be major influence in the development of my
masculinity and finding my identity. Growing up in this type of household was
very interesting because on one hand I had all the women in the family talking,
acting, and treating people one way. Then they would turn around and teach me
these ways, but adjust these acts so they could show me how a man would complete
these acts and how to act in the right gender codes. An example I can remember
is of my mother and sister telling me how to act in a different way. When I was
in elementary school, I saw how the girls were standing with their hands on
their hips and I mirrored this act, but once my mother and sister saw how I was
standing, they immediately told me to stop standing like that because “only
girls stand with their hands on their hips like that”
Since a male wasn’t present in the household for the
majority of the time, I had others in the house to take the males place and
make corrections when it was necessary to insure I was following the right
codes. During the time in my home, I wasn’t always corrected the way, I just
described. There were many times where I was corrected not based on gender
codes, but based on how men should treat women. During the time when all of us
lived in the same home, I can remember countless times when I would hear “if
you ever treat a woman like that ill smack you myself”. This type of comment
usually came after seeing another man treat a woman in a way that wasn’t seen
as correct by my mother or sister. The advice and comments were not always that
blunt. Some times after my sister would have a rough argument with her boyfriend,
she would tell me what he did as well as what he did wrong. Of course she was
biased in what she told me, but I didn’t ignore what she said instead I took
what I thought was truthful and kept that advice for future reference for when I
communicating with girls or women. This upbringing was a major part of shaping
how I act and shaping my identity into what it is now. This is the case because
if it wasn’t for my mother or sister telling me how women wanted to be treated
or better yet how they should be treated I would have had a hard time figuring
out how to talk and treat the opposite gender.
Living in a household of all women had a big part
to do with how I act today because of the huge influence and persuasion they
had on me over the years. I think that if I had grown up in a home where I had
a male influence around all the time I would be a different person. I think I
would be a different person because instead of my mother, sister, aunt, and
grandmother telling me how to think about women I would have a male telling me
what he thought. Even though my fathers’ view of women isn't a bad one, in fact,
he is a very kind person. I feel having a male present would change me because
the influence would be coming from a male and not a woman and my views and how
I think about women would be different because we are males and not females and
there is no honest way to know exactly what we are talking about.
The take over
Not only has my mother, aunt, sister, and
grandmother shaped how I think and act in a big way they have had a great
influence on my competitive side. Many think that you need a male influence to
push you to the point of breaking or motivating you to push yourself to be the
best you can be in either sports or anything else in life. The people that think
this way are completely wrong. Since my father wasn’t there to push me to my
limits my mother, sister, and aunt did. My mother would send me to the best
soccer camps the Midwest had to offer. She would drive my to all my games and
practices. She would even motivate me anytime I would step foot onto the field.
My mother supported me through good and bad games. My sister on the other hand
was a great soccer player and went on to play the University of North Carolina.
When my sister had the chance she would watch my games and after the game no
matter if I did good or bad she would tell me what I did right and wrong, then
try to teach me what I can do to fix the things I need to get better at or tell
me how to be proficient in parts of the game I was already good at. My aunt and
grandmother also played a role in my competitive side by showing support. I can
recall many games my grandmother and aunt showed up and watch me play club and
high school soccer. With my sister
teaching me how to get better, my mother motivating and helping in every
aspect, and my grandmother and aunt showing up to watch I can contribute all my
soccer success to them. After all the years of practicing and playing, I had
the chance to play for the Columbus Crew Soccer Academy. This academy was used
to develop players and prepare them for college and professional soccer.
Unfortunately, after nineteen years of soccer I decided that I was burnt out
and I couldn’t play anymore. Even though I decided not to play soccer anymore,
I still have to dedicate my accomplishments to those I lived with. They pushed
me to do my best and because of this, I have learned many life lessons and
created an identity that works hard.
College
With
my mother and sister being one of the most important influences of finding my
identity I can’t leave out the second biggest thing that made me grasp who I
am. This big experience came four years ago when I shut the door to my mom’s
car and watched her drive away, then turned to my new dorm with fear and
excitement running through my body. I am very privileged to have this
experience because some kids don’t get to come to college and college has
changed my entire life. From my freshman year to my senior year I have
discovered new things about myself I would have never known if it wasn’t for
college. All the lessons my family had taught me in the past were very helpful,
but I found I couldn’t rely on them for everything and I needed to figure
things out for myself. Living in the dorms, my first two years shaped my
identity by making me build new relationship with both men and women. Building
these relationships really changed who I was because in the past, I new
everybody in my town, now I was gaining valuable life skills that I would use
in my career. If I were never forced to break out of my shell and build
relationships with these people, I would never really discover whom I am. I
discovered I am a person that loves to talk to anybody and everybody about any
topic. I also discovered who I am through college by really figuring out what I
like and dislike. “your
boundary is your preferences or rules you have about things you like” (Who am I?
Self Identity – Building Personal Character). In
high school, everybody did the same thing because we all want to avoid being an
outcast yet in college I was allowed to figure out for myself what I liked “When we find ourselves on a strange campus
with new environmental challenges without familiar faces for support, we may,
for the first time, start questioning ourselves, more critically than we ever
have before. I believe we can navigate through this challenge easier if we have
a firm grasp on what makes us happy, what stresses us out, and what our passion
is” (Finding your Inner Self).
This finding of what I liked helped shape my identity because now I am a few
weeks away from graduation and I know exactly where I want to go with my life
and how I want to live it. If I never found what I truly liked in life and
about myself, I never would be where I am now in life and this would cause more
difficulties, than one already has at this time of transition.
Not only has these experiences shaped my identity;
they have given me some understanding to the opposite gender. I cannot say that
I understand the opposite gender completely because no one of the opposite
gender can understand someone that is completely different from them because
they don’t go through the same issues, experiences, and conversations the
opposite gender goes through. How I grew up, I was given an opportunity to see
how women experience gender codes and how they react to them. I also go the
opportunity to see how society creates masculinity then turn around and be
corrected by women that made me see masculinity for what it is. Going to
college and learning what I like and need in my life also helped shaped my
identity. I have to give credit to all of these experiences and lessons for
shaping who I am, the way I think, how I act, and where I am going in my life.
Work cited
Ticknor, Art. "Discovering Your Identity." Discovering
Your Identity. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. http://www.selfdiscoveryportal.com/arIdentity.htm
Dobson, Andrew. "What Is Self Identity? Understand
the Question "Who Am I"?" Mindfit Hypnosis and Subliminal
Message MP3 Downloads. N.p., 23 Feb. 2013. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. http://www.mindfithypnosis.com/who-am-i-self-identity
Celes. "Finding Your Inner Self." Finding
Your Inner Self. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. http://personalexcellence.co/blog/finding-your-inner-self
Schawbel, Dan. "How to Find Your Own Identity and
Capitalize on It." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2012/09/26/how-to-find-your-own-identity-and-capitalize-on-it
Park, Juan. "THE BIG STORY." CAMPUSPEAK.
N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. http://www.campuspeak.com/news/finding-your-self-identity-in-college
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