Blog #6: Reflection – “To what extend does gender discrimination influence the world & people in our society?”

Hello guys, I am ending my round of research on gender discrimination with a short reflection by answering the following questions…

What challenges did you overcome throughout this inquiry project? How did you go about
overcoming these challenges?

While I was working throughout this inquiry project, I struggled a little bit with putting together the information I found because I had quite a bit of information to share since Gender inequality is a topic that is very important and knowing every little detail about it is interesting. For example, on my first round of research, it could be a long time to figure out how to organize my information and make it interesting to read because when I had everything together and when I was going over it I felt like it was too long for others to read and so I had to do some editing and more editing.”  However, I did overcome this challenge by combining the information I found throughout my research. I tried my best to keep the reading short and made it interesting by adding statistics, pictures and graphs.

How did this inquiry change the way you think?

By doing research on this topic, my knowledge of Gender discrimination has definitely expanded and has certainly changed the way I think about males and females because I realized that I was also following the stereotype that each gender was given by our society. for example, I always tried to change myself to match certain criteria of being a girl/female and analyzing those female stereotypes, made me think that from elementary to the beginning of high school I tried so hard to “fit in” and to do that I was following those “set” stereotypes and not being myself. This inquiry has completely changed my perspective of boys because I was also agreeing with some of the stereotypes of “how a man should be”. For example, when I was in middle school, I had several friends who had this “perfect dream boy” image and they would always be a copy of actors from different tv shows or movies. They would be described as strong, fearless, rich, etc… and now with this inquiry, I look back to the things we said and I realized how as young children we are encouraging the societies based stereotypes of females and males.

How did this investigation impact your future decisions?

As far as this inquiry will have a huge impact on my future decisions. From the day, I finished my first round of research, I decided to leave people’s judgements behind because I found out that judgements are what encourages low-self esteem which later on turns out to be a factor of gender discrimination. This investigation will also impact a personal decision of mine which is “future partner”. Like I said earlier we all have this one “perfect life partner” that matches your favourite character from a favourite tv show or movie you watch, but for me, I’ve realized that I would not want a partner who changes their personality or they are just to impress society or to keep a certain “image” and who will live in the pressure of maintaining that specific strong, emotionless image. In fact, I would want someone who is comfortable being who they are because if there’s one important thing I learned from my inquiry is “impressing others, and keeping up with the stereotypes will only take away your true, beautiful identity.”

What impact will this investigation have on others locally and/or globally?

As I mentioned before Gender discrimination is a very important topic that needs to be heard, talk about more and understand the effects of encouraging gender discrimination, not only for women but for men as well. I believe that this investigation definitely got others to reflect on their thoughts. With this investigation, many people found themselves to be related to some of the stereotypes that were on the researches and honestly I want quite surprise by the number of people who commented saying that they agree and could relate with the stereotypes that are set for women and men at such as young age. And when it came to the effects of gender discrimination and those stereotypes many people were surprised by the effects it can have on both males and females. For example, when I shared my round of research with close friends and family, they were shocked by the effects and diseases that males and females were affected by gender discrimination. and they even found some of the information new and for others, it helped them to better discover themselves because some them really cared about what other’s opinions and they try to live life according to society. Therefore, I believe that after this investigation might change the mentality/thinking of several people locally and/or globally, to put behind them the judgements of societies and live their lives as per their rule to live a better and healthy life with no stress, pressure and anxiety of being someone they are portrayed to be. This inquiry has also sent the message to focus on those past stereotypes of what a male and a female should be and as the year and generations are changing, mentalities should change and accept others for their unique personality.

I hope you were able to learn more about gender discrimination with my round of researches 🙂