Blog 5

Alex Uzunoff

Service Analysis #5

I unfortunately spent the last few days in bed very sick and unable to see my Tunbridge first grade class this week. However, while reading the first two acts of Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, I was surprised how its themes connected to my previous weeks of service, as well as my daily life.

Gender roles and our identity are topics that we are exposed to every single day, whether it be with ourselves or through observing others. When it comes to gender roles, I can specifically remember being younger and being told by the boys in my second grade class that it was “weird” that I liked the “girls’ games” as well as the “boys’ games.” It almost seemed like we were all programmed to know that the color pink, dolls, and playing ‘house’ went to females as action figures and play fighting went to boys. This separation of what genders are supposed to like what was not us intentionally grouping ourselves. We didn’t know we were defining ourselves and we didn’t know why...it’s just kind of what we knew.

I can see the same types of gender roles with the first graders at Tunbridge. During the hours that I come volunteer, the students have their quiet reading time, where they can sit anywhere in the class room and read books of their choice. I’ve observed that the girls of the class, with the exception of those who choose to sit alone or have to work with Mrs. Grimm, tend to sit together on the carpet and form a “wall” with their book folders. They are not intentionally trying to not include the boys in the class, and the boys in the class are too busy forming their own groups to worry about what the girls are doing. When you are this young, I think it is more common for children to gravitate their friendships towards those similar to them—in this case gender wise.

While reading Twelfth Night, I continued to see these themes of gender and what it really means/how much it connects to who we are. In the play, Viola dresses as a male, Cesario, in order to get chance to work for Orsino and hopefully win the love of Olivia. Interestingly enough, Olivia ends up falling for “Cesario.” Shakespeare brings the idea of breaking gender roles into this play by having a female dress up and pretend to be male. In the times that Shakespeare wrote this play, the idea of same sex relationships and acting as a gender different than what you are was probably not easily acceptable. It made me think about how much our gender really plays a role in our identity and who we are as a person, contrary to the way we split each other up as kids. It also makes me wonder if Olivia will/would feel differently about Cesario after finding out his true identity. I am interested to keep examining these gender roles in the play, and connecting them to my service.