Homophobia and heterosexism has become a new phenomenon in our society given the diverse and acceptance of the differences in society identities of individuals. Bias related to sexual orientation, is called homophobia, which is indcative of any attitude, action, or institutional practice that subordinates or stereotype people because of their sexual orientation as lesbian, gay, or bisexual(Start Seeing Diversity, Laureate Education.Inc,2011),and homophobia is often used to keep people from moving outside their assigned gender roles. There is much controversy to accept legally those who want same sex marriages in some states. It is therefore a topic of interest because children in our society and classrooms come from homes with diverse forms of family make up. The media promotes the normal functioning of families with same sex orientation in programs like “Modern Families” on ABC as a way to diffuse homophobia in the society. Children books such as “My two aunts” and “We Are Who We Are!” by Deb Bixler, are books intended to fight heterosexism by educating young children. Bixler (2010) believes all children should be celebrated whether they are Gay, lesbian or straight and be validated for who they are and not vindicated upon.
Other movies such as the lifetime “ The truth about Jane”, directed by Lee Rose, shows a high-school girl's first sexual experience with another girl and, along with her first broken heart, she must deal with her mother's reaction to her revelation that she is a lesbian and with ostracism at school. This helps society to become more understanding and aware of the impact of anti- gay behavior to the young children.
I have read that some people believe early childhood centers should avoid the inclusion of books depicting gay or lesbian individuals such as same-sex partnered families. My stance is that of a neutrality position. I have problems with such inclusion because it only gives a wakeup call to young people that there is a lifestyle where a man and another man can love each other and my concerrn is children can internalized what they see and read about, consequently, some children may fantasize on these ideas. Early child hood is when we want children to know and accept the ways of good behavior and become citizens of tomorrow's society. On the other hand, knowing that some children do not have control over the kind of families they find themselves born or adopted into (Harro,2004), we need to help them feel belong and accepted to build their socio emotional development. In so doing, these innocent children would not get harassed and made fun of by their peers for having two moms or two dads ( Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010). Nevertheless, I do not condone for anyone to use micro- aggressions on children such as calling them “fags” or “gay” because that is demeaning and it is used most often to put down someone. The fact that some children pick these utterances and use them inadvertently, there is no doubt in my mind that books which can help children to learn friendly and kind use of words and refine their social approaches to each other is absolutely a good idea in the early childhood centers. Programs that ensure the inclusion of diversity, and combine the reflections of their families , use commercial materials like puzzles and utilize photographs of diverse families to use in making games and for children to learn about differences are applaudable resources ( Laureate Education,Inc,2011).
The fact that individuals have their opinion about gay or straightness in the society, if a parent or family member did not want anyone who is homosexual to be caring for or interacting with their child at school I would respect the parents’ view because the parents have the choice and values they want for their child. Some kids can want to emulate and teachers are supposed to be that mentoring factor as they interact with children. My ideas may sound obsolete but personally, I would honestly not want a gay or Lesbian teacher as a role model for my child because again I am not sure what ideas they would be passing on to my child. Nonetheless, when children grow up like in the case of Tina (Laureate, Education, Inc, 2011), and they want to become a Lesbian after being married and had children, then that becomes a personal decision.
I really feel this topic needs time and energy for society to internalized and take either individual or collective actions. I feel very discomfortable swallowing down the idea or notion of same sex orientation and hopefully through constant exposure and talk about the realization of these different society identities the fears would one day dissipate.
References
Bixler, D. (2010). “My two aunts” retrieved from
http://www.mytwoaunts.com/about_deb.html
Diversity, Development, and Learning: "Start seeing Diversity" (2011). Gender, Gender
Identity, and Sexual Orientation Laureate Education, Inc. Walden University Multimedia
Harro, B. (2010). The cycle of socialization. In M. Adams, W. Blumenfeld, C. Castaneda, H. W.
Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zuniga (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice
(Figure 6.1 on p. 46, 2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
1 comment:
Mary,
You make some excellent points in your posts. Children need to be exposed to diversity. As a result, it is beneficial to use books and movies to show them examples of diversity and to explain homosexuality.
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