True Life: I am Caitlin

Being from a small town in Virginia and then moving to the suburbs of Washington, DC was quite the culture shock, even for a young girl. If there's one thing that gives you a different perspective on life, it's moving far away from where you came from. Seeing the difference in how people operate, how people treat each other, and experiencing the increased speed of life that being near the city entails have given me excellent insight and prompted me to become an American Studies minor. My interests include a great passion for music, an undying desire to make the best out of every situation, and a need to keep an active body and mind. Cultural interactions and the impact location has had on them are very interesting to me. The most interesting topic, I have found, is the social construct of gender. While sex is a biological distinction between a man and a woman, gender is socially constructed and culturally relative.  Deciding whether a certain action or thought process is masculine or feminine is intriguing and changes over time. How women are "expected" to behave and what is thought of as "lady-like" also change over time and space. Different movements and revolutions have put what it actually means to be a woman into question. The relationship between women and eating I found to be especially fascinating. After reading "Hunger as Ideology" by Susan Bordo, I realized many attitudes that I even have towards eating and how they are socially impacted. Usually when reading different articles for school, I tend to procrastinate or become disinterested. Being the self-interested American that I am, the second I realize I am impacted by some phenomena I must know more about it.