Genderbread Man

Our assignment this week was to show and explain the Genderbread man v2.0 to someone that had never seen it before. I figured it would be relatively easy to find one of my friends who didn't know about it, but to my surprise it was more of a challenge than i had originally thought; out of the six people i asked, only one had never heard of the Genderbread man. I thought this was interesting because i feel like the topic of gender is rarely explored or discussed outside of gender studies or human services courses. The fact the the majority of people i asked were familiar with the Genderbread man is really great because it means that our peers are beginning to truley understand the complexity of gender and the more they know about it the more accepting they can be.

After numerous failed attempts I ended up explaining the Genderbread man to one of my roommates. She really liked the concept of the Genderbread man and liked how Killerman took an extremely difficult topic to understand and broke it down and simplified it. Another thing she liked was the sliding scales on the side because it allows for more differences and variability. Also, she was surprised by how little she actually knows about gender.

I think it was really beneficial for my roommate to see the Genderbread man and to understand gender because she plans on becoming a middle school teacher when she graduates. Understanding the complexity and different components of gender will be extremely valuable information to have while working with such a vulnerable and judgmental population. I was pleased at her responses to the Genderbread man because i think she was actually enjoying learning about gender and was taking away information that could help her with her future.