Gender Roles and Restoration

Life is full of situations where you have to restore and repair things, yet other times, we are taught to throw them away and replace them completely. We live in a world where people want to throw everything away and get a newer version of what was lost. Your car crashes, you buy a new one. Your phone breaks, you throw it away and get the shinier, updated version. However, just as these objects break and tear, so do people. Over time, people wear and tear and eventually need healing or help. When it comes to emotions and that type of repair, it’s most likely to be the women who is tending to the situation. In Repair, Spelman discusses emotional reparation of humans as well as gender roles while discussing the connection between the two. Based on personal experiences, these two topics stood out to me the most.

“Repair wouldn’t be necessary if things never broke, never frayed, never splintered or fell to pieces— or if we didn’t care that they did.” (Spelman p.5). Unfortunately in life, things are bound to change, destroy and maybe even hurt. Just like a car though, as miles are put on them when battered, they need fixing. As the years go on, incidences occur and eventually people need healing as well, whether its emotional healing via friends and family or physical recovery. For example, my aunt just had surgical procedures done on her cheek bones. We as people, fear wearing and tearing. However, it is a natural process of life. Getting old is something everyone tries to avoid and something everyone is in denial about. We must change our view of growing old and must accept it and embrace it. Spelman discusses in later chapters that not everything broken, needs to be fixed. Depending on the person and what they need repaired, the way to fix their issue will vary since each person themselves has different ways of creating remedies for their pain. Along with healing comes growth and after your wounds close you gain new insight on life. You become better and stronger than you were before.  You can’t heal yourself just enough for working condition, you must heal and grow to live to yearn, to adventure and love. Many people find it easier to live to survive instead of living to live.

Being the youngest of three brothers and a sister, gender roles play a huge part of my life, as they do in the book. My father portrays the basic “man of the house” role, making the money, and stabilizing the family. While he contributes in his own way, my mother works hard to stabilize the house in a different way. My mother nourishes and emotionally heals my siblings and I whenever we are upset, frustrated or angry. She is the one we talk to about our feelings. “If central to domestic masculinity is the repair of material objects and the passing down of lessons about such repair, central to domestic femininity is the repair of persons and relationships.” (Spelman p.41). While men, like willie and my father, are busy working with their hands, most women are busy keeping the house in one piece emotionally and physically. Typically, women are stereotyped to be the emotional healers while men are known to deal with the physical aspects. However, a world full of anxiety and judgment is created because of the false perceptions we have on how men and women should behave. This, most times, causes fixing to be disrupted and unsuccessful.

So far, this book placed repair and restoration into a different perspective. I think whether a person or a tangible object is in need of repair, it should be restored not only back to its original state but furthermore improved. Also, I believe everything broken does not necessarily need to be fixed. When discussing emotional reparations, Spelman portrays the roles both genders play and how women tend to take on the emotional aspect more so than men.

It Takes Two

In chapters 4 and 5, Spelman shows the importance of an apology towards someone else, and to others. An apology ends a response and a reaction from the person being apologized to. It is something that has to be done and felt by both parties, however, a reparation is just a one sided action for one person. “An apology is an invitation to share in a ritual of repair, in a dance that takes more than one dancer” (Spelman p 85) In life, you will be hurt by your. This one time in particular, my best friend did something behind my back. I felt betrayed and shocked that she would ever do such a thing. I did not speak to her for a few weeks until she admitted what she had done, and apologized. Eventually, she owned up to it and we talked it out. I was still hurt. She felt horrible that our relationship was really never the same after what she had done. She often would reach out to me, apologizing again and again. As time went on, I forgave her and was able to move past it. It takes two people to fix a relationship and to make it back to what it used to be. Both people have to put in effort in order to work it out. However, just because someone apologies, doesn’t make it all okay. Peoples feelings are still hurt even if they have accepted the apology. An apology does not make it hurt any less.

Spelman portrays this in chapter 4, when the girl steals money. Instead of just being thrown in jail, they made her confront the situation and what she had done. She admitted it and was embarrassed when she had to actually say it out loud and talk about it. People are punished and just thrown in jail. There is no opportunity for them to mend as a person and focus on what they have done wrong and who they have hurt. I think they should be confronted with the situation. They should feel some sort of sorrow or remorse this way their action will never take place again. I believe everyone should be taught a lesson of what they have done wrong and shown who they have hurt, rather than just being thrown away into punishment. In our society, the offender often does time in jail for his crime but the victim is the one who will never be the same. After their time is up and all the law suits are over, the offender would be free in a sense. However, the pain and suffering caused by the offender could linger on for the rest of the victims life. Also, the community doesn’t care as much about the repairing process for the victim after all the commotion is over. They don’t realize that this person has to live with what has happened forever. I think our society should practice more of restorative justice. We have all lost track of what really matters. People mostly only care about the money that is being thrown around in law suits, but what about the emotional mending? We need to focus more on becoming better people and learning from our wrong doings rather than just being sent away. No reparation process goes on there. It would help the community as a whole and make others more cautions of peoples feelings.

Repair Essay

Julz Ventricelli

Life is full of situations where you have to restore and repair things, yet other times, we are taught to throw them away and replace them completely. We live in a world where people want to throw everything away and get a newer version of what was lost. Your car crashes, you buy a new one. Your phone breaks, you throw it away and get the shinier, updated version. However, just as these objects break and tear, so do people. Over time, people wear and tear and eventually need healing or help. When it comes to emotions and that type of repair, it’s most likely to be the women who is tending to the situation. In Repair, Spelman discusses emotional reparation of humans as well as gender roles while discussing the connection between the two. Based on personal experiences, these two topics stood out to me the most.

“Repair wouldn’t be necessary if things never broke, never frayed, never splintered or fell to pieces— or if we didn’t care that they did.” (Spelman p.5). Unfortunately in life, things are bound to change, destroy and maybe even hurt. Just like a car though, as miles are put on them when battered, they need fixing. As the years go on, incidences occur and eventually people need healing as well, whether its emotional healing via friends and family or physical recovery. Depending on the person and what they need repaired, the way to fix their issue will vary since each person themselves has different ways of creating remedies for their pain. Along with healing comes growth and after your wounds close you gain new insight on life. You become better and stronger than you were before.  You can’t heal yourself just enough for working condition, you must heal and grow to live to yearn, to adventure and love. Many people find it easier to live to survive instead of living to live.

Being the youngest of three brothers and a sister, gender roles play a huge part of my life, as they do in the book. My father portrays the basic “man of the house” role, making the money, and stabilizing the family. While he contributes in his own way, my mother works hard to stabilize the house in a different way. My mother nourishes and emotionally heals my siblings and I whenever we are upset, frustrated or angry. She is the one we talk to about our feelings. “If central to domestic masculinity is the repair of material objects and the passing down of lessons about such repair, central to domestic femininity is the repair of persons and relationships.” (Spelman p.41). While men, like willie and my father, are busy working with their hands, most women are busy keeping the house in one piece emotionally and physically. Typically, women are stereotyped to be the emotional healers while men are known to deal with the physical aspects.

So far, this book placed repair and restoration into a different perspective. I think whether a person or a tangible object is in need of repair, it should be restored not only back to its original state but furthermore improved. When discussing emotional reparations, Spelman portrays the roles both genders play and how women tend to take on the emotional aspect more so than men.