Social Class, Gender, and Sexual Relations

The way that my parents taught me to understand my social class, is the way that many others of the middle class were taught also. My parents only liked to refer to our economical status as "comfortable". Being a Hispanic family originating from Cuba, and coming to the United States and actually having something to show for was a big step forward. That's part in reason why my parents liked to say that weren't well off but we were comfortable because we had food on the table and a roof over our heads. In today's society the media portrays everyone who doesn't have millions, to be poor. The media makes us unconsciously want to buy things to make others believe that we have a lot of money, partly by the use of subliminal messages. In some cases people fall into big trouble with debt because of this. Sometimes people try to portray themselves as having a massive amount of money and showing it off in the form of material objects like clothing, cars, and houses. I think that most people that tend to do these things are strongly influenced by the media and the things that the media makes us think that we need to have in order to be considered part of a higher social class. I think that the way that my family explained my gender and the things that women are suppose to be even as a young age. Having an older brother which was older than by 12 years, there was always a rebellion in my household. I wanted to have the same rights and privileges that he did, but I didn’t understand that I was not of the age and also I was a female. My parent constantly told me that women shouldn’t be out at a certain time at night because it would give other’s the wrong idea. The answer that my parents gave me the most often was their particular favorite for their reasoning for me not being able to go out or do something that my brother did “you’re a girl and he’s a boy”. I think that parents in today’s day and age teach their children those important gender differences to their children even starting at young age. My mother used to make me help her in the kitchen and always wanting me to be sitting nearby when she was writing bills or on the phone with the mortgage company because she always said that she wanted me to know what I needed to know as a woman. My parents didn’t like to openly discuss sexual relations with me when I was a child, so most of things that I learned about that at a young age did come from the media or my friends. As I got older my parents simply explained to me the causes and effects of certain actions, even though I was well aware of that long ago.