After the conclusion of our studies on the topic of gender norms, we were asked to violate a gender norm. First, it is important to know what a gender norm is. A gender norm is an action or trait that is attached to a certain gender. For our specific case, we chose to explore the relationship between yoga pants (tight pants) and women. Seeing as how these yoga pants are strongly liked to girls, who seem to wear them all the time, we chose to have a guy, Eric, in our group wear tight long johns, which are basically the same thing as yoga pants. The setup of this experiment was to have Eric and myself enter the gym, with Eric wearing the pants, and I would separate myself from Eric so that I could better observe the people inside the gym. Upon entering, many people gave strange looks towards Eric, but didn’t say anything. He proceeded to go to the squat rack to do some squats. Almost immediately, another guy walked up immediately to start small talk with Eric, stating that he was sort of confused about why he was wearing the tight pants. Later, as Eric was looking for more reactions, he walked to the drinking fountain and received another reaction. A guy saw Eric and did a double take since at first glance he saw a guy in yoga pants, then looked back once he realized what he had seen.
To summarize the reactions, it was rather quiet judgement. It seemed to be that most people did a double take or just looked confused by seeing a guy in yoga pants. Only one person verbally displayed their thoughts about the gender norm that we broke, and he didn’t seem as judgmental about it as would be expected. Afterwards, when talking to Eric, he said how he didn’t feel that uncomfortable about breaking the gender norm, but he did say that he wouldn’t do it again.
Lastly, there are a few conclusions about this gender norm and how it relates to sociology that can be made. Seeing how people reacted, I would venture to say that wearing tight pants isn’t as gender specific as one would imagine. My expectations were that Eric would go in the gym and would have people talking behind his back about him, but nothing like that happened. That being said, it is clear that it is not completely a gender neutral clothing choice, since there were still some people who were quite surprised when they saw Eric wear that. My personal belief is that someday men could wear tight spandex pants in some instances, especially in sports or the gym, but I have a hard time seeing it becoming acceptable in public use. Even though I don’t necessarily see these pants as entirely feminine, since I’ve seen plenty of men wear spandex before for legitimate reasons, I just think that it’ll never catch on as masculine.
Sociology 