Getting Alittle Heated

I find myself getting very defensive when I am reading the passage about Language and Silence. Getting defensive is something that is almost foreign to me because I am one of those people who avoids discussions or arguments about “the tough stuff” at all costs. I was reading along, agreeing with some of the things the author stated, then the next thing I know, I want to throw my book down and give up. All those times of quietly dodging the bullet of these subjects is back to bite me in the butt.
I am very traditional in my beliefs about gender roles. The article talks about a gendered world where we cannot have a conversation about an individual without knowing his or her gender. I personally do not see a problem with this. It is an obvious fact that man and woman were created differently, so what is the problem with distinguishing them? Reading this reminded me of the second article that talked about a woman’s dependency on man. The writings made it seems like it was such a horrible thing to be a woman and have generalizations made about us that we are so dependent on man. I cannot figure out why this is portrayed as being so horrible. I realize that women can function without men in our lives and be just as successful; however we still have feelings and emotions. As I was reading the article I began to feel guilty for enjoying being dependant on a man. I do not find that being dependent makes me deprived of my own life, but I find it to be something that is fulfilling on the inside. The article continues and discusses the gender power system. It seemed to talk down to the titles given to male and female that label them unequal. The book used the examples; king and queen, and man and wife. The book says that no matter what the male has the power head. I like to think of it not as an inequality between male and female, but that the two genders complement each other.
As I continued reading, I found myself being confused by the use term privilege. It seemed the author used it in a negative term that just allows certain people to look down on others. She did say that there really are no privileged or unprivileged people, because everybody is privileged in some ways and not in others. If this is the case, then why can we not look past the who is better than who, and just be appreciative of the blessings that have been bestowed upon our own lives?
Like I said, I usually avoid the topics of race, sex, and inequality. I believe this is mainly because I have never been submerged in a situation to get comfortable with these things. Just because I have grown up in a predominantly “white” lifestyle, does not mean that I do not have friends of different races. I have never felt so “white” in my entire life until I read the last few paragraphs of Wildman’s writings. She made me feel guilty for who I am, when on a regular basis I do not cognitively separate myself from others as she does in the passage. Yes, some of the things she said are true about our “pretty white lives”. I believe I function in this world because I do not dwell on those ideas daily. Naturally, sometimes I notice the separation, however if we all dwelled on the head count of white and colored in every moment of our lives, the world would be more dysfunctional than it already seems to be.
I contribute my defensive feelings to the sheltered life I have had thus far. Disagreeing with people (or authors) is something I am just not comfortable with. I am a people pleaser; therefore this is really hard for me. I would say it is probably about time I start standing up for myself.