Sociological Perspectives

Since I grew up in Argentina, I was socialized under the Catholic religion. Nonetheless, I was lucky to learn from different perspectives, mainly because I traveled and made friends everywhere. I have friends from almost every religion and I have visited and learned from almost each one of them. However, I never observed the intersection of gender and religion until I took my first class in college. There, I discovering that what we learn in our family and in our social groups (like church) influence the life choices of women. This week, I felt identified with Kimmel's (2013) statements, such as "God wants you to have sex-as long as you are married"(p.229). I remembered that this was a constant teaching at home and in my school. I used to be very engaged in religion, teaching children the same that I learned with the nuns.

Once I took my first sociology class, I really understood that any social institution exerts a great influence in us, I also understood the concept of "sexual power"(Kimmel, 213, p.228). Mainly, how religions (not only the Catholic) apply different meanings to this concept in order to control the way people behave in society. Additionally, as illustrated by Rosine Perelberg, religion teach us how "the respective positions from which men and women perceive themselves"(as cited in Kimmel, 2013, p.229). It is true, I never questioned why I had to follow the norms because I wanted to conform to the beliefs of my family and