When it comes to gender and sexuality, I think it's fair to say that the two don't necessarily go together hand in hand. Today, there are many types of gender and gender roles/associations. It's crazy that we are asked to categorize ourselves strictly as male/female and a certain ethnicity (from a short list) as well when let's say you're applying for a job or school. The options or restricting. It's sad that we immediately look for differences among each other rather than try and associate with one another through similarities.
One thing that really bothered me when applying for colleges, including taking standardized tests, was stating what ethnicity I was. As far as stereotypes are concerned, Asians I guess are known to perform the highest in the math and science sections of the SATs/ACTs. That was not the case for me! Another thing that bothers me about applying for colleges, is when colleges boast about how many students from different states or countries they have, rather than accepting students from in state or nearby who are probably more qualified. Gender and ethnicity ratios and statistics are taken too seriously for the sake of a college's reputation.
Going back to gender and sexuality, in archaeological terms, how can we categorize or assume what is being displayed? We can't really relate what we know today to ancient times. There's much more than just male/female, as proven through social and material culture.
Something that has intrigued me and continues to intrigue me is when you just look at a person's face, sometimes, it's hard to tell what gender is being displayed. We can't assume. There was a photography project displayed in downtown Providence last summer that had a bunch of black and white photographs of people's faces. As a viewer, for me, it was challenging and provocative at the same time - something to really think about...
"The Gender Project is a photo project challenging our society's view and need for gender identification. It's purpose is to release us of the need to identify gender as we learned it and open our minds a little to the fact that gender is just another social construction. It has no actual connection to being male or female nor is it a reflection of who you may be. Really, it is an actual social construct. "
here's the facebook link about the project: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Gender-Project-at-Face-Value/73161708273
