Sandman

 When we were assigned to read the comic book Sandman, I was very surprised. The reason for this is because I always perceived comic books to be directed to little kids. For example, all of the X-men and Superman comics, to my knowledge, are mostly read by young teens. Anyways, when I first started reading Sandman I was very confused. This was the first comic book I have ever read so I didn't have any background on how to read it. When reading The Sand/wo/man: The Unstable Worlds of Gender in Neil Gaiman's Sandman Series, it finally cleared up the smoke that was going on in my head because it helped me understand what Neil Gaiman was trying to present in his comic. What Booth and Brisbane are trying to portray in this essay is the importance of gender roles and how both sexes are supposed to act. They are saying that if you are a man you are expected to act a certain way. In my experience, men are supposed to be aggressive, hot headed, physical, athletic and boorish. Women are expected to be more thoughtful, gentle, loving and emotional. Society puts the label on us on what we are the second we are born. "The idea that reproductive organs should be the basic distinction... Consequently, biological distinctions between male and female become instrumental in the classification and delineation of difference..."(24). This quote, from the critical text, is trying to say that we only define ourselves because of our organs. But can there be a different way to distinguish whether we are male or female? This is one of the most controversial social issues in society today. There is the whole issue with transgender and what label are they. As a society, we love to label things and since its not part of the norm we have problems with the whole transgender issue. In my opinion, its whatever you feel like inside makes you what you are. If you are a male, but inside you feel like you are a female, then you have to go with your feelings and not care about what other people think. Its all about making yourself happy and the only way to accomplish that is to be satisfied with who you are.