diversity

       In my Cognition class we recently had to take Implicit Association Tests (IAT), which examine participants’ unconscious beliefs/attitudes by measuring their reaction time using word/image associations with categories. There are several association tests, some of which include Sexuality (measuring one’s preference toward gay people vs. straight people), Gender – Science (measuring associations between gender and preference for science vs. liberal arts), Age (young vs. old), and Race (light-skinned vs. dark-skinned).

After we talked about gender categories in class, I found myself thinking about this interesting speculation on the nature of computer programs used to store information about marriages.

Labeling and categorizing are often perceived with negative connotations. We've discussed in class and most of us agreed on keeping the labels, acknowledging that they are flawed. I believe that language plays a huge role in defining things and in helping to explain and elaborate on the meaning of these "labels." Although labeling could be seen as stereotyping and can be disadvantageous to society, without labels we cannot communicate the existence of something such as sexuality. I do believe that labels exist for a reason, and they can be good in that they make something "known" to us. The labels that we have are too few to include all the variations of sexuality because of the spectrum that we have.