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With nothing to her name, my mom made the trip to California from across the world in hopes of providing a better future for our family. Our family had spent quite a bit of time in Vietnam before immigrating here, so our backgrounds were deeply rooted in traditional Vietnamese culture. The social life and environment molded our perspective of gender while patriarchy and sexism existed throughout our culture. My mom took on the role of the main provider for our family and as mentioned by Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila, she believed that she could provide for us best if she earned a U.S wage. While working long hours here, she also provided for her family back home in Vietnam by occasionally sending money.

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On our kitchen counter, bills, government documents, and doctor appointments are scattered as my sister and I are under the expectation to take care of it all. The idea that women are providers exists almost universally throughout various cultures and my sister and I were no exception to this. It did not just end with the bills, but rather, it extends into other aspects of our lives, such as our family structure. Our dad and brother did not have the same expectations placed upon them and this can be observed with other men in our culture as well. Our cultural background has engrained gender injustice into our family and Bell Hooks reveals that the only way to end this existence of sexism is to transform the current systems in place. Although my sister and I cannot reshape Vietnamese culture as a whole, we may start small and change the existing ideologies in our family.

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When my brother was born, the patriarchy that casually existed within our culture was as prevalent as ever. In many Southeast Asian countries, there exists a preference for sons over daughters as it stems from social and economic constructs, as well as religious beliefs. As revealed by Lorber, some cultures live under a social stratification that maintains a gender order of men over women. Gender construction has had an impact on my family as soon as my brother was assigned to a sex category. Based on this assignment, he was treated differently from my sister and I. While we believe that it is natural and normal in our culture, this gender routine is formed through human interaction.

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The sort of treatment that my brother was given was reflected greatly in his grades. Growing up, my sister and I were held to a higher standard in our education because it was something that my family valued. Better education meant being able to provide and care for our family in the future. I observed that my brother was never under this type of pressure that my sister and I constantly faced from elementary to high school. It made me frustrated that he was able to get away with not putting effort into his school work and on some occasions, receiving low scores. I knew it was not my parent's fault because their culture has taught them to be more lenient and treat their sons differently. The system of patriarchy is shaped by contexts and as Allan G. Johnson claims, it is built from the cultural ideas that we have about gender. This system has caused my parents to value masculinity and their son the most.

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Despite knowing that gender is just a routine that our social institutions tries to make seem natural, there are numerous ways that I participate in gender throughout my day-to-day life. Even with gender being ascribed to us and there is nothing essential about femininity, I still find that it organizes how I live since I have routines like doing my makeup. While the systems that we have in place tries to make this concept seem as if biological and natural, we must be aware of how it affects our actions and the ideologies that we end up developing through these social systems.