The Click: Portfolio Review
Since July 2020 I have been working on creating an AP Drawing portfolio that entails a sustained investigation of a concentration of choice. I chose to explore the absurdity of societally implemented gender conformity. While it has been a new and often stressful challenge for me to have to make my pieces convey a comprehensible message, I have had a lot of fun putting into images my frustrations concerning not only patriarchal societal values but the gender roles constricting growth of individual identity for both males and females. I attempted to capture how gender roles harm those from different walks of life constrict exploration of self-identity in children who are boxed into the limitations that come with their assigned gender. Children are pushed to pursue gender-conforming roles in terms of how they present themselves to society—ranging from their career to family dynamics. With more experience on how gender roles affect children as being a high schooler, my portfolio was guided by how children are told to conform to their gender assigned identity at a young age and how it follows them into adulthood creating a disparity in career options, salary, and how society has deemed it appropriate for them to present themselves in order not to anger the masses.
– Ayesha Ashraf
