Preview

Genderless Society, an Illusion or Reality

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1066 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Genderless Society, an Illusion or Reality
According to dictionary.com, gender is defined as "the condition of being female or male." Gender and Sexuality conjure up images of the male and female and the roles that each sex is supposed to fulfill. Of the two forces (Biology and Environment) influencing human development, especially gender, environment is more influential. Environment is basically the surrounding conditions or forces capable of influencing a person or any entity, for example, family, culture, peers, society, etc. In view of this, let us now think about these thought provoking questions. Do you believe there will ever come a day when boys will play with dolls and girls will play with trucks and no one will notice? Suppose parents could successfully forget about the gender of their child. What would be the advantages and the disadvantages of this? These are the questions that would be examined and answered in this article.
Reasonably, I opine that a day might come when boys will play with dolls and girls play with trucks, but people will take note of this, depending on their sense of perception and cultural backgrounds, and since neither this situation had ever occurred nor has it ever been that way from time being. Also, since the environment people live in could either positively or negatively contribute to their physical, spiritual, and social well being, so, gender should be seen more of a social structure that forms the basis for individuals ' norms which are anchored into the major societal organizations of our world today (Lorber 5). This might make one to ask again - Is a Genderless Society Attainable? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Apparently, parents, as a factor, have the power and the responsibilities to shape the gender identity of their wards from childhood. The socialization theory, in terms of gender, suggests that "children are taught to behave in a certain way according to their sex. Boys are taught to be masculine and girls to be feminine. For example, parents



Cited: PAGE Cohen, Jack and Ian, Stewart. "Our Genes Aren 't Us." Discover Apr. 94, Vol. 15 Issue 4, p78, 7p, 6c Gould, Lois. "X: A Fabulous Child 's Story." Mirror on America: Short Essays and Images from Popular Culture. 2nd Ed. Mims, J.T and Nollen, E.M. NY: Bedford/ST. Martin 's, 2003: 63-76. Lexico Publishing Group. "Gender." Dictionary.com. (2003) 23 Jan. 2005. . Lober, Judith. Paradoxes of Gender: sex role, gender identity, social theory, and feminist institutions. Yale UP: New Haven, 1994.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    According to Professor Heather Paxson (2006) of MIT, gender refers to the characteristics that differentiate men and women’s behaviors and it includes value judgments connected to masculinity and femininity and everything in between. However, as one learns more and more about gender, they question the necessity of gender and even its existence. In the piece X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Lois Gould (1978 or 2006) gender is portrayed as unimportant in order to have a good life; gender doesn’t matter. It shows that people have a need to categorize everything into groups because if they don’t, the unknown lingers in their minds and they fear it. People fear the unknown and the different, therefore they fear any gender other than the binary. But…

    • 161 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    To begin the piece, Devor takes an educational approach by giving us some background on why gender is important and how we learn about gender through our first few years of life. “Gender identities act as cognitive filtering devices guiding people to attend to and learn gender role behaviors appropriate to their statuses.” (Devor 527) As toddlers we learn the differences between female and male. When we begin to determine which gender we are, our attitudes and actions quickly take shape. According to Devor, children by the age of two usually understand that they are members of a gender grouping and can correctly identify other members of society. I was astonished to learn that our brain can process information like that at such a young age. Devor made me think back to my childhood and how I acted as a little kid. One memory stood out to me. A good friend of mine when I was about five or six years old was a girl and we always played with dolls. On a rainy day when Allison and I were playing inside, my good buddy Jack Scherer came over and secretly told me that playing with dolls was for girls. Knowing that he was a boy, I immediately stopped playing with dolls and converted to the “cool” thing to do, play Pokemon. Because of this experience, I quickly came to the conclusion that this statement of Devor’s is true.,…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the progress of understanding human development, the notion of gender has commonly been the topic of discussion and debate when attempting to understand its foundation. While it is argued to be a societal and cultural manifestation, others suggest it is a biological…

    • 208 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the article, Learning to be Gendered by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet, the effects of upbringing and society on a child’s gender identification are analyzed. Throughout the child’s development, they are often guided by the world around them into gender classifications. Society decides on norms for the child to follow based on their gender, then they would grow up to better match those ideals. This is important because if society pushes us towards these labels, it limited our ability to decide on what we perceive ourselves as without outside forces acting upon us. Some studies on the development of gender identities in children seem to show evidence towards the nurture side of gender. Often parents would speak to their child differently depending on their physical gender (740) or set their playing tendencies around gender specific toys (743). This sort of mentality seems to be heavily ingrained in our societal conventions, even those who attempt to do away with these patterns fail to overcome them.…

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are numerous influences that contribute to one’s gender identity. The way in which a person is raised, or nurture that one receives as a child can aid in the formation of gender identity. Parents typically vision their offspring as male or female, and as the boy or girl ages they tend to assume one or the other; masculine or feminine traits. Another possible important factor in the determination of gender identity is culture and the society in which one is a part of. Some may formulate their gender identity according to social norms and how they appear to…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gender Role Influence

    • 170 Words
    • 1 Page

    Children get familiar with gender roles through several ways, such as parents' behaviors, school education and media images, and then try to make adaption to those models society desires. Parents play the most influential role when young people developing the ideas about gender. For one things, parents having a plenty of time getting along with kids, children easily accept the silent transforming effect of the interaction, which changes itself into the basic concept viewing gender roles. For instance, even though there are advertisements showing a father makes dinner or looks after children, people tend to think of the picture mothers attending to her kids more naturally. On the other hand, opinions about…

    • 170 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “Gender”, as thought of by many people as simply being either “male” or “female”, refers to the social statuses and cultural attributes associated with being male or female (Soc 1001 Lecture 24, Social Construction of Sexuality) and not strictly the different biological distinction. “Sex” is the biological distinction which includes physical differences in the process of reproduction (Soc 1001 Lecture 22, The Social Construction of Gender). Gender is a process that starts even before a child is born and is constantly changed by societal demands and pressures of acting and dressing in one way or the other depending on what gender one defines…

    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Milk The Mouse Analysis

    • 1121 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Gender socialization, or the “patterns of behavior taught to children and adults in order to help them learn to behave as acceptable females or males,” begins strikingly early in life (Disch 1). While society as a whole is responsible for carrying out such socialization, many researchers believe that the strongest influence on gender role development seems to occur within the family setting, with parents passing on, both overtly and covertly, their own beliefs about gender (Witt 1). Because parents have the strongest initial influence and control over the early gender socialization their children undergo, they also have the potential to end the cycle of oppressive gender socialization most children experience from birth onward, and eventually…

    • 1121 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Growing up, my parents followed the stereotypical gender roles for my brother and I. From the moment we were born he was put in blue and I was put in pink. He was “a little ladies man” whereas I was “going to make some man real happy one day.” My parent’s didn’t mean any harm, they didn’t know any better because they were raised the same way; however, this type of thinking is what causes inequality between the genders in society. In Judith Lorber’s article The Social Construction of Gender she states, “Once a child’s gender is evident, others treat those in one gender differently from those in the other, and the children respond to the different treatment by feeling different and behaving differently” (Kirk 65). In simpler terms, since the…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Brain Plasticity

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sexual orientation and preference describes a person's romantic, emotional or sexual attraction to another person from the same or opposite sex. Since shaping the child's gender identity starts immediately after birth it is difficult to determine whether masculine or feminine behavioral traits result from biological or environmental factors. However, there are several theories about the development of gender in children such as social learning theory, cognitive developmental theory and gender schema theory. According to the social learning theory, children observe their parents, relatives and peers and copy their gender-appropriate behaviors. Family members emphasize gender-appropriate behaviors and condemn those that are not when children are at the most impressionable age. The second theory, cognitive developmental theory, maintains that children's understanding of gender develops together with their intellectual abilities. Young children may not understand until certain age that gender is a stable characteristic. This theory suggests that the development of gender identity is age-dependent, while according to the social learning theory it is a continuous process which starts from the first interactions of the child with the people around…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    More Human Than Human

    • 2325 Words
    • 10 Pages

    McKibben, Bill. "Designer Genes." Arlington Reader. Ed. Karen S. Henry. Boston: Bedford 's/St. Martin 's, 2008. Print.…

    • 2325 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Gender Neutrality

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Swedish society was the very first society to create gender neutrality . Then, other cultures also tried to adopt this approach also like English and African cultues Recently, the country of Sweden created a new entry in their National Encyclopedia. The new word "hen", which is referring to "people" rather than to a specific sex of people like male or female or boy and girl. Also University of Oklohama adapted gender free housing where students can live together as roommates but this step proved quite controversial. We can implement gender neutral environment by upbringing our kids into surroundings where girls and boys are equally channeled to do everything. For example if a…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Critical Analysis

    • 1419 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “Gender is rooted in social institutions and results in…the relationships between women and men…giving them differing…advantage and disadvantage within institutions” (Collins and Anderson 93). While, many can interpret this quote in many different it ways, the main point that the authors are trying make is that gender instantly sets on a certain path from birth. For Example, when listening to the short reading on what is for boys and what is for girls, the very basic baby toys and clothes are gendered. As a result, our environment becomes gender from the very minute we are born. Think about it, what is the first question asked when a baby is born? I’ll tell you. It is, “what is the gender”? Due to the suddenness of the question it is no reprise that boys get blue blankets and model airplanes, in contrast, with girls who get pink blankets and dolls. Therefore, it should be no surprise that as we get older the…

    • 1419 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Gender and Sitcom

    • 1699 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In order to distinguish what is meant by the term ‘gender’, it is important to initially define at a basic level what gender embodies in its meaning. So, when referring to gender, we refer to masculinity and femininity which is culturally determined. People do however confuse gender with ‘sex’ as sex is biologically determined (male/female) which can also be considered ‘fixed’ as opposed to the flexibility of gender.…

    • 1699 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Gender Equality Is a Myth

    • 3671 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Prelude This paper seeks to clarify the meaning of the terms that are associated with gender, and equally so to unpack the concept of gender itself and elucidate the fact that gender is not tantamount to women and that it does not exclusively cater for women issues and concerns but that of men as well. It is therefore the principal objective of this essay to demystify the ill informed perceptions and misconceptions that seem to equate gender to sex, and to further illustrate that the differences that continue to exist between men and women are only socially, and culturally fabricated. "The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie --deliberate, contrived and dishonest --- but the myth --persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." (John F. Kennedy) The usage of gender The general usage of the term gender is relatively new. It increasingly became a buzz word in the late 1960s and 1970s, and became fashionable in professional disciplines such as the social sciences. The ‘term came to serve a useful purpose in distinguishing those aspects of life that were more easily attributed or understood to be 1 of social rather than biological origin’ . Robert .A. LeVine reiterates that studies of women and gender have proliferated in the Anthropological literature since 1970, providing new opportunities to consider old problems in the light of more adequate data and to find more sophisticated ways of conceptualizing gender differences as social, 2 cultural and psychological phenomena . To work effectively on gender issues it is imperative that we clarify and understand the related concepts of gender, sex and equality. Gender is a concept which is widely used but…

    • 3671 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays