My New Perspectives On Gender Essay

My New Perspective on Gender After reading and pondering on the question of what gender is, my belief is that gender determines what is expected, allowed, and valued in a “man” or “woman.” But now in hindsight, I would have to say that I am so confused about “what gender is.” There are a myriad of viewpoints or ideas about gender and to be honest I can relate to most of them, but I do not necessarily agree with all the perspectives that I have read. I have learned that before you make a stand about something, you should have done some serious research. I stated in my Think Piece that the definition of gender depends on whose perspective you get it from, which I still believe but Webster’s states that gender is the fact or condition of being a male or a female human being, esp. with regard to how this affects or determines a person’s self-image, social status, goals, etc. I believe that men can be better nurtures than some women and they can be just as emotional. And on the flip side of the coin, some women are just as aggressive, domineering, and as physically strong as men; like they have had an overdose of testosterone. The feminist perspective, that gender is socially created, is another thing that I’m
on the fence about. I say that because I think that there is a little truth in the adage you are what you live. I will give you a scenario of what I mean; a girl child is adopted into a home where there is nothing but straight males, no females around to teach or train this girl about the things that girls need to know like how to walk, talk, and sit appropriately. What is going to happen to her prior to going to school? A man cannot teach a girl how to be a woman and vice versa. Or like the story about the boy who was raised in the jungle by a den of wolves, he acted just like the wolves because that is all he knew. How can a wolf teach a boy how to be a boy? It is impossible, and that is why I say that the adage “You are what you live does have a ring of truth to it.” So when it is said that gender is socially created, I guess that it means that one’s environment plays a part in their psychosocial development. My colleague, Kaitlin states in her paper, “While gender is determined by society, sex is not.
Sex is clearly something we are stuck with. Gender is something we stick ourselves with.” I am inclined to agree with her about us being stuck with whatever sex that genetics decided we would be. But there again is that gender thing; Kaitlin says that “we stick ourselves with our gender.” The feminist perspective begins with the assumption that gender is socially created, rather than determined. It is generated within the context of a particular social and economic structure. They view gender, in part, as a set of social expectations that is transmitted through a process of social learning. Are all of the above one and the
same? Another one of my colleagues, Eric, stated in his paper that “gender describes the person of each sex and their respected roles.” Ironically, I can understand his perspective. Eric says that “women were seen to have a femininity gender while the men had a masculinity gender.” He also stated that “society has been organized so that the men are gentlemen and take care of the women as well as the women take care of the men.” Trying to dissect the difference in sex and gender is painstaking to say the lease, beyond the obvious physical differences, finding the analogy between the two is confusing. I guess that the fair statement in regards to the topic at hand is that gender is the social attributes associated with being male or female and the relationship between the two. However I do believe that as women have moved into more diverse roles and have entered occupations that were once considered masculine, and men have moved into roles that were considered feminine, there is less gender stereotyping of “traits” even though both are expected to perform in their perspective roles. From a feminist perspective, gender is considered as an individual attribute and it is contended that gender should be a primary consideration in attempts to understand the differences in sex and gender. Gender is an organizing principle and is institutionalized by processes through which people assume “masculine” and “feminine” to be natural.