Not knowing the definition of terms has caused the creation of stigmas and stereotypes that reveal more than just the obvious logical fallacy in the mindset of the modern global society. Gender is a simple concept to understand if it is considered without previous influence from respective cultures. Gender is defined by The Gender Book as “Part of a person’s identity. Specific attributes can be gendered like behavior, voice, clothing, haircut, and social roles…We get messages about what it means to be masculine or feminine from our society. These change over…
When we have been exposed to a specific role of gender all our lives, it is difficult to accept different scenarios. A different scenario would be when society would not be able to accept a powerful and non-emotional woman, or a very sensitive man. An example of this is children are educated of what roles a man and female play. In Disney movies, such as Aladdin, children are shown roles of women and men. A young girl is given to a man just to own more land. It shows society what role a man has over a woman. Anna Quindlen author of a short essay “Gay” and Gillianne N. Duncan author of “Why Do We Hate Our Bodies?” are examples of how the norms of society shape and make people judge others only because they are different. In “Gay,” Quindlen tells a story about her friend’s friend, about how a family would rather lie about the sexual orientation of their dead son, than tell the truth and be judged…
In the article “The Socially Constructed Body,” Judith Lorber explains insights from Feminist theory that discuss how men and women in a society transform their own bodies to look a particular way in order to achieve the physical image that complies with what society believes is properly “masculine” or “feminine.” She illustrates how these “normal” gender images are not common because they are biologically true, but because society has constructed them. Though some aspects are obviously biological, such as a woman having larger hips, the idea that those hips are necessary to be a sexy woman is socially constructed. Se is trying to convince her readers to question who has created the expectations of gender and why, and to combat the stereotypes…
This chapter did shed light on the social constructs of gender. I was able to realize this when reading about Madonna she was such a character in the 1980’s, her overt displays of female sexuality elicited condemnation from social conservatives and many times put her in the center of culture wars over this time. Not everyone saw her, as a bad image though, there was also those who applauded its portrait of a sexually empowered…
In today’s society, people tend to group one and an another into different categories according to their own social identity. An individual’s gender identity refers to which group where one belongs to. The attributes assigned to both males and females are different because of gender differences. In “Becoming members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender” by Aaron Devor, the author argues that factors such as beliefs and behaviors help differentiate the sexual identity of a person. In addition, Devor views sex as an instrument of determining gender. It is believed that there are only two types of sexes that exist. Which are male and female. On the other hand, “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother tries to forces prescribe behavior,…
Throughout the decades, human beings from a small age start learning the characteristics of a male and female. Whether it is from media, clothing and to the way one is brought up, society has similar views of what it means to be a man or a women. Men are envisioned to be strong, aggressive, successful, and someone who avoids feminine characteristics. Women are perceived to be submissive, delicate, passive, dependent, vulnerable, having the ability to care for children and at times worthless. These views of gender identity have been engraved in humanities minds due to the amount of exposure to television, advertisements and the way one is raised in their households.…
The traditional perspective is helpful in analyzing the YouTube video, Wanna Have Sex? (Consent 101), by Laci Green. Explanation and evaluation are key concepts when approaching artifacts using the traditional perspective. The five components within this method are: recreating the context, identifying the audience, describing the source, analyzing the message, and evaluating the discourse. These components are significant to understand different aspects of the message as well as the level of rhetoric of the YouTube video. Additionally these concepts help break down the video Green (2014) is communicating to unpack the main idea within her message to the audience.…
Opening up the ideology of gender roles, there are many things that determine how we associate gender and sex with peoples’ identities. The article, “The Context of Current Content Analysis of Gender Roles: An Introduction to a Special Issue” written by Rudy Rena, Lucy Popova, and Daniel Linz, demonstrates the idea of symbols representing our sex and gender and are explained by bringing up social…
Do our concepts of gender and sex contribute to the ways we embrace gender and sex in diversity?…
When a new child is born into this world, the first thing that the parents learn is the sex of their new baby. From a very young age, you are either classified as a boy or a girl. However, defining one as a boy or a girl is not actually referring to the sex of a human being. Although they are often considered as the same thing, they are far from the same. Sex is defined as a biological status of a species according to internal and external reproductive organs and sex chromosomes. They are often characterized as male, female or intersex. Gender refers to the behaviour, attitude and feelings that a culture gives to a person’s biological sex. The topic of sex versus gender is an ongoing issue in today’s society because people are becoming more…
Living in a society which is filled with people of different ethnicities, personalities, and values has led to many changes. Some of these changes have been positive while others have led to confused and discomfort in others. Change has become possible in this society, but it hasn’t been easy for everyone. Society has been so conformed to a standard on how others are supposed to act, that people have been confused and have misinterpreted this idea by of others. This misinterpretation is sexuality. Sexuality has been defined in society as heterosexual, straight, the “norm”, the right way to live life, and all of ideas are not true. Sexuality is a unique way of living that should be determine by you and not influenced by others in society. The course gender and sexuality study has taught me that. It has taught me that you do not have to always conform or judge others based on sexuality. It has opened up a range of ideas and values that I have never taught to discover before. The most informed information which has grasped my intention in this course is the idea behind sexuality. That sexuality discovery is unique and you can have multiple values within one. Society should not discover who you are or who you want to be. Sexuality is not just physical as society determines it, but instead it is evoked by involvement and emotions.…
One of the biggest problems today’s society has is change. Society fears the oncoming storm of liberal ideas as well as the ever changing mass of people who aren’t afraid to speak up about topics like “gender”, which is arguably as broad and debatable as they come. The amount of people educated in this topic, however, is not so extensive. Many people only have knowledge of what a man and woman should be based on their society’s rules. Others understand and accept that “gender only exists as a comparative quality” and choose to not divide “certain types of behaviors … as masculine or feminine” (Scantlebury). The problem of gender stereotyping and normalization has become more recognized over the…
Rich Adrienne. 1980. Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existance. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (4): 631-60.…
The age-old double standard of sexuality and gender is a historical and still currently prevalent issue that both male and females both face, though one more than the other. A double standard, as defined by Merriam Webster, is a set of principles that apples differently and usually more rigorously to one group of people or circumstances than to another. It is clearly evident that there are double standards within the sexes regarding sexuality. Women are ridiculed, shamed, and stigmatized for being sexual beings, whereas men are praised, revered, and commended for being sexual beings.…
Gayle Rubin created the sex/gender system concept in the year 1975. She created this term to offer a new way of thinking about the difference between sex and gender. She defined the sex/gender system as “the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied” (WRWC, 2015). The sex/gender system has many explanations that attempt to address how our sex plays a role in how we learn gender. A few of these theories include: cognitive-developmental theory, social learning theory, gender schema theory, social interactions and gender roles, and lastly, performativity theory. In this essay I will explain how the sex/gender system is created and reinforced from the perspectives of feminist theorists.…