The Gender Blur Response
Sho Adachi
Professor Pugh
Eng. 100 6-9:50pm
10, October 2012
“The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” Response In the article “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?”, Deborah Blum starts off sharing a personal story. She describes her own childhood, where she had two individual presents that are thought, in society, to be for a girl or a girl. She receives things that clash such as a Barbie doll and a softball glove. Barbie dolls are meant to be delicate and more girlish, where as a softball glove is more rugged or active and more boyish. This gave her both different opportunities to be more girly or boyish. On the other hand, when she had two boys, the older one had become quite fond of dinosaurs. Not the herbivores, but the blood thirsty carnivores. She soon found her son to be gnawing on her leg, and realized the aggressive boy like characteristics. Blum analyzes the difference between the characteristics of a boy and a girl. A boy is known more to have the aggressive behavior, such as a girl would be less aggressive and more delicate. Her son shows proof of the typical boy with his love for vicious dinosaurs. Males are proven to be more aggressive with several facts stated in the article. One would be the higher percentage of men who commit crimes over woman. Not only do men commit more crimes, but males tend to use weaponry more often than females. Furthermore, she goes on to talk about a different species, the chimpanzees. It is written,” Male chimpanzees, for instance, declare war on neighboring troops, and one of their strategies is a warning strike: kill females and infants to terrorize and intimidate” (Blum 681). Blum summarizes in the end that there are still ongoing studies to research the difference of aggression in males to females. Adolescent females are being engaged with more competitive activities to test for different hormones. It is still unsure but with the current statistics,
Professor Pugh
Eng. 100 6-9:50pm
10, October 2012
“The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” Response In the article “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?”, Deborah Blum starts off sharing a personal story. She describes her own childhood, where she had two individual presents that are thought, in society, to be for a girl or a girl. She receives things that clash such as a Barbie doll and a softball glove. Barbie dolls are meant to be delicate and more girlish, where as a softball glove is more rugged or active and more boyish. This gave her both different opportunities to be more girly or boyish. On the other hand, when she had two boys, the older one had become quite fond of dinosaurs. Not the herbivores, but the blood thirsty carnivores. She soon found her son to be gnawing on her leg, and realized the aggressive boy like characteristics. Blum analyzes the difference between the characteristics of a boy and a girl. A boy is known more to have the aggressive behavior, such as a girl would be less aggressive and more delicate. Her son shows proof of the typical boy with his love for vicious dinosaurs. Males are proven to be more aggressive with several facts stated in the article. One would be the higher percentage of men who commit crimes over woman. Not only do men commit more crimes, but males tend to use weaponry more often than females. Furthermore, she goes on to talk about a different species, the chimpanzees. It is written,” Male chimpanzees, for instance, declare war on neighboring troops, and one of their strategies is a warning strike: kill females and infants to terrorize and intimidate” (Blum 681). Blum summarizes in the end that there are still ongoing studies to research the difference of aggression in males to females. Adolescent females are being engaged with more competitive activities to test for different hormones. It is still unsure but with the current statistics,