What is Gender?

Traditionally gender has been the societal way of categorizing sexes into two categories – either man or woman. We see these gendered categories pretty much everywhere from clothing lines, skin care products, characters in film/tv, and in perhaps the most debated category – bathrooms. Generally society has created these two categories as a way to box people into stereotypical roles that make it easier to market to them and to assign attributes that make the individual distinctly one or the other. It’s a way of controlling and maintaining a dated construct because anything fluid or uncategorized creates unpredictability, and for a society that is built on various forms of forecasting and marketing, it would make it significantly more difficult to sell to individuals who don’t fall into one of two categories.

Take for example when you watch a show like House Hunters. Almost every straight cis couple talks in complete sterotypes – the wife always loves to shop and the huband jokes about the closet size, and on the opposite side of the spectrum the husband needs a space for his man cave because he loves sport and beer and how could a woman possibly desecrate that scared ground of masculinity. Of course another area we see this in is the use of pink and blue to signal that an item is either “feminine” or “masculine”. Often with the pink item that’s exactly the same as the blue item, costing more.

Gender is its own hierarchy- with men on top, women below, and everyone who doesn’t identify as either one, being seen as even further below that. Men who were born with male genitalia and identify as men, are in a position of the highest privilege because they get paid more, work in higher positions, have their medical concerns taken seriously, and in cases where they are predatory the shame is thrown at the victim. Women and non binary people are often paid less, and are taken less seriously in the medical community- with pain not being taken seriously or with hysteria so tightly linked to a psychological problem. The obvious reason for this specific male dominated hierarchy is because we currently live in a patriarchal society and as a result the systems in place upholds and supports men who have power. I don’t know how one could decide just how many genders there are, but there are definitely more than two.

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What is Gender?

Gender is a social construct used to categorize human beings into two boxes- either boy or girl. Gender is everywhere, we see it in our music, television shows, movies, and commercials. We see it in clothing stores and in many cases gender is instilled in us from birth. Society constantly reinforces gender roles on a political level. There are politicians who are constantly fighting to keep women from taking an active role in their own lives even in 2021. Basic toiletry products are separated by gender. Products using pastel colors are usually tailored for girls/women and products tailored for boys/men are usually dark in shade with very ‘macho’ sounding names to them even though they might share the exact same ingredients and do exactly the same thing. When women show confidence in their bodies and sexualities, they can be slut shamed by men and even other women who feel that women should be more reserved in their clothing preferences.

Gender relates to power and privilege because we live in a world that is basically ruled by men. Most politicians are men, the wealthiest people on earth are more often men, and men get paid more than women to do the same exact jobs. Men-more specifically male politicians are so powerful that they even have control over women’s reproductive rights, and women are left to fight against men for the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. There is no denying the amount of privilege given to men just by being born. Gender, like many other terms in our society, is a social construct. Usually it is the rich and powerful that get to make the rules and norms that everybody else has to follow- including gender. Being that gender is a social construct, I believe there to be many genders and at the same time, none.

What is Gender?

By: Olivia Francis

What is gender? If you look up gender on the internet it gives you this as the definition, “either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones.” A key word in that definition would be social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. Gender can be based on what genitalia you have but it is mainly a more fluid concept. We see gender everywhere. From bathrooms, to clothing, to shoes, even down to trivial things such as pens and razors. But is it truly black and white? Or should I say blue and pink? Society manages gender from birth. From the colors at the baby shower, to the clothes the baby wears, everything is based on gender. When a concept is taught straight from birth, how can we not subconsciously associate the concept with everything.

Gender is powerful and gives immense privilege. The few that disagree, most likely benefit from their gender in some way. Men are seen as stronger and more powerful while women are seen as weak and helpless. I believe that men have fewer obstacles and have had fewer obstacles for decades compared to a woman. In the past, most of the time, a man benefited from something more often than a woman, Looking back in history, women were only seen as “heir makers”, and property. It wasn’t until quite recently that women started getting some power. But we still have a long way to go. I believe that society decides which gender is legitimate. For example, a queens only duty was to bore an heir for her king. If the queen only had girls, she could be killed and the girls would suffer throughout their lives based on their genitalia. However, boys were seen as superior and the only option when it came to the question of who would sit at the throne.

There are countless genders. I personally don’t know them all other than male, female, and non-binary, but, just because there are a lot, that doesn’t make them invalid. I believe that gender is a fluid concept and it would be based how who you feel you are and not what parts you were born with.

Feb 23, ALL March Readings

General

Kate Bornstein, My Gender Workbook (selections)

Feb 23: Queer: Beyond the Binary

Queering Gender: Beyond the binary and Social Constructions

Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction

Kerry Manders, “The Butches and Studs Who’ve Defied the Male Gaze and Redefined Culture,” The New York Times Magazine

Eve Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Intro/Ch1 only)

Mar 2 & 4: Conferences with Gwen

Mar 9

Adrienne Rich, Compulsory Heterosexuality Download

Judith Butler_Giving-an-account-of-oneself Download

On White Privilege: Watch: Peggy McIntosh, TED Talk

Mar 16: Intersectionality and Black Feminism

Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins Download

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought Chs 1+2 Download

About Audre Lord: Her Life and Writing

Audre Lord, Who Said It Was Simple (poem)

Kimberlé Crenshaw, The Urgency of Intersectionality, TED Talk

Mar 23: Latinx & Women of Color Feminism

Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera – Read Chs 1 and 2

1A Podcast: Gloria Anzandua and the Book that Changed the Borders

How Racism and Sexism Intertwine to Torment Asian-American Women, The New York Times

View April Readings

Post 2: What is gender?

According to vocabulary.com, gender is defined as the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles. Vocabulary.com also states people use the word gender to indicate your biological sex or your sense of being female, male, or a combination of both. Gender is seen everywhere from applications to fill out to baby stores. Society tells us what it is or what it should be before we even enter the world. When a woman is pregnant, the daunting question never fails to come up, “Is it a boy or a girl?” Also, baby showers, baby clothes, and nurseries are notorious for matching color with gender. A boy is associated with blue and a girl is associated with pink. The pressure of being pushed into a gender box of boy or girl is always present.

Society has it set up where gender does in fact relate to power and privilege. This started from the beginning of time. Males were associated with having both power and privilege. Even today, males still are in the forefront of being viewed by society as possessing these qualities, despite women being on the rise. Mostly men statistically speaking are put in positions of power and most certainly have privilege over women in a lot of matters. One prominent example is that there is still a gender wage gap. Men earn more money than women for doing the exact same job. I would say that generally speaking, males have fewer obstacles socially, than women do. Again, I think that this is due to how society was built in the beginning of times and how those roles were fulfilled. I believe that this mindset has been pushed over for centuries that men are the hunters and gatherers while women stay home, cook and clean, and care for the children. It is a social stigma that men rule the world and that is all there is to it. Society decides which gender is legitimate and society has been throughout history. This is why things have relatively remained the same in these regards.

According to https://teentalk.ca/learn-about/gender-identity/, there are more than the two genders, male and female, that exist today. Some of the others include transgender, cisgender, non-binary, genderqueer, gender fluid, gender neutral, and much more.

Category is Gender !

What is gender?

Now I know I can’t tell you much about what gender is but I can tell you where we see it and how it affects us everyday. You can see gender place on such weird things like colors , blue is for boys and pink is for girls. You also see it in home roles such as the motherly role is usually the women and the fatherly role usually assign to the men. You see it with toys for children little boys play with trucks and little girls play with dolls. All these examples just further this binary construct of gender being only male and female. Which in my opinion is so suffocating. We can’t talk about gender without talking about privilege. Yes, there is some privilege assign to people whose gender expression matches their gender identity and that is called cis privilege. Cis privilege gives the person the ability to walk through the world without having to be question about their gender identity. They are able to wake up and fit into the boring binary gender standard and not be harassed and abused by others. Now you may be asking who made up all these rules? My guess would have to be some old white man or many old white men.

So how do I feel about gender? Well from the scope of a non-binary masculine presenting person, I find myself agreeing with Kate Bronstein in their view of gender. Which is that I cannot give you an answer to what gender is, because gender in itself is personal to each and every one of us. I went through and read some of these posts and that’s when I realized that gendered was so personal to each of us because of the experience we have all been through molding and shaping our understanding of what I would define as this fluidity. O yes, I may not be able to give you a definition, but I can give you a descriptor and that is fluid. Why is it fluid? You might ask me, well here Bronstein says “I think there is a transformative nature to gen- der, but I think it’s blocked in most cultures and stagnates in two ways: “Do you know what is always changing? Running water like a river. I’ve learned from Pocahontas my favorite Disney princess, yes, I understand Pocahontas is very problematic for many reasons, but she did teach me that a river is always flowing and changing much like gender, and water is a fluid, so gender is a fluid well at least to me. As someone who is learning everyday about their gender expression, I find myself swimming through gender and unlearning all these things I have been taught such as nail polish is for girls and weightlifting is for men, men don’t wear makeup and my favorite boys are not supposed to cry. All these things that have cause me so much confusion and pain as a small child trying to navigate this binary world that doesn’t have to be. But unlearning all of this have given me such joy and finally gave me the permission to express myself the way I feel. My expression of myself is me and personal to who I am. I have a feeling that some of you will feel the same way about it. I think Kate said it the best “because I really don’t believe there’s any single correct theory. ln terms of theo- ries about gender, I’m more convinced about what gender isn’t rather than what gender is. “

Post 3: Gender, Identity, and Intersectionality – Due Mar 2

On your own, make an identity chart (background info) that includes how you see yourself and identities important to you, but also how you are seen (or think you are seen) by society or others, using this handout/example. YOU DO NOT NEED TO POST THIS, BUT YOU SHOULD BRING IT TO CLASS.

For this post, think about the following: In what ways do you get choose your identity? In what ways is it chosen for you? Do you notice a trend in who gets to decide which aspects? Do any identities or attributes/behaviors seem more managed or directed than others? By whom?

Starburst_Identity_Chart Download

What is gender

Llenifer Trejo Nunez

Gender is a social construct that has a very small window for expression in society originally. At birth, you have your assigned sex but as you grow you don’t have to necessarily identify the biological traits with your gender at all, you could feel you are neither, that you identify as your assigned or the opposite of what you were assigned at birth. Gender is also influenced by culture. Your assigned sex at birth is based on just genetics. Gender is fluid and can be any way you express yourself. Gender is seen/ determined by how we act, speak, dress, and behave in connection with the assigned sex. For example, Cis-gender women are meant to be very feminine, nice, and hospitable. This is how society manages it by having “gender roles”, such roles include a lot of stereotypes on how women or men should act, Gender is different from sexuality and assigned sex. Society reinforces gender roles by what’s on tv and in the media as well as how people are raised. Women are expected to be domestic and mostly clean the house, raise kids, and feed them and their spouse, while men would work, these specifications are modern because even though there was gender inequality men and women have worked alongside each other during times like the industrial revolution, even children were working! Gender inequality can be seen in the gender pay gap, for every dollar a man earns a woman will only earn 81 cents.

Gender relates to power in privilege in that men are just generally more favored in society and hold more power than women. For example, in the United States, all women gained access to the right to vote only in 1920, roughly 101 years ago. In terms of access to more growth and opportunities based on the social and political influence hold great gender inequality in that men have an upper hand. Men make more money and can achieve a higher social status faster than a woman. The sex assigned to you at birth if it is male, whether you identify with it may give you more opportunities and a higher advantage over someone assigned a female at birth. Some genders do have fewer obstacles versus others, I think this is because of societal norms and views that men should hold more power, title and have a bigger voice. Those assigned males at birth benefit. Not completely sure what’s meant by who decides what gender is legitimate, but you decide what your gender is, it’s your expression, not just biological aspects. You decide based on how you feel and express yourself. There may be up to or over 60 terms to express and describe gender identity.

What is Gender?

Zahraa.Karonbach

Gender is used to define the socially formed features of women and men, whereas, sex refers to those that are genetically determined. People are either born female or male, but they learn to be boys and girls who turn into males and females. Now, you must be wondering why is gender important? In development, gender is an important factor, because it is used as a way to understand how social roles and social expectations influence the lives and opportunities available to various male and female classes. Gender roles in society indicate how we are supposed to behave, speak, dress, and behave based on our assigned sex. For instance, it is usually assumed that girls and women will dress in a feminine way, be respectful, welcoming, and nurturing. On the other hand, men are supposed to present themselves in a tough and strong way. Men should not display a lot of emotions or be sensitive to situations in society. It would make them appear as if they’re not ” manly enough” which is such a horrible thing in the eyes of society.