Rhetorical
Proposition: Feminist historians and social theorists examine the self-masculinization in different ways with different purposes.
Audience: Mainly those interest in feminism or how gender equality is gained by women. Audience is expected to be familiar with the concept of a gender hierarchy and have some low-level knowledge of the time periods and places discussed in the articles. Beyond this, audience is not expected to have any knowledge of the fields or issues surrounding gender equality.
Goal: Show how the fields of feminist history and social theory approach and discuss the self-masculinization of women differently. Establish that social theorists attempt to provide solutions to the issues. Prompt readers to recognize that this phenomenon spans different time periods and places and can be changed.
Plan: Demonstrates the differences between feminist historians’ and social theorists’ scholarship on the self-masculinization of women. Introduces the premises and field. Describes how feminist historians use specific examples
…show more content…
(Given) gender hierarchies give rise to gender roles. (Given) gender roles perpetuate the hierarchy system by contributing to gender inequality. (Thus) feminist historians and social theorists examine the self-masculinization in different ways with different purposes.
Function: Premises and proposition
Paragraph 2: (Because) feminist historians describe the gender hierarchy, women’s desire for equality, and their self-masculinization through the use of specific individuals or situations as examples. (For example) Jean E. Howard describes the self-masculinization of women through the lens of crossdressing. (For example) Allison Heisch describes the same situation in relation to Queen Elizabeth I of England. (For example) Gay Robins describes how Hatshepsut masculinized herself to gain power while maintaining some feminine
She taught at universities both in Australia and the United States. Connell highly disagreed that the ideas about what established masculinity are ethically definite. In other words, masculinity is important to whom is referred to. For example, “if women are seen as weak, passive and emotional, then men are supposed to be strong, aggressive, and rational” (Seidman, 221). Additionally, masculinity is based on how people interact with each other in which correlates with their race, class, and sexuality. With this said, Connell said, “to recognize diversity in masculinity: relations of alliance, dominance and subordination… This is a gender politics within masculinity” (Seidman, 223). To point out Connell’s theorizing masculinity, she believes that diversity defines masculinity has its own relationships with authorities. In our text, Seidman gave a brief example of how the roles carry out to the social authority such as President, Senator, CEO, General, media executive, or surgeon. It is stated that while there are many senators, executives, or CEOs who are women, it is definite identify as masculinity because people think those high authorities is only for a male role. In our text, Connell has mentioned that “every society has a dominant or a “hegemonic” type of masculinity” (223). This means that she believes men has the power or control type of their masculinity in the
In one of our class discussions on hegemonic masculinity, we attempted to define a general list of characteristics or behaviors that one should have in order to attain this ideal. However, there was no consensus on these qualities. Frequently, the qualities that we would suggest would be those that were the opposite of qualities associated with women. For example, if we would categorize being emotional as a trait assigned to women, we would assign the trait of being impassive to men. This would also occur when we considered which behaviors would be considered masculine. While we assumed women would perform work inside of the house, we assigned men to work outside of the house, doing activities such as maintaining the yard or fixing the car. Most of, if not all of, the qualities and behaviors we assigned as being a part of hegemonic masculinity perpetuated the idea of gender inequality. When we assumed that those characteristics would be considered aspects of hegemonic masculinity, we restricted them to only being assigned to men because if a woman could possess those characteristics, it wouldn’t be considered a masculine aspect. This also explains how hegemonic masculinity can perpetuate
‘Women and men are different. Equal treatment of men and women does not result in equal outcomes.’ (Corsten Report, 16: 2007) According to Covington and Bloom (2003) numerous feminist writers have demonstrated and documented the patriarchal nature of our society and the variety of ways in which the patriarchal values serve masculine needs. ‘Despite claims to the contrary, masculinist epistemologies are built upon values that promote masculine needs and desires, making all others invisible’ (Kaschak, 11: 1992).
The Disjunction Between the Women and the Individual Throughout history an idea that has been used to combat the fight for women’s rights is the idea of universalism. This idea, as Joan Scott presents in her work Universalism and the History of Feminism, was based on the concept that being an individual was celebrated and everyone was allowed to be their own valued individual in society. Many people would say that feminism is engulfed in universalism just on the definition of the word, Scott would disagree. Scott redefines what the “individual” is and how women’s attempt to become an “individual” creates the paradox of feminist speech.
Gender order according to our text is labeled as “hierarchal” (2008), stating that “Men dominate women in terms of wealth, power, and social position, but not all men dominate all women” (2008). While this may be true, it is creating a divide between the two genders. This divide is apparent by looking at the pay scales between men and women, and even how the genders are looked at in terms of jobs or college admissions. Looking at today’s society however, women are slowly rising to compete with their male counterparts, in many ways, from education, government, and even television, for example Oprah Winfrey.
Early feminist studies of gender often depicted the expression of masculinity as solely meant to subordinate women. Upon further research and understanding of gender and its role in society, gender theorists have realized that masculinity is not only a patriarchal regulation against women, but that it also has negative effects against men. Masculinity has different characteristics in different cultures, but masculinity in general presents a hierarchy of traits, with femininity as the lowest, least desirable trait. In American culture, masculinity is defined within multiple structures, such as race, class, and sexuality, where a man’s masculinity can be lessened by his traits as well as these identities. Often, normative expressions of masculinity
Masculinity is a subject that has been debated in our society for quite some time. Many wonder what it means to be masculine, as it is difficult to define this one –sided term. Pairing this already controversial term with “feminist studies” can bring about some thought - provoking conversation. Feminist studies of men have been around for many years with regards to the feminist movement. It seeks to create gradual improvements to society through its main principle of modifying the ways in which everyone views what it means to be a man. Feminist studies of men bring forth the discussion of hegemonic masculinity; how this contributes to the gender hierarchy, the radicalized glass escalator and ultimately the faults of this theory.
explores not only the way in which patriarchal society, through its concepts of gender , its objectification of women in gender roles, and its institutionalization of marriage, constrains and oppresses women, but also the way in which it, ultimately, erases women and feminine desires. Because women are only secondary and other, they become the invisible counterparts to their husbands, with no desires, no voice, no identity. (Wohlpart 3).
Feminist Theory is an aspect of considering feminism as having been based on socio-phenomenon issues rather than biological or scientific. It appreciates gender inequality, analyzes the societal roles played by feminists in a bid to promote the interests, issues and rights of women in the society. It is also based on the assumption that women play subsidiary roles in the society. The whole idea of feminism has however experienced hurdles in the form of stereotyping by the wider society. This paper tries to examine some of the effects of stereotypes that feminism goes through, what other philosophers say and the way forward towards ending stereotyping.
Feminist sociology focuses on examining and understanding gender in its relation to power within society as well as individuals. The fundamental principle of feminist sociology is the idea that in most societies, women have been oppressed and that men have been more dominant throughout history. Feminist theory directly relates to feminist sociology. According to the Introduction to Sociology 2e textbook, “feminist theory is a type of conflict theory that examines inequalities in gender-related issues. It uses the conflict approach to examine the maintenance of gender roles and inequalities” (Openstax 261). This paper aims to analyze feminist theory, discuss its history, as well as emphasizing a current social
Arianna Stassinopoulos wrote in the 1973 book The Female Woman: "It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes" (Microsoft Bookshelf). In her statement we see a cultural feminist response to the dominant liberal feminism of the 1970s.
Prior to the 1970s when the theme of gender issues was still quite foreign, the societal norm forced female conformity to male determined standards because “this is a man’s world” (Kerr 406). The patriarchal society painted the image of both men and women accordingly to man’s approach of societal standards that include the defining features of manhood that consist of “gentil...
It is only recently that sociology has begun to explore the topic of gender. Before this, inequalities within society were based primarily on factors such as social class and status. This paper will discuss gender itself: what makes us who we are and how we are represented. It will also explore discrimination towards women throughout history, focusing mainly on women and the right to vote, inequalities between males and females in the work place and how gender is represented in the media.
At the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries, a series of events occurred that would be known as the feminist movement. During this time, many women were starting to change the way they thought of themselves and wanted to change their social roles. In his views on feminist analysis Donald Hall says, “Feminist methodologies focus on gender.and explore the complex ways in which women have been denied social power and the right to various forms of self-expression. In this context the many perspectives that fall under the heading ‘feminism’ vary wildly”(Hall 199). Since women were denied social power and self-expression, they went against what society saw as acceptable, a patriarchal world.
... middle of paper ... ... “Women themselves were often hesitant to support feminist causes or expanded opportunities for females because they had been so thoroughly acculturated into the recently stereotyped roles.” (729) This mindset shows how dominating men could be to women during this time.