The Role of Hermaphrodites in Society
In Ruth Gilbert’s At the Border’s of the Human, she discusses society’s interest in hermaphrodites in terms of “people’s desire to examine, scrutinize, and display objects which are alien, strange and other” (6). The anomalous and bizarre spectacle of the hermaphroditic body has drawn the focus of scientists since the early sixteenth century. Hermaphrodites have long evoked a “mixture of disgust and desire, and fear and fascination”(Gilbert 150) that has led to their position as objects of scientific scrutiny. As defined by Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, a hermaphrodite is “an individual in which reproductive organs of both sexes are present”. Besides hermaphrodites challenging society’s physical norms, they challenge and have recently changed its cultural norms as well.
In ancient societies, dual-sexed beings were either “exterminated, considered to be beings of suffering, or regarded as strange phenomena” (Brisson 40). Their roles in society were nonexistent because they were viewed as “threatening deviance from the...
Location and Background The early English traders gave the Creek native Americans their name because they usually built their villages on or near creeks or rivers. If they were to still have their villages it would include areas of Northern Florida and Eastern Louisiana and Southern Tennessee.
In recent years, unconventional monetary policy has become more common. This category includes quantitative easing, the purchase of varying financial assets from commercial banks. In the US, the Fed loaded its balance sheet with trillions of dollars in Treasury notes and mortgage-backed securities between 2008 and 2013. The Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have pursued similar policies. The effect of quantitative easing is to raise the price of securities, therefore lowering their yields, as well as to increase total money supply.
Poole W. The monetary policy model. Business Economics [serial online]. October 2006;41(4):7-10. Available from: EconLit with Full Text, Ipswich, MA. Accessed January 10, 2012.
Young, K. (2007). From Violence in Sport to Sports-Related Violence: Widening the Focus. Sport in Society: A Student Introduction, Second Edition. London. Sage Publications.
Having anxiety is common and a part of everyday life however; there is a huge difference between a fear and a social phobia or anxiety disorder. The difference and important distinction psychoanalysts make between a fear and a phobia is “a true phobia must be inconsistent with the conscious learning experience of the individual” (Karon 1). Patients with true phobias “do not respond to cognitive therapy but do respond well to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy” (Karon 2). Social phobia is a serious anxiety disorder that should not be taken lightly or mistaken as a fear you will simply grow out of the older you get. Social phobia has the power to destroy lives and can prevent people from living and enjoying their life to the fullest. Social phobia is a disabling condition that often starts between the ages of early childhood and late adolescence. The origins of social phobia can be linked to “traumatic social experiences and social isolation” (Hudson118-120). Social phobia is treatable however; research and statics show that not many seek help.
Scott, D. The Effect of Video Games on Feelings of Aggression. The Journal of Psychology. March 1995 v129 n2 p121-132.
When Indiana Pacer, Ron Artest, charged into the stands with forty-five seconds remaining in a NBA game, last November, between the Pacers and the Detroit Pistons, the shock waves reverberated immediately. Video clips showed Artest pummeling Pistons fans with his fists. Replays also revealed that it was fans, throwing a cup of beer at Artest, which sent the NBA superstar on his rampage. It was one of the ugliest incidents ever seen in American professional sports. Sports fans and non-sports fans alike witnessed the chaotic outbreak of violence from the serenity of their own living rooms. NBA junkies saw the scene unfold during the game's live broadcast on cable TV. Sports fans caught highlights of the melee on ESPN's SportsCenter. American housewives experienced the outrage as they watched their local ten o'clock evening news. For weeks this basketball brawl was not only headlines news on sports pages but it also became the focus of mainstream American debate. Everyone had an opinion on who was to blame: It was the players' who began the brawl on the court and then took it into the stands. It was the fans who provoked multimillionaire athletes into anger by throwing debris down on them. It was the Palace at Auburn Hills' security who failed to bring the situation under control. It was the NBA for encouraging such thuggish behavior from its players and then allowing their violence to take place on live TV. Opinion makers from all perspectives weighed in on the issue. Newspaper columnists and TV talking heads kept the brawl in the national spotlight. Some condemned the incident; some excused it, and some just wondered what all the fuss was over. In the end five Pacers players and seven Pistons fans were charged...
The Pawnee way of life was a big contrast from the other tribes on the Great Plains. While a majority of the tribes in the Great Plains were hunters, the Pawnee were very agricultural. They had set villages where they cultivated crops. The Pawnee’s culture and rituals were based on growing and harvesting corn. The most popular forms of corn grown were blue and white corn. Plants grown were beans, squash, watermelon, and corn. Some crops that grew in the forest were wild cucumbers, wild onions, lambs quarter, Indian potato, wild plums...
Caster Semenya is a black athlete track star from South Africa and is a gold medal winner for the 800 meters at the 2009 World Championships with the fastest time of the year finishing the race with 1:55.45 time and after this event many have questioned her gender due to her masculine physique and built. Everyone believed that there was no way a woman can be running that fast of a time and demanded that she take a drug test, so the IAAF (International Association of Athletic Federations) did a test and they have found no type of performance enhancing drugs in her system, then what comes next is that many believed she wasn’t a women. So the IAAF performed a gender test just in a short period of time after they did a drug test and found out that Caster Semenya has both female and male organs so she could not be categorized as a male or a female and labeled her as a hermaphrodite. This brings a problem for IAAF for whether or not she has a competitive advantage in competing with women in races even though she could not be categorized as a woman or a man in competition and there wasn’t a separate race for hermaphrodites. It was a very controversial on how the IAAF first did a drug test and found nothing since they believed she was doing performance enhancing drugs and after that they did a gender test which brought some historical athletes in protesting the gender test and one of those athletes was Michael Johnson who is a retired sprinter and many have said the reason of this scrutiny has to be with her race as well since she was a black athlete.
PHILLIPS, A. W. (1958). The Relation between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861-1957. Economica, New Series, Vol. 25, No. 100, pp. 283-299, November. Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2550759.
In addition to the sexes male and female, Fausto-Sterling proposes we add three more categories including herm, (a true hermaphrodite) which has both testes and ovaries, merm (a male pseudo-hermaphrodite), which has testes and no ovaries, although some aspects of female genitalia, and fem, (a female pseudo-hermaphrodite) which has ovaries and some aspects of male genitalia but no testes. The reason for the addition of these sexes is to be more accurate and inclusive for all persons. Fausto-Sterling’s arguments for having at least five sex categories are valid because only having two categories is biologically inaccurate, and exclusive to people who do not fit into either category perfectly, both contributing to societal
Social anxiety disorder can also be defined as social phobia. It is the fear of social situations that involve interaction with other people. It can also be described as the fear of negatively being judged causing one to feel ashamed and being socially rejected. Social Anxiety was first mentioned as the term social phobia and was discovered in the 1900’s. Although the exact amount of people who are diagnosed with this disorder still remains undetermined, it has been said that about 9,ooo- 15,0000 people will show symptoms of the disorder during some point of their lifetime.
Women were often subjects of intense focus in ancient literary works. In Sarah Pomeroy’s introduction of her text Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, she writes, “Women pervade nearly every genre of classical literature, yet often the bias of the author distorts the information” (x). It is evident in literature that the social roles of women were more restricted than the roles of men. And since the majority of early literature was written by men, misogyny tends to taint much of it. The female characters are usually given negative traits of deception, temptation, selfishness, and seduction. Women were controlled, contained, and exploited. In early literature, women are seen as objects of possession, forces deadly to men, cunning, passive, shameful, and often less honorable than men. Literature reflects the societal beliefs and attitudes of an era and the consistency of these beliefs and attitudes toward women and the roles women play has endured through the centuries in literature. Women begin at a disadvantage according to these societal definitions. In a world run by competing men, women were viewed as property—prizes of contests, booty of battle and the more power men had over these possessions the more prestigious the man. When reading ancient literature one finds that women are often not only prizes, but they were responsible for luring or seducing men into damnation by using their feminine traits.
Gender has been around throughout history; however, within recent years, gender has separated itself from the traditional view of sex, e.i., male or female, and has become centered on ones masculinity or femininity. Of course gender is more than just ones masculinity or femininity, gender has become a way for one to describe, he or she, in a way in which they are different from everyone else. Gender has turned into a sense of identity, a way for one to feel different and fulfilled among all of those around them. Of course gender’s sense of freedom would seem outside of structure and only affected by one’s own agency, however, structure is a key component in establishing gender. We can look into both ethnic Mexican’s culture practices regarding sexuality, children songs and games, and see that cultural traditions still heavily influence gender, creating what is masculine and what is feminine and what is the role of each gender, as well as challenging the notions that gender is solely based on agency.
Gender and sexuality can be comprehended through social science. Social science is “the study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society” (free dictionary, 2009). The study of social science deals with different aspects of society such as politics, economics, and the social aspects of society. Gender identity is closely interlinked with social science as it is based on an identity of an individual in the society. Sexuality is “the condition of being characterized and distinguished by sex” (free dictionary, 2009). There are different gender identities such as male, female, gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual that exists all around the world. There is inequality in gender identities and dominance of a male regardless of which sexuality they fall under. The males are superior over the females and gays superior over the lesbians, however it different depending on the place and circumstances. This paper will look at the gender roles and stereotypes, social policy, and homosexuality from a modern and a traditional society perspective. The three different areas will be compared by the two different societies to understand how much changes has occurred and whether or not anything has really changed. In general a traditional society is more conservative where as a modern society is fundamentally liberal. This is to say that a traditional society lists certain roles depending on the gender and there are stereotypes that are connected with the genders. One must obey the one that is dominant and make decisions. On the other hand, a modern society is lenient, It accepts the individual’s identity and sexuality. There is no inequality and everyone in the society is to be seen as individuals not a part of a family unit...