Where do Babies Come From?
missing works cited
Emily Martin argues that medical and scientific publications naturalize gender roles by presenting “facts” that reflect socially constructed ideas about gender. This misrepresentation is reflected in much of the information intended to educate children about the “facts” of life. Each of the pieces included in our course reader manifest this distortion to some degree. Because individuals begin to formulate ideas about gender at a very early age, such indoctrination is particularly precarious when presented during a child’s formative years. Feminists argue that Santa Claus, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are also dangerous fictionalizations but depictions of stereotypical male/female roles presented to young people as serious, straightforward answers to important questions is far more sinister and the implications more dangerous to a society that values and espouses equality.
Many of the tired old gender clichés are used in all of the books in order to weave together an answer to one of life’s inevitable questions: “Where do babies come from?” In attempting to answer this question, even the most well-intentioned parent is bound to instill false ideas about gender if he or she relies on most of the popular literature that attempts to broach this difficult topic. Females and their roles in the sexual process are almost always represented as passive mothers, caretakers, supporters of males—being acted upon—whereas men are the actors, initiators, adventurers, rescuers--in fact, the only ones really doing anything at all. The father goes on to say that “in bed” (an unnecessary assumption) a “daddy puts his penis inside” the woman’s vagina, “the sperm comes out of the daddy’s penis and goes into the mommy’s vagina, and then the sperm meets the egg and a baby starts” (Brooks). This typical description is repeated in another work with the “man lying so close to the woman that his penis can fit into her vagina” so that “one of his sperms can get to one of her eggs” (Sheffield, 17). In a more euphemistic description a “father bird puts his opening against the mother’s and sperm cells enter her and swim to the egg” and later “a shell forms around the egg” (Zapun). Rather than initiated by the egg, this action is carried out by one of it’s parts or, one could argue, a completely distinct part. Another book, What To Expect When Mommy’s Having A Baby states only that “the daddy puts his sperm inside the mommy,” giving absolutely no clue as to how this is physically accomplished.
Included within the anthology The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction,1[1] are the works of great Irish authors written from around three hundred years ago, until as recently as the last decade. Since one might expect to find in an anthology such as this only expressions and interpretations of Irish or European places, events or peoples, some included material could be quite surprising in its contrasting content. One such inclusion comes from the novel Black Robe,2[2] by Irish-born author Brian Moore. Leaving Ireland as a young man afforded Moore a chance to see a great deal of the world and in reflection afforded him a great diversity of setting and theme in his writings. And while his Black Robe may express little of Ireland itself, it expresses much of Moore in his exploration into evolving concepts of morality, faith, righteousness and the ever-changing human heart.
Boys are encouraged to be tough, and competition is also supported. While girls who demonstrate competitive or bold personality characteristics are often labeled as “bossy” or “pushy”. Children construct their own gender identity through their family, but also through school interactions and the consumption of media. “An update of the classic Weitzman study found that although the majority of female characters were portrayed as dependent and submissive, male characters were commonly portrayed as being independent and creative” (Eitzen et al. 2012:246). The impact of this gender inequality goes way further than just childhood play. When male and female stereotypes are deep rooted and taught so early, it is easy to see the connection between that type of socialization and the misrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and politics. In “The Egg and the Sperm” Martin argues that even male and female reproductive processes are constructed using gendered stereotypes. The egg is described femininely and seen as passive, and the sperm is portrayed as active, behaving very masculine (Ferber, Holcomb, and Wentling 2013). The use of language perpetuates gendered stereotypes and normalizes the higher status of one gender over the
Martin, Emily. "The Egg and the Sperm." Fields of Reading. 6th ed. Ed. Nancy R. Comley et al. New York: St. Martin's, 2001.
In order to fully comprehend the how gender stereotypes perpetuate children’s toys, one must understand gender socialization. According to Santrock, the term gender refers to the, “characteristics of people as males and females” (p.163). An individual is certainly not brought into the world with pre-existing knowledge of the world. However, what is certain is the belief that the individual has regarding him- or herself and life stems from socialization—the development of gender through social mechanisms. For instance, when a baby is brought into this world, his or her first encounter to gender socialization arises when the nurse places a blue or pink cap on the baby’s head. This act symbolizes the gender of the baby, whether it is a boy (blue cap) or a girl (pink cap). At the age of four, the child becomes acquai...
The times have changed for the Executive Branch. In the past, the president simply acted as the Constitution's errand boy. He could only follow it, and had no freedom to actually do anything but follow it. Thus, the president’s role was not efficient. As time passed, this restraint grew weaker and weaker. People decided that the president’s responsibility is to represent and serve the people.The enumerated powers would hold the president back from representing the people’s wishes. With the use of vested powers, presidents gained the ability to fix many problems not relating to some of the Constitution’s laws. As this transition occured, modern presidency appeared. For the president now acts as the main figure of the government, and bears the responsibility of the nation himself.
Throughout much of mainstream American culture runs certain assumptions about gender and sex. Often these assumptions are left unacknowledged and unaddressed even as we continue to use them as a framework upon which to build our knowledge of the world. Sexism and sexual inequality are supported for example by a wide variety of "popular" beliefs, such as ideas about the natural and universal differences between the sexes and their therefore rightful duties or "spheres"—including gendered parenting roles and the dichotomy between the public world of men and the domestic world of women. Using examples from authors Cordelia Fine, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Louise Lamphere to illustrate these assumptions, I will further identify a few of the social,
My childhood has been just like every kid growing up in the 20th century. It revolved around the Disney story’s that were filled with magic and dreams. From Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty, my beloved children 's stories were controlled by male characters. At a young age this taught me that women are not as useful as men. These stories made me learn what it means to be a boy, girl, man, or woman. The ratio of males to females as main characters was so outstanding it lead me to question how these stories impacted how I view men and women.
There is particular consideration given to the political climate in this story. It is incorporated with social and ethnic concerns that are prevalent. The story also addresses prejudice and the theme of ethnic stereotyping through his character development. O'Connor does not present a work that is riddled with Irish slurs or ethnic approximations. Instead, he attempts to provide an account that is both informative and accurate.
Society cements certain roles for children based on gender, and these roles, recognized during infancy with the assistance of consumerism, rarely allow for openness of definition. A study conducted by Witt (1997) observed that parents often expect certain behaviors based on gender as soon as twenty-four hours after the birth of a child. The gender socialization of infants appears most noticeably by the age of eighteen months, when children display sex-stereotyped toy preferences (Caldera, Huston, & O’Brian 1989). This socialization proves extremely influential on later notions and conceptions of gender. Children understand gender in very simple ways, one way being the notion of gender permanence—if one is born a girl or a boy, they will stay that way for life (Kohlberg 1966). “According to theories of gender constancy, until they’re about 6 or 7, children don’t realize that the sex they were born with is immutable” (Orenstein 2006). The Walt Disney Corporation creates childhood for children worldwide. “Because Disney are such a large media corporation and their products are so ubiquitous and wide spread globally, Disney’s stories, the stories that Disney tell, will be the stories that will form and help form a child’s imaginary world, all over the world, and that’s an incredible amount of power, enormous amount of power” (Sun). Because of the portrayal of women in Disney films, specifically the Disney Princess films, associations of homemaker, innocence, and dependence are emphasized as feminine qualities for young children. Thus, children begin to consider such qualities normal and proceed to form conceptions of gender identity based off of the movies that portray the very specific and limiting views of women (...
As meaning making creatures, humans attempt to categorize and definitively understand anything they observe. Although this crusade for understanding is not inherently bad, it often produces unintended negative consequences. As humans sort, classify, and define everything, they simultaneously place everything into a box that constricts creativity and fluidity. Concerning gender, these boxes create harmful conceptions of each person on the planet. Although these conceptions of gender are constructed and not “real” by any means, they have real implications in the process of socialization that influence how each person lives his/her life. In the United States, the commonly socialized “boxes” of gender have done a great
Gender is a popular topic in the world today. It is a subject that is talked about and argued over, yet even with all the discussions being had, there are numerous other matters related to gender that should also be considered and included in the conversation. One of these issues is parenthood. The two articles “The Social Construction of Gender” and “The Joys of Parenthood, Reconsidered” each talk about how their topics are influenced by culture.
Throughout many fairytales, Cinderella more evidently, there is the stigma of male roles and female roles. The man is the prince, the knight in shining armor, the strong protector and able provider, and the woman is the princess. Dainty and innocent, weak and capable only of looking pretty, fostering children and maintaining appearances of house and home. These roles of placement have been around long before fairy tales, and they’ll be around long after fairy tales, but the inclusion of these roles through characters in fairy tales does nothing but enforce the idea that this is the way things are meant to be, and women who do not assume these roles are wrong and unworthy. In her article, Orenstein refers to Cinderella as “the patriarchal oppression of all women”, and she is exactly right (Orenstein “What’s wrong with Cinderella?”). The impression left of these gender stereotypes travels off the pages of the fairy tale and into the real world when studies show that there is a “23% decline in girls’ participation in sports and other rigorous activity … has been linked to their sense that athletics is unfeminine” (Orenstein “What’s wrong with Cinderella?”). The blatant disregard for equality in these stories can be summed up with a term Orenstein coined, “relentless resegregation of childhood”, which ultimately defines what it means to be a boy or a girl in the terms of set behaviors and life duties (Orenstein “What’s wrong with Cinderella?”). Whether it be Cinderella or any other princess, the fairy tale business makes it a point to create a place for women with their stories, and unfortunately that “place” is demeaning and still practiced
Gender role conflicts constantly place a role in our everyday life. For many years we have been living in a society where depending on our sexuality, we are judged and expected to behave and act certain way to fulfill the society’s gender stereotypes. The day we are born we are labeled as either a girl or boy and society identifies kids by what color they wear, pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Frequently, we heard the nurses in the Maternity facility saying things like, “Oh is a strong boy or is beautiful fragile princess.” Yet, not only in hospitals we heard this types of comments but we also see it on the media…
In Heaney's book of poetry entitled Opened Ground, Heaney shows the readers many different ways in which English rule and influence effected and changed the lives of different people in Ireland. For example, in Two Lorries, Heaney describes a man who is a coal deliverer and his love for Heaney's mother. As the poem progresses, we can see a metamorphosis in the lorry. As the political situation in Ireland escalates and war between different religious factions grows more immanent, the lorry changes from a man who falls in love with Heaney's mother to a raving political and religious war type man who needs to become involved in the skirmish between the religious groups and by doing this eventually blows...
Martin, Emily. "The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles." Gender, Sex, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University, 2009. 248-53. Print.