Gender Identity in a Family

1586 Words4 Pages

The topic of our group presentation was A Dialectical Model of Family Gender Discourse: Body, Identity, and Sexuality. The goal of our article was to propose a dialectical model representing gender discourse in families. .The focus of my research paper is also the same with a focus more on gender and identity in a family. The articles that I research comply with this topic quite well, touching especially on gender and identity in the family. I used three articles that touched on my topic; "Gender, Identity, and Language Use in Teen Blogs," by David Huffaker, and Sandra Calvat, "Sociologist looks at gender roles in evangelical families," by John Bartkowski, and "Gendered Discourse about Family Business," by Sharon Danes, Heather Haberman, and Donald McTavish. "Gendered Discourse about Family Business" mainly focused on identifying discourse styles and also changes in the family structure. "Sociologist looks at gender roles in evangelical families, focused on the gender roles of the husband and the wife. In the last article, "Gender, Identity, and Language Use in Teen Blogs," examines the issues of online identity about their gender and identity. All articles prove to be somewhat different but focus on the roles of Gender and Identity.

"Gender, Identity, and Language Use in Teen Blogs," by David Huffaker, and Sandra Calvat the article explores the concept of the World Wide Web and its usage among tees, male and female. The internet is one of the most popular and common assets to teens, and probably one of the most used activities out there. "While physical constraints such as the body, biological sex, race, or age can have a profound effect on self-definition and self-presentation, many of these attributes become flexible in online environments"(Calvart & Huffaker p 26). This leaves a very flexible chance for adolescents to explore their identity and play with it through different language. On the aspect of language use and gender the traditional roles reveal the male role as agentive, self-expansion, and individuality are the rule. The female is said to be communal, embodying emotional expressiveness, and dependent on the needs of others. The traditional roles I just explain go along with the Psychological perspective of gender discourse that my group and I discussed in our presentation, that "sex differences have been an often reoccurring theme in American psychology, which is generally, characterized by essentialist explanations of gender and individualistic understanding of self.

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