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Gender bias in everyday life
Patriarchal society and its effects on women
Gender nature vs nurture
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Recommended: Gender bias in everyday life
Within seconds after birth nature condemns females to inferiority with the words, “it’s a girl”. This statement not only names the biological characteristics that distinguish female from male, but implies the gender of the person by a set of social roles and cultural norms. The ascribed status, “it’s a girl” leaves society and woman with many questions. Do a woman’s characteristics come from “nature” or “nurture “or both? Does society use gender roles to control woman, and direct their life experiences? Does being born female close opportunities to property, power, and prestige? Did the rise of a patriarchal class society ideologically determine the role of women?
Biology is a dogma pseudo -scientific propaganda tactic used to make females inferior to the male. Shulamith Firestone in her book The Dialectic of Sex states “it was woman’s reproductive biology that accounted for her original and continued oppression, and not some sudden patriarchal revolution.”(p. 83) Firestone states, “The patriarchal family was only the most recent in a string of ‘primary’ social organ...
Gender has played specific roles in societies all over the place. Men are usually seen as the dominant gender and therefore appear to be more important to society but women still have an important role. It was not that long ago that women did not have many rights or play an important role at all. In America, laws were put in place to make men and women equal and today many women have filled jobs thought of as a man’s job but there is still a common thought of women being less important in society than men. Before deciding if a woman’s role in society is complimentary or not, the role of all humans must be examined. A woman could appear to have a terrible role but maybe that’s because everybody has a terrible role in that type of society. Same
...socially directed hormonal instructions which specify that females will want to have children and will therefore find themselves relatively helpless and dependent on males for support and protection. The schema claims that males are innately aggressive and competitive and therefore will dominate over females. The social hegemony of this ideology ensures that we are all raised to practice gender roles which will confirm this vision of the nature of the sexes. Fortunately, our training to gender roles is neither complete nor uniform. As a result, it is possible to point to multitudinous exceptions to, and variations on, these themes. Biological evidence is equivocal about the source of gender roles; psychological androgyny is a widely accepted concept. It seems most likely that gender roles are the result of systematic power imbalances based on gender discrimination.9
... history, it is proven that gender changes along with social, political, and cultural change. Despite all, many women continue to face other kinds of discrimination. Women continue to experience sexism, the idea of traditional gender roles. Women are still thought to be more involved in taking care of their children and the household. Women often face unconscious stereotypes in the workplace as well. In some cases, women have a less change of obtaining better, and higher paying jobs. Women often don’t get promoted to higher positions in office, despite their qualifications and experiences. Female candidates running for public office experience forms of sexism as well. The variations and adaptions of society are evidence that reinforce the idea that gender is formed under social construction rather than the essence from biology alone.
“He throws like a girl!” This insult is heard all too often and is harsh to boys because of the perception of girls being weak. We are constantly bombarded with moments emphasizing gender in everyday situations. After training myself to see these differences my eyes have been opened to something I have previously believed “natural” and allowed a new perspective to push through. I see attitudes and behavior now as socially constructed and not usually inherent. In R. W. Connel’s book Gender, he defines gender as “the structure of social relationship that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes” (pg 10). I have found that gender is an institution, a pattern that has attained a social state. Gender is unique in that it is meshed with many other institutions, thus changing gender, it would mean changing much of society. I chose to focus my paper on the different institutions gender is a part of, in education throughout development, relationships, religion, and politics. Although I have only touched the surface, I believe that gender is an institution; an order or pattern that has attained a social state or property.
Largely throughout the history of the United States of America, women have been intimately oppressed by their spouses in collusion with a patriarchal society. The Realist literary period saw no exception to this oppression of women. The Realist period, which lasted approximately from 1865-1910, involved many injustices on women, women’s rights, and equality. Males were supreme to females throughout this period, and women were denied many basic freedoms, including the right to vote. Women were regarded as frail, unequal, and inferior. However, the marginalization of women in this period did not go without protest. Women began to have an active voice on issues pertaining to their own rights as the end of the Realist period neared. Headways into women’s rights were made in this period around the turn of the century. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman chronicles the oppression and deteriorating sanity of Jane, who is being confined in a room by her physician and husband. This story is critical in telling of the oppression and subordination of women to their husbands throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin depicts a frail woman, who dies after a fright from her husband, who she believed was dead. The Awakening by Kate Chopin details the life of Edna Pontellier, who seeks individualism and life away from the control of men. Edna Pontellier assists in representing the audible and vociferous women’s rights movement that arose towards the end of the 19th century. American women in the Realist literary period encountered three elements that defined their societal status: oppression, inequality, and activism.
Throughout Gendered Worlds sociologists argue that gender and sex are socially constructed as opposed to being innate. The authors present evidence in regards to history, biology, and contemporary viewpoints using day-to-day examples. Although alternative viewpoints may argue that through biological perspectives, gender and sex are innate characteristics through deeper examination it can be determined that gender and sex are truly socially constructed.
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…
Leprince de Beaumon. “Beauty and the Beast.” Folk & Fairy Tales. Matin Hallett and Barbrar Karasek. Canada: Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication, 2009.
For many years, a political, culture, or economic movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women. Feminism involves political and physiological theories concerned with issues of gender difference. Feminism seeks to achieve equality and social rights for women in all key areas, which includes education, personal economic, employment, and cultural sphere of human endeavors. Women's rights is an issue that not many people cover, but affects every woman's lives. There are both pros and cons to this issue. Men, social media, and people’s perspectives are all relating to this issue.
In “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” Deborah Blum states that “gender roles of our culture reflect an underlying biology” (Blum 679). Maasik and Solomon argue that gender codes and behavior “are not the result of some sort of natural or biological destiny, but are instead politically motivated cultural constructions,” (620) raising the question whether gender behavior begins in culture or genetics. Although one may argue that gender roles begin in either nature or nurture, many believe that both culture and biology have an influence on the behavior.
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.
Women and gender studies contribute greatly to our understanding of the social and cultural world we inhabit. Studying the complex issues of this field has instituted many key insights. Two major insights that positively affected our society are the awareness through learning and through this awareness activism that can ensue.
This is particularly palpable in the phenomenon of gender roles. “Oversimplified conceptions pertaining to our behavior as females or males,” gender roles boil down our gender and anatomical performance into categories of “boy” or “girl” (Basow 3). Patriarchy then builds systemic inequality off this simplistic binary foundation, attaching “male” to spheres of power and “female” to spheres of powerlessness. Gender roles are one of many patriarchal infrastructures that thrive off a concrete definition of gender and/or sex, and so modern feminism has found power in dismantling both constructions.
Feminism, what is it and how did it developed? Feminism is a women's right movement and it’s goal may differ by era it is found but one continuity is to seek equality for women after a certain perceived. Thus it certainly did not developed overnight nor did it stayed the same throughout the ages. Feminism empowers women against oppressive sexism but what is the definition of the word “women”? Some define the word “women” by sex while others define ‘women” by gender. Sex and gender may seem similar yet they are different which can exclude some people if the only one of those definition is used. Sex is the physical and biological aspect that differentiate men and women by reproductive organ shape while gender is a social construction that assign feminine roles to women and masculine role to men. If you define women by sex you exclude male to female transgendered people and infertile women while if you used gender to define women you exclude “masculine” women. In reality the definition of women is most likely inclusive of both sex or gender as it includes those that are biologically women (but may not conform to the gender role) or gender (which includes those who self identify as female). For such a simple term it requires a bit of thinking and by answering who is a women we also get the answer of who benefits from feminism.