Analysis Of What It Means To Be Gendered Me By Betsy Lucal

For this week’s readings, I choose to talk about “What it Means to Be Gendered Me” by Betsy Lucal. In her work, Betsy Lucal identifies the issues that come with the Patriarchal dominance there is in our society. Speaking mostly on her past experiences, the author illustrates the ways her problems in life, reflect the on how our culture has constructed gender. She also hopes to either agree or contradict with the points made by Zimmerman about doing gender. Her situation matches really well to what the issue stands as today. Betsy has the constant harassment and under classification of her gender due to the struggle that she classifies herself as a woman, however, her physical appearance disrupts the social norms that society label as “women”. The author hopes to capture the urgency in abandoning the gender system we

There are only 2 sides of genders, either women, or man, there is no in between no matter the personal self identify you see yourself as. People no longer have the right to represent themselves in any way they feel best comfortable but instead, they are being forced to be something they are not. In this, Lucal sees herself as a failure because she continues to misrepresent herself in the eyes of the public. She feels that she must be aware of which gender she “gives off” or else there will be consequences and that there has been times when she made awkward situations. Since many people are so used to labelling people by the way they dress, the wear makeup, they speak, how long their hair is, our ideologies begin to undermine the idea that their are women who don’t necessarily have all of these qualities, but they are still for a fact “women”. The patriarchal system has become so embedded including in institutions such as public bathrooms and schools that people like Lucal have trouble fitting