Essay On Femininity And Masculinity

558 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender and its social construction

To be born a female or a male in any society is more than an unpretentious biological fact since it is not without social implications. Women establish a discrete social group, as gender dominates it by means of culture redevelops to what instigates as a fact of nature. The idea that natural differences between the sexes are the basis/spring of all that fashions women and man to be distinct has also been profoundly driven in in various scientific debates. The absolute inconsistency of the roles and relations of women and men across diverse societies and social groups depicts/portrays itself as one of the primary evidence against this unsophisticated biologically determinist interpretation. If there is no steadiness between how different societies believe/presume men to be men and women to be women-- this longstanding saying has been confronted with ever accumulating frequency as social researchers emphasis on the nature of the social construction of gender, then what can be announced is that there must be something other than natural differences that lie beneath their character along...

Show More
Related

  • Wasserstrom's Arguments Relating to the Unimportance of Gender and Its Importance on Promoting Sex Roles

    1433 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this paper, I will discuss Wasserstrom’s arguments relating to the unimportance of gender and how differentiating people based on their gender promotes the harmful ideology of sex roles. I will then present Schlafly’s arguments which regard the differences between men and women as justifiable due to the fact that these differences are not only natural, but also practical and obligatory, and show that they are inferior to Wasserstrom’s arguments. I will argue this by elaborating on Wassertrom’s argument of how there is no such thing as “natural” while providing reasons for why this is so.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in Dakota Culture

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    To begin, I think it is important to analyze the difference between “sex” and “gender”. Up until researching for this paper, I though that the two terms were interchangeable in meaning, rather, they are separate ideas that are connected. According to Mary K. Whelan, a Doctor of Anthropology focusing on gender studies, sex and gender are different. She states, “Western conflation of sex and gender can lead to the impression that biology, and not culture, is responsible for defining gender roles. This is clearly not the case.”. She continues with, “Gender, like kinship, does have a biological referent, but beyond a universal recognition of male and female "packages," different cultures have chosen to associate very different behaviors, interactions, and statuses with men and women. Gender categories are arbitrary constructions of culture, and consequently, gender-appropriate behaviors vary widely from culture to culture.” (23). Gender roles are completely defined by the culture each person lives in. While some may think that another culture is sexist, or dem...

    Read More

  • Beyonce's Influence On Gender Essentialism

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    Risman (1988:14) notes that “early childhood socialization is an influential determinant of later behavior, and research has focused on how societies create feminine women and masculine men.” Rather than focusing on gender as natural and fixed, Risman (1998) suggests instead that gender can be viewed at three levels: individual, interactional, and institutional. Instead of viewing the differences between men and women outlined in “If I Were A Boy” as natural and fixed, sociologists would instead look to socialization and societal norms to explain why men and women appear dissimilar. Additionally, many sociologists view gender as being continuously created; Risman (1988:10) notes “the pervasive differences between male[s] and female[s]…are continuously created by the gendered structures in which we all live.” Sociologists, who would instead view these perceived differences as a product of our society, would heavily dispute the gender essentialist perspective taken in “If I Were A Boy”.

    Read More

  • Essay On Masculinity In America

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    According to Kimmel, the earliest embodiments of American manhood were landowners, independent artisans, shopkeepers, and farmers. During the first decade of the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution started to influence the way, American men thought of themselves. Manhood was now defined as through the man’s economic success. This was the origin of the “Self-Made Man” ideology and the new concept of manhood that was more exciting, and potentially more rewarding for men themselves. The image of the Self-Made Man has far reaching effects on the notion of masculinity in America. Thus, the emergence of the Self-Made Man put men under pressure. As Kimmel states,

    Read More

  • Masculinity In American Culture Essay

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    power and the ability to lead. In American culture women must act like men to gain positions of

    Read More

  • Essay On Masculinity And Deviance

    1208 Words  | 3 Pages

    　　Several individuals within society typically follow social guidelines that they are unaware of performing. Social guidelines such as stopping at a red light or saying thank you when someone has done something for you. These social guidelines or norms give society a script to follow regarding their behavior and actions. Although norms are the acceptable actions and behaviors that society is taught to perform, there are occurrences where individuals stay away from those in which they are now enacting deviance. To act deviant is considered to break away or do something different of a social norm. There are several forms of deviance that occur frequently within society that violate social norms and hinder society’s overall function.

    Read More

  • Sexual Dimorphism and Human Evolution

    2397 Words  | 5 Pages

    Introduction The topic of gender differences must understandably be approached with caution in our modern world. Emotionally charged and fraught with ideas about political correctness, gender can be a difficult subject to address, particularly when discussed in correlation to behavior and social behavior. Throughout history, many people have strove to understand what makes men and women different. Until the modern era, this topic was generally left up to religious leaders and philosophers to discuss. However, with the acquisition of more specialized medical knowledge of human physiology and the advent of anthropology, we now know a great deal more about gender differences than at any other point in history.

    Read More

  • Gender Femininity And Masculinity

    1477 Words  | 3 Pages

    All around the world society has created an ideological perspective for the basis of gender roles. Gender and sex are often times misused and believed to be interchangeable. This is not the case. There are two broad generalization of sexes; female and male, yet there is a vast number of gender roles that each sex should more or less abide by. The routinely cycle of socially acceptable behaviors and practices is what forms the framework of femininity and masculinity. The assigned sex categories given at birth have little to do with the roles that a person takes on. Biological differences within females and males should not be used to construe stereotypes or discriminate within different groups. Social variables such as playing with dolls or

    Read More

  • Learning Gender In a Diverse Society

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...

    Read More

  • The Gender Blur

    1540 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Female to Male as Nature is to Culture

    2469 Words  | 5 Pages

    Female to Male as Nature is to Culture Gender relations form an integral part of human social interactions and are of great interest to anthropologists. Since the feminist movement in the late 1960s, one question that has been discussed is to what extent the opposition between women and men can be thought of in terms of the dichotomy between nature and culture and what implications this has for the position of women in society. This structuralist perspective was first formulated by Ortner (1974), drawing on Levi-Strauss and de Beauvoir, but has since been criticised for being simplistic and ethnocentric. I will delineate Ortner’s argument and look at its application to male and female roles in childbirth before examining the ways in which her line of reasoning has been found wanting. The universality of the opposition between nature and culture is questioned, and the cultural specificity and complexity of gender, power relations and sex is explored before concluding that the parallel dichotomy of nature / culture and female / male is a relatively recent Western concept which does not necessarily help us understand other societies’ gender relations.

    Read More

  • The Social Construction Of Gender

    3360 Words  | 7 Pages

    Gender is such a ubiquitous notion that humans assume gender is biological. However, gender is a notion that is made up in order to organize human life. It is created and recreated giving power to the dominant gender, creating an inferior gender and producing gender roles. There are many questionable perspectives such as how two genders are learned, how humans learn their own gender and others genders, how they learn to appropriately perform their gender and how gender roles are produced. In order to understand these perspectives, we must view gender as a social institution. Society bases gender on sex and applies a sex category to people in daily life by recognizing gender markers. Sex is the foundation to which gender is created. We must understand the difference between anatomical sex and gender in order to grasp the development of gender. First, I will be assessing existing perspectives on the social construction of gender. Next, I will analyze three case studies and explain how gender construction is applied in order to provide a clearer understanding of gender construction. Lastly, I will develop my own case study by analyzing the movie Mrs. Doubtfire and apply gender construction.

    Read More

  • Sociological Perspective On Gender Roles

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    Human beings have been, and always will be, dichotomized into either male or female. When determining a person’s sex we often look for differences in facial features, body shape or mannerism’s, but another promising way to determine a persons sex and one that is most often used today, is through gender roles. Gender roles are behaviors that portray masculinity or femininity. The theory behind gender roles through multidisciplinary viewpoints is the focus of this paper. Throughout history and in every culture these roles have shifted and transformed into what society says is expectable. In this analysis, gender roles will be examined through a sociological, biological and evolutionary scope.

    Read More

  • Masculinity and Femininity

    673 Words  | 2 Pages

    Masculinity and femininity are two terms, which have been interpreted differently throughout history. Both the males and the females have responsibilities and duties but these duties differ based on one’s gender. Gender has played a prodigious role in the economy, politics, and the society. Everyone starts making interpretations of the strengths and weaknesses based on one’s gender. These interpretations are not always based on his or her ability but is usually based on his or her gender. Males tend to be judged as extremely strong and unfashionable in terms of appearance. Whereas, females are judged as expensive and very fashionable. Males and females both differ in their abilities and their enjoyments. Fashion, entertainment, and strength are three topics, which are used to define masculinity and femininity in the 21st century.

    Read More

  • Patriarchy Essay

    1858 Words  | 4 Pages

    Outline and assess the view that patriarchy is the main cause of gender inequality (40 marks)

    Read More

More about Essay On Femininity And Masculinity

Open Document