Gender Neutral Society New style manuals imposed on students today in English classes across
the globe tell them to avoid generic "he" and rewrite their sentences
in other ways. A great lesson and a leap forward in removing the very
roots of our self-made patriachical society. The English language is
changing whether we like it or not, and generic 'he-him-his' may not
even exist in 5 or 10 more years. But what of that one book that has
stayed relatively the same for generations? The one that is the basis
of our legal system, our moral and ethical values and beliefs? Yes,
the all important Bible. The Bible is no longer the untouchable aspect
of our society. That's right, ladies and gentleman, publish this very
month was the New Revised Standard Version of the book of
Christianity. A New Revised Standard GENDER NEAUTRAL Version.
The publicity brochure of the New Revised Standard Version sounds so
sensible. At last, misleading, masculine-oriented language has been
removed from the Bible. Jesus no longer says, "and I, when I am lifted
up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (rsv), but instead,
"And I...will draw all people to myself"
Of course, every great masterpiece has its critics, and this
particular masterpiece has an evangelical convent full of them.
Sometimes the retranslation result is a little strange... The NIV's
Mark 1:17 is the famous, "'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will
make you fishers of men.'" The TNIV makes the apostles seem a little
like slave traders: "'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I
will send you out to catch people.'"
But, sometimes, we must sacrifice a little...
... middle of paper ...
...ons must be literal and that there
is no convincing rationale in any context for other kinds of
translations. But, as the critics deny this logical conclusion in
other contexts demonstrates that it really is not translation theory
or a concern for the accuracy of God's word that most fundamentally
motivates them, rather it is one particular conviction about what
Scripture teaches on gender roles and the corollaries which they
believe (erroneously) necessarily follow from that conviction.
"Ladies and gentlemen, now that we've taken care of the bible, its
time to look at the bigger picture. Lord of the Rings? Its time all
popular culture got a gender neutral makeover...we've burnt our bras
long enough! The world is ready...Its ready for a Lord OR LADY of the
Rings, for a Monarch of the Damned, for a Person of the Flies."
"A Sound of Thunder" is set in the future year of 2055. It was written
...he book people are going to remember not only who they are, but the books that each one of them has held safely in their minds.
"The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it
issues that the author deal with in the book are a prediction of the future; it can
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
Society places ideas concerning proper behaviors regarding gender roles. Over the years, I noticed that society's rules and expectations for men and women are very different. Men have standards and specific career goals that we must live up to according to how others judge.
In this article, Shaw and Lee describe how the action of labels on being “feminine” or “masculine” affect society. Shaw and Lee describe how gender is, “the social organization of sexual difference” (124). In biology gender is what sex a person is and in culture gender is how a person should act and portray themselves. They mention how gender is what we were taught to do in our daily lives from a young age so that it can become natural(Shaw, Lee 126). They speak on the process of gender socialization that teaches us how to act and think in accordance to what sex a person is. Shaw and Lee state that many people identify themselves as being transgendered, which involves a person, “resisting the social construction of gender into two distinct, categories, masculinity and femininity and working to break down these constraining and polarized categories” ( 129). They write about how in mainstream America masculinity and femininity are described with the masculine trait being the more dominant of the two. They define how this contributes to putting a higher value of one gender over the other gender called gender ranking (Shaw, Lee 137). They also speak about how in order for femininity to be viewed that other systems of inequality also need to be looked at first(Shaw,Lee 139).
Moreover, “women and men are allocated to a gender role as we all must act out the masculine or feminine behaviour as arranged by our society and our culture.” Gender roles and behaviours associated in society and culture between men and women is femininity and masculinity. Femininity is connected with traits such as emotionality, cautiousness, collaboration, common sense, and fulfilment. Masculinity tend to link with traits such as reasonableness, effectiveness, opposition, independence and callousness. Similarly, “Gender roles express our respective place or position in the larger society relative to traditional beliefs or masculinity and femininity and reflect essential qualities for appearance, mannerisms, personality traits and beliefs
Since the beginning of time men have played the dominant role in nearly every culture around the world. If the men were not dominant, then the women and men in the culture were equal. Never has a culture been found where women have dominated. In “Society and Sex Roles” by Ernestine Friedl, Friedl supports the previous statement and suggests that “although the degree of masculine authority may vary from one group to the next, males always have more power” (261). Friedl discusses a variety of diverse conditions that determine different degrees of male dominance focusing mainly on the distribution of resources. In The Forest People by Colin Turnbull, Turnbull describes the culture of the BaMbuti while incorporating the evident sex roles among these “people of the forest”. I believe that the sex roles of the BaMbuti depicted by Turnbull definitely follow the pattern that is the basis of Freidl’s arguments about the conditions that determine variations of male dominance. Through examples of different accounts of sex roles of the BaMbuti and by direct quotations made by Turnbull as well as members of the BaMbuti tribe, I intend on describing exactly how the sex roles of the BaMbuti follow the patterns discussed by Freidl. I also aim to depict how although women are a vital part of the BaMbuti culture and attain equality in many areas of the culture, men still obtain a certain degree of dominance.
Gender roles have greatly influenced the way human beings think and behave, including traditional stereotypes portraying men as strong and dominate, whereas the female been are submissive and unintelligent (Lovdal, 1989). Throughout history, gender stereotypes have particularly disadvantaged and discriminated against women in the workforce, at home, through education and in society as a whole causing inequality amongst the female gender (Clark, 1991). But as will be discussed, while stereotypical traditional gender roles and inequalities continue in society, ideologies on the issues are starting to change. This essay will examine how ideologies on stereotypical traditional gender roles have influenced gender in society and the gender inequalities
Equality, as we know it today, has been formed and molded into an idea that is still changing. Government officials, laws, and most influentially, people of the United States, have aided in the prevention of oppression towards women of all races and classes. The efforts of these individuals are counteracted with instances throughout history to prove that these men and women are not treated as if there were an equal condition. There are many instances of discrimination still present today, and one place it is most relevant is in the workplace. Not only are workers separated by gender in their place of work, but also, many women are being segregated inside their own group by race. Suzanne Pharr’s book Homophobia, A Weapon of Sexism as well as Alice Kessler-Harris’s article, The Wage Conceived are prominent writings that prove this abundance of discrimination is still plaguing workplaces nationwide. The points of Pharr and Kessler-Harris are valued to question if women will ever escape the indecency of this injustice.
Social Construction of Gender Today’s society plays a very important role in the construction of gender. Gender is a type of issue that has raised many questions over the years in defining and debating if both male and female are equal. Today, gender is constructed in four different ways. The The first way gender is defined is by the family in which a child is raised.
Women have long struggled to make their place in America be an accepted one of equality in position and pay. While some women are content to be hardworking wives and mothers of the home, others strive for a distant point with which to have a voice in what some consider as a man’s world. Across the world, many countries are a patriarchy-in which the male is the figurehead of a position in society. Different cultures, religions, and beliefs struggle against the rising desires of women to become successful leaders. Some women struggle for education to lead into corporate business, and others women are thrust into this position upon circumstance. Women just want to be heard and recognized for their place in life. Centuries ago women were to be quiet, unassuming, and dominated in society. As the views of humanity have changed, the views toward women have changed.
Society has stamped an image into the minds of people of how the role of each gender should be played out. There are two recognized types of gender, a man and a woman, however there are many types of gender roles a man or a woman may assume or be placed into by society. The ideas of how one should act and behave are often times ascribed by their gender by society, but these ascribed statuses and roles are sometimes un-welcomed, and people will assume who they want to be as individuals by going against the stereotypes set forth by society. This paper will examine these roles in terms of how society sees men and women stereotypically, and how men and women view themselves and each other in terms of stereotypes that are typically ascribed, as well as their own opinions with a survey administered to ten individuals. What I hope to prove is that despite stereotypes playing a predominant role within our society, and thus influencing what people believe about each other in terms of their same and opposite genders, people within our society are able to go against these ascribed stereotypes and be who they want and it be okay. Through use of the survey and my own personal history dealing with gender stereotyping I think I can give a clear idea as to how stereotypes envelope our society, and how people and breaking free from those stereotypes to be more individualistic.