The book I choose to read was Delusions of Gender: How Our Mind, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine. There are three parts to the book: “Half-changed world”, “Half-changed minds”, Neurosexisam, and Recycling Gender. The reason I choose this book was because it dealt with gender and how in society and our mind we create the differences that are used against us. I thought that by reading it I would understand more from a psychologist’s point of view how our thought process creates what we perceive as reality, what has been placed upon gender specific things by society, and how it has affected society.
In the first half of the book, “Half-changed world”, “Half-changed minds”, the author argues about how social and environmental factors influence the mind on the gender differences. She also includes the history and impact of the gender stereotypes we see and how science has been used to justify the use of sexism. In the first chapter in the “Half-changed world” section of the book she uses an example of if a researcher tapped you on the shoulder and asked you to write down what males and females were like if you would write down things such as compassionate for females and aggressive for males or if you would look at the researcher and tell them that every person is unique.(Fine,3) Based on the information in the book most people would pick up the pencil and write down descriptions of each gender based on the way the world perceives gender. She also talks about marriage and how “the husband is the breadwinner and works outside the home to provide financial resources for the family. In return, his wife is responsible for both the emotional and household labor created by the family…” (Fine,78)
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...ate much with other girls. I spent my time playing kick ball and cops and robbers with the boys or doing things that would be associated with being a boy. I like the idea that at a young age children have the capacity know the differences between the sexes and to know their own gender but I feel like it is being forced upon them as a baby so it’s possible that they are not really able to understand it. Another thing I learned was about how a neurologist, Charles Dana, catalogued several differences in the brains and nervous systems of men and women, including the upper half of the spinal cord. He claimed that these differences caused women to lack the intellect for politics and governance. Later, it was all proven to be false. I found that to be the most interesting part of the book, mainly because arguments are greatly based on scientific studies done by research.
At birth, we are a blank slate, regardless of gender. We are introduced into a world that wrongly believes gender defines who we are and what we shall be. Everything we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel impacts our minds and how we react. Therefore, behaviors between the sexes are learned from our interactions with the opposite sex and how we, as individuals, see our world. In the literary piece, The Distrust between the Sexes, Karen Horney asks this question: “…What special factors in human development lead to the discrepancy between expectations and fulfillment and what causes them to be of special significance in particular cases” (Horney)?
How do children learn to be men or women? Penelope Eckert is a professor of linguistics and anthropology at Stanford University, and Sally McConnell-Ginet is a professor of linguistics at Cornell University. They wrote an article “Learning to Be Gendered,” published in 2013 in the book “Language and Gender.” The authors argue that society has many ways to shape children’s gender by their behaviors since their birth. Eckert and Ginet show to the readers that the parent teaches their child’s behavior.
During the thirty-two hours, twelve minutes, and ten second duration of their kiss bullies, complicated feelings, and angry parents are presented. In addition to gender identity, gender performativity is the idea promoted by Judith Butler that means being something consists of doing it rather than being an objective quality of the body. The seven boys in this novel all preform their gender in distinctive ways. As said in lecture when talking about gender expression, “…gender is like a language we use to communicate ourselves to others and to understand ourselves” (Intro to GWSS Lecture, November 1,
Prentice, D. A. and Carranza, E. (2002), What Women and Men Should Be, Shouldn’t Be, Are Allowed to Be, and Don’t Have to Be: The Contents of Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26: 269–281.
I have learned that a character who is limited to traditional, fixed sexual roles is ultimately unable to succeed or find happiness. While there is a natural predisposition to one biological sex, a sustainable society would best be reached by an accepted balance between the two. While the world may see femininity and masculinity as male or female oriented, I can now identify these traits in new ways. I hope to now recognize both the feminine and masculine qualities in myself and continue to grow with
For example, males are identified as the head of the household and the provider for the family. This concept affects society because women are told that they should be nurtures and should be dedicated to their children. This shows that women were told that they shouldn’t work and should instead focus on being a housewife. This results in the mother and children being dependent on the father. Men are told that they should provide financial support for the family. Also, men are the authority in the household because they discipline their children. Ridgeway says” Gender beliefs are a continual referent for people’s own behavior and sense of identity in the home, and because household tasks themselves carry a gendered connotation, the performance or non-performance of those tasks can be a symbolic gender display for the person “(135).So, gender beliefs effect on how we view gender in the household because it is based on expectations of gender roles. Moreover, gender in household affects household division because women spend more time in the household. For example, since males are the providers they are rarely at home. They are not able to help with household duties. The mother does all the housework in the household. Also .the mother spends her whole time attending to the children and doing chores. Ridgeway says “One way to see the power of gender as an organizing force in the household division of is to examine that extent to which people sex category alone predicts the amount and nature of the household work they do in comparison to their other identities” (139) .Household division the results would show that the women do more household chores than
In his article, “The Gender Gap at School,” David Brooks scrutinizes common gender roles and introduces the idea that biological factors may play a role in human development. He begins his essay by analyzing the three gender segregated sections in any airport, which include the restrooms, security pat-down areas, and the bookstore. He goes on to explain that the same separation occurs in the home. Brooks includes a study given to nine hundred men and women who were asked to name their favorite novel. The study determined that men preferred novels written by fellow men, whereas women favored books written woman.
Betsy Lucal, "What it means to be gendered me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System."
When children are faced with emotional events that challenge their ideas, they take another step on the road to being “grown up” as they discover their identity. The short story “Boys and Girls” written by Alice Munro illustrates this coming of age by allowing us to follow the development of a young girl. We follow the main character, who narrates the story, as she changes from beginning to end. As the story opens, the narrator acts like a care free child, not paying heed to her gender. She then begins to react strongly to the way she is treated by her family and their expectations of her young womanhood. Once she realizes that some changes are inevitable she begins to adopt a new understanding of who she is which is evidence of a more mature way of thinking. This story demonstrates that difficult childhood experiences regarding gender contribute to a developing maturity and are frequently met with varying degrees of resistance.
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” there is a time line in a young girl’s life when she leaves childhood and its freedoms behind to become a woman. The story depicts hardships in which the protagonist and her younger brother, Laird, experience in order to find their own rite of passage. The main character, who is nameless, faces difficulties and implications on her way to womanhood because of gender stereotyping. Initially, she tries to prevent her initiation into womanhood by resisting her parent’s efforts to make her more “lady-like”. The story ends with the girl socially positioned and accepted as a girl, which she accepts with some unease.
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 ...
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.
Gender is not a biological fact but a social construct. However, so many assumptions have been made in the attempt to define the terms gender and sex that society often defines gender as being solely male and female. The female sex has traditionally been oppressed due to inferences on physical and mental constraints that male-dominated society has imposed. As with culture, gender socialization begins with birth and the family structure, though many believe that specific events also have a great influence on the boundaries of gender. It has been suggested, for example, that schooling and education systems have a large responsibility in the formation of gender divisions. Gender differences have confronted society since the first peoples, and though progress has been made to level the playing field, men still receive more opportunities in education, the workforce, politics and other wide-scale arenas than do women. In the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Jane is an example of a woman oppressed, yet she finds ways to break free of that which confines her. The family structure and our school systems are two of the first places children learn about themselves. If they do not grant equal opportunity for men and women, it will be impossible to create a just and gender-equal society.
As a newborn a gender is assigned, this gender being what you will be brought up as until you decide you want to bend the rules and change the roles, once more children realize they do not need to conform to the roles they develop a sense of love, confidence, and understanding for themselves and others. In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” the theme of gender is an anchor that gives the story a deeper meaning and gives the reader insight on stereotyping and gender assignment among children. The genders are what develop the main character, her assumed gender or lack of show how she grows and acts throughout the story. Moreover, gender roles are very prominent and these stereotypes show the setting where the family lives. Lastly, the roles reveal
The book traces or follows the life of men and women gender differences and common