Socialist Feminists' Conception of a Socially Influenced Human Nature
Socialist Feminists’ conception of a socially influenced human nature. Though most of us like to think of ourselves as independent minded, that belief is false. Since early childhood, values, judgments, and standards of society have been engraved in our minds. So much so that it is nearly impossible to know any other way of thought and behavior. As a child we know that it’s okay if mommy cries at a movie, but daddy isn’t really supposed to. We learn how to speak in syllables and recognize good from bad. We are told how to interact with people and whom to interact with. As we grow away from mom and dad, we have friends and co-workers whom we depend upon for feedback and acceptance. Our thoughts even form from what somebody did, said, or looked like. We must live up to our role models or maybe just the model in the magazine because that is acceptable in our society now. Either way, we are certainly not autonomous agents making decisions independent of our environment. This is sometimes a difficult realization to come to. Socialization is not superficial. It is so deep inside every one of us that it is hard to discriminate between what just IS and what we have been told just IS all of our life. For example, our sex roles are not simply how nature created us. They are a conditioning that has matured over many generations in the United States. Other cultures may find our identification with gender ridiculous and ignorant, just as we may think the same of theirs. It’s all a matter of social values. We depend upon each other so much for ideas, how to act, what to wear, and what to dream. This is the huge influence society has over human nature.
I also agree with the idea that women are alienated as sexual beings from their mind and body. I grew up with a subscription to Seventeen magazine. This, I think, is the most detrimental experience for a teenage girl. Every page has someone’s silky hair, or long smooth legs, or flat stomach, or pouty red lips. The stories are about the latest diets, how to put on your makeup, and the poor “fat girl” who got made fun of at school. But it’s not just teen magazines. Every magazine, book, TV program, and movie creates this illusion of an ideal woman that all women should strive to be like.
Gender by many scholars is deemed to be socially constructed although there is much debate to whether this is actually the case. Simone De Beauvoir (1973: 301) famously claimed that ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’. In this undisputed text de Beauvoir argues that women are not born a woman. Instead they have to develop feminine behaviours and traits in order to become a woman implying they were not always a woman. It is not the case that nature causes women to be feminine and men to act in a masculine way. Society has constructed it to be this way. Kate Millet also takes a gender socialisation view. Arguing that one’s gender has nothing to do with their biological makeup instead it depends on their culture
Tales from the beyond, story one: a parent binds his baby girl's feet in China, so it will not grow more than five to six inches because small feet in women are a sign of elegance; story two: a wife is burned alive in India, so she can accompany her husband in death. Are these stories? No, things like this really happened in the past. They are part of the reason that contributed to the birth of the Women's Movement in the 19th century. This movement was also known as the Feminist movement because its foundation came from feminism, an ideology that developed in the 19th century, and whose main goal was to gain equality for women. The goals of the Women's Movement in the 19th century where: to get the vote, to archive equality in property rights, access to education, access to jobs and fair pay, divorce, and children's custody. These ideals had been around for a while, but the 19th century was the perfect time for them to develop. During the 19th century, nations were going through radical changes; countries were adopting new ways of life based mainly of one of three ideologies: liberalism, conservatism, and socialism. The development of one of these ideologies, and the success of feminism in a country went hand in hand, and it is by analyzing the similarities, and differences between feminism, and each of these ideologies that we can see why feminism was most successful in liberal countries.
However, there is still and will always be debating points stating that gender socialization either doesn’t occur or doesn’t pose a problem. This can be refuted using multiple examples that trace back to one main topic: sexism. Sexism essentially has been the byproduct of gender socialization in the sense that it is based off the notion that ‘one sex isn’t
Mary Pipher goes on to say that the problem faced by girls is a ‘problem without a name’ and that the girls of today deserve a different kind of society in which all their gifts can be developed and appreciated. (Pipher,M). It’s clear that cultures and individual personalities intersect through the period of adolescence. Adolescence is a time in a young girl’s life that shapes them into the woman they become. I think it begins earlier than teen years because even the clothing that is being sold for younger girls says sexuality. Bras for girls just beginning in every store are now padded with matching bikini underwear, Barbie dolls are glamour up in such away that these girls believ...
You can see in the media in almost all occasions women being sexualized. From beer to burger commercials women in the media are portrayed as sexual beings. If they are thin and meet society’s standards of beautiful they are considered marketable. Over the...
Throughout history our understanding of the world has been manufactured through the judgment of human beings. The overall change and shift in paradigms can be explained by social construction theory. An article written by Carole S. Vance discusses the topic of social construction theory and illustrates how it impacts gender roles. Social construction can be defined as: a critical subject of reality that analyzes the ideas of a particular group or culture based on society and the aspects of society (education, religion, government etc.) Another article “Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Dichotomy” written by Carole Pateman explains how men had placed women in a hypothetical bubble that is dominated by men. Men have always been looked
As if women are not objectified enough beauty is now classified as to how sexy and revealing you look. A large portion of people believe that women should have sculpted bodies and perky breast to be beautiful. A women’s beauty is being measured by how prefect and revealing her body can be. In some ways women have lost respect for themselves fighting for the attention of men and became sexual objects in the process. Being judge solely on a women’s sex appeal and failing to see that there is a difference between being sexy and beautiful. This behavior is forcing young women to conform to unrealistic habits of trying to be sexy in order to be seen as
In “Gender as a Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism”, the author Barbara Risman explains her theory to readers about how gender should be thought of as a social structure. Thinking of it as such would allow people to examine how gender is ingrained in almost every part of society, thus putting gender on an equal level of importance with economics and politics. In society, gender dictates many of the opportunities and limitations that an individual may face in his or her lifetime. Barbara Risman points out the three aspects of the gender structure that happen at an individual, interactional, and institutional level (Risman, pg. 446). First, gender contributes to how a person will develop themselves in life. This is the “individual level”. At an interactional level, men and women face different expectations that are set by society. The individual and interactional level are linked because sometimes, changes to one level can affect the other. The third level, the institutional level, notes that gender is affected by laws, rules, and organizational practices that dictate what
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.
In western society males are taught what it means to be masculine and females are taught what it means to be feminine. Lorber (1994:57) states “Individuals are born sexed but not gendered, and they have to be taught to be masculine or feminine.” As we grow older we are taught what is expected of us on the basis of what gender were identify as and/or what gender other people perceive us as. For instance, a woman is expected to cook, clean, and have occupations such as a nurse, or secretary. A man is expected to have be either have top jobs such as a surgeon or have a tough labor jobs, and be the bread winners. Western society expects each gender to stay within their gender role. Lorber (1994:61) argues “As, a structure, gender divides work in the home and in economic production…” Once an individual goes outside these expectations breaking they are out casted. Gender is a process that creates what is man and what woman based off of what other perceive what is expected of and should be expressed by each gender, making gender socially constructed. Lorber (1994:60) argues “As a process, gender creates the social differences that define ‘women’ and ‘man.’ In social interaction throughout their lives, individuals learn what is expected, and see what is expected act and
Feminism is a perspective that views gender as one of the most important bases of the structure and organization of the social world. Feminists argue that in most known societies this structure has granted women lower status and value, more limited access to valuable resources, and less autonomy and opportunity to make choices over their lives than it has granted men. (Sapiro 441)
Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing unrealistic bodies and women, women whose bodies are desirable by a mass number of people, and lastly not allowing all body types to be equally shown as “attractive.”
Feminist political ideology focuses on understanding and changing political philosophies for the betterment of women. Studying how the philosophies are constructed and what makes them unjust, this field constantly generates new ideas on how these philosophies need to be fundamentally reconstructed. Liberal feminism, for example, was built around promoting economic and political equality for women. By arguing the older concepts of the split between public and private realms as a way to politically protect male domination of women as “natural”, and ideas about a women’s place in the household, came evidence that supported legal cases leading “to the criminalization in the United States of spousal rape” (qtd. in McAfee). Another completely different approach is radical feminism, which advocates a separation from the whole system, perceiving that the sexual relations between male and female as the basis of gender inequality and female subordination (qtd. in McAfee). Democratic femin...
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional or philosophical dissertation. It helps to explain the main nature of gender inequality. It further explains the social roles of women in the society such as education, communication, philosophy, sociology and so on (Chodrow, Nancy 1991).
Society plays a vital role on how gender, sex, gender identity is viewed and it also influence gender norms and gender development. Society learn their culture through enculturation. Enculturation is the process where an individual learn their group culture either through experience, observation or as we know from history through force. The intriguing aspects of enculturation is how we humans learn or acquire knowledge. Society creates their norms and if you don’t follow them you become a castaway or outcast. Gender is the range of characteristics/behaviors that society or cultures portray as masculine or feminine. Gender has nothing to do with your sexual organ which is your sex, your chromosomes, or your