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Historical background of feminism
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ARGUING FEMALE
On June 6, 2015, Elinor Burkett wrote a piece about how the transgender movement is affecting feminist movements in “What Makes a Woman?”. The article specifically targeted Caitlyn Jenner in response to the interview by Diane Sawyer, “I’m a Woman”. In the interview, Caitlyn Jenner speaks of her newfound womanhood and how she sees herself as a woman both in body and mind. Elinor Burkett, though, disagrees. In “What Makes a Woman?”, the author declares transgenderism does not equate feminism making a claim of definition on what feminism is. Elinor Burkett makes a strong claim with the use of an ethos argument, kairos and exigency, different types of supports and fallacies, and rhetoric in the article.
Elinor Burkett begins her
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Her main claim is how transgenders have no claim in feminism and lack the experience to claim otherwise. Caitlyn Jenner says, “My brain is much more female than it is male,” he told her, explaining how he knew that he was transgender”(Sawyer). Elinor Burkett disagrees and supports her claim by giving evidence of an established neuroscientist at Britain’s Aston University, Gina Rippon, who has concluded a study stating that it is not possible to know what kind of brain it is just by looking at it (Burkett). In fact, Elinor Burkett also includes a link to an article on this information in her article. Elinor Burkett uses Gina Rippon as a logos argument by establishing the neuroscientist’s ethos. the rhetor uses these argument to refute Caitlyn Jenner’s earlier claim. The use of ethos and logos are set to further convince the reader that Caitlyn Jenner and many transgender claims are deficient, but that is not the only thing that the rhetor uses. In the quote, she maintains the same words as the interviewer when they called Caitlyn Jenner using the pronoun “he”. Though small, she has made her ethos argument and dogmatism fallacy again. Elinor Burkett uses these pronouns as a way to implant the idea that Caitlyn Jenner is not female and is should be thought of as male. With those arguments, the rhetor endeavors to steer you into her way of
Representation of Women in "Men Should Weep" by Ena Lamont Stewart and "Perfect Days" by Liz Lochead
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston portrays the complicated relationship between her and her mother, while growing up as a Chinese female in an American environment. She was surrounded by expectations and ideals about the inferior role that her culture imposed on women. In an ongoing battle with herself and her heritage, Kingston struggles to escape limitations on women that Chinese culture set. However, she eventually learns to accept both cultures as part of who she is. I was able to related to her as a Chinese female born and raised in America. I have faced the stereotypes and expectations that she had encountered my whole life and I too, have learned to accept both my Chinese and American culture.
Being Trans gender is when a person’s self identity does not conform with their conventional sex. Talking about people identifying as a transgender individual is a difficult and very controversial topic to discuss. One author, Ruth Padawer has brought the topic to light, presenting us with examples from one of the most prestigious women’s colleges in the United States. In her piece, “Sisterhood is Complicated” from 2014, she ponders on the idea of if people who identify as transgender should be allowed in an all women’s college. In her piece, she states that “Some two dozen other matriculating students at Wellesley don’t identify as women. Of those, a half dozen or so were trans men, people born female who identified as men, some of whom had begun taking testosterone to change their bodies.” All of which made the switch to be transgender after being accepted into the school. So, in a college of all women, some are switching genders and it challenges the idea of an all women’s college. The piece continues to go through and tell us the story of three trans men and their experience at Wellesley college.
Women in America have been described as “domestic household slaves” referring to their status in society. Do the documents support this assertion? If so what is the evidence?
Throughout reading this novel, my thought on transgender and transsexual individuals was pretty set and stone. For example, I knew from reading the textbook that a transgender is a person that is born—in Jenny’s case—a male, but was psychologically and emotionally born a female. However, Jenny took things one-step further and became a transsexual, which is an individual that underwent surgery to obtain the genitals that match the psychological and emotional gender within, which in her case was a female. Therefore, Jenny Finney Boylan would be considered a transsexual female. What I did not know prior to reading this book is how tedious the process is to make a sex change. To be honest I never thought about the process a transsexual needed to go through to become one’s self, I did not think about the many steps taken to obtain the voice, or look of a female that Jenny was striving for. I also did not think about the surgery, and how scary that type of surgery could actually be. For example, on page 124 Jennifer is discussing the process of transition with her psychologist, Dr. Strange. On this page Dr. Strange is beginning to inform Jenny, and essentially myself, on how to begin the transition of becoming a female. First Dr. Strange was listing off the effects the hormones will have on Jenny’s body, and I first they made sense to me; softer skin, fluffier hair, but I never knew the physical changes hormones could have on someone, especially a man. For instance, I learned that there is such a thing called “fat migration.” This is when the fat on previous parts of your body migrates to another location. I learned from this novel that fat migration is a result of hormones, and since Jenny was once a man, her face would become less r...
Barbie is tall, thin, has large hips and a large chest; she is beautiful, blonde, and she loves to shop; overall, Barbie is the feminine ideal. As researchers Jacqueline Urla and Alan Swedlund acknowledge, “little girls learn, among other things, about the crucial importance of their appearance to their personal happiness and to their ability to gain in favor with their friends” (1995:281). Gender roles are both centered around behavior as well as around bodies; this poses huge problems for transgender people, as well as explanations for transphobia; society has, for so long, accepted gender and sex to be synonymous. Because of this, a person whose gender is female and whose body is (rhetorically) male is a frightening and concerning deviant to most people’s understanding of the way in which gender exists. Everything that has to do with ideals for bodies leads to problems for transgender people; whether it is, as Urla and Swedlund also commented, that “...woman’s body was understood through the lens of her reproductive functions” (1995:287), or the general idea of “norms” for body proportions. When considering women’s bodies’ main purpose to be that of reproduction, it is apparent why the concept of transgender people may be concerning; transgender women -- that is, people, assigned male at birth but who live as women -- are women whose bodies cannot reproduce in the way that women are expected to; transgender men -- people assigned female at birth but who live as men -- may still have bodies which are viewed as useful mainly for their reproductive capabilities, but which they do not intend to acknowledge or use as such. When things stray so drastically from a norm which has long been accepted with minimal thought, onlookers panic that other norms will start to change as well. Straying from this norm also
Transgender is defined by Wikipedia as, “the state of one's gender identity (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) or gender expression not matching one's assigned sex.” The article explains how a transgender individual may define themselves as having the characteristics that are normally associated with a particular gender but will choose to identify elsewhere on the gender continuum. It use’s the love story of Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker as an example. It took five years for Zackary to transition from male to female and Rhys from female to male. But both truly believe that they were born the wrong gender, and choose to correct this wrong with hormone treatments, surgery and personality changes that to the more tradition eye may seem absurd and abnormal. This is one of the main reason such transgender couples are talking about their transformations. To beach this gap between transgender’s and the rest of the population. It is believed that by educating society, we are more likely to accept something than if we do not fully understand the parameters that surround such an issue.
In the short story “A Kind of Courage” by Ruth Sterling, the protagonist, Davy, is trying to win Ginny’s heart.
In the novel The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston uses ghosts to represent a battle between American and Chinese cultures. The two cultures have different views of what a ghost is. The Chinese believe the ghost spirits may be of people dead or alive. Chinese culture recognizes foreigners and unfamiliar people as ghosts because, like American ghosts, they are mysterious creatures of the unknown. Americans view ghosts as spirits of the dead that either help or haunt people. American ghosts may or may not be real. There spirits are there but physical appearance is a mystery.
An abundance of transgenders are finally identifying as their true gender in our generation. In fact, in the United States alone, there are 700,000 transgenders (Gates 2011). However, our generation isn’t welcoming these true identities, but shaming them. Though, it is incredible that slowly the idea of transgenders is becoming more acceptable, the amount of hate and harassment these human beings receive is unacceptable. Human beings, that is what they are, right? This leads to the next question. Why is our generation shaming something we are? Human beings, right? As we are all human beings, we shouldn’t be treating transgenders as if they are a different species. Many argue that these individuals
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).
Russell first goes wrong is claiming that transgender people are not the gender they identify as. She seems unaware of the fact that transgender folks are similar to their cisgender counterparts mentally and emotionally even if their genitals are not. In fact, according to an Amsterdam-based study found in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology conducted by endocrinologist Richard Swaab found that forty-two brains of transgender individuals that had gone through hormone replacement therapy, showed similar nucleus structures to their cisgender counterparts (p 47). Nicole also seems to be under the impression that transgender youth rely on fleeting emotions to determine their gender when that is not the case. All transgender individuals, regardless of age, are required to attend gender therapy for a minimum of six months in order for them to receive a referral to an endocrinologist who will decide if they are mentally stable enough to understand the full effects of taking hormones. During that time the therapist works with the individual to break down why they may want to transition. The therapist goes over the person’s past, they talk about any forms of abuse they might have faced, and attempt to have the patient build a support group that can help them during their transition. The same process is also required to receive any sex-changing surgeries because doctors will not preform them without written consent from a certified
In her essay, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller discusses the state of marriage in America during the 1800‘s. She is a victim of her own knowledge, and is literally considered ugly because of her wisdom. She feels that if certain stereotypes can be broken down, women can have the respect of men intellectually, physically, and emotionally. She explains why some of the inequalities exist in marriages around her. Fuller feels that once women are accepted as equals, men and women will be able achieve a true love not yet known to the people of the world.
When the subject of gender issues is brought up, people generally split into two sides to argue about either women or men and the inequalities they face. While these arguments are all perfectly valid, a lot is left out that most people wouldn’t notice. Many of the issues that are rarely discussed involve people who lie outside the binary labels of ‘male’ and ‘female’. These people have many issues involving gender inequality, but the only time they’re ever discussed is when something tragic happens to them. As Sydette Harry, a writer, puts it, “I’d like to wake up one morning see a picture of a beautiful black trans woman without a murder headline next to it” (Devereaux). Men and women’s failures, issues, and successes within the realm of gender are broadcasted daily, but where is everyone else? These people shouldn’t have to be murdered in order for their voices to be heard. Transgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary individuals are victims to issues and inequalities that are real, prominent, and just as important as those of binary genders.
However, it has not been until the past century that transgender individuals have been able to act upon their feelings and work toward changing to their preferred sex. They can now seek medical interventions through hormone replacement pills and/or sex reassignment surgery to fulfill their needs and happiness. Transgender individuals who undergo a sex change are sometimes referred to as transsexuals but these terms are often interchanged in articles and society. A very current and well publicized example of this is Bruce Jenner, a men’s decathlon Olympian winner, who recently underwent a sex reassignment surgery and is now known as Caitlyn Jenner. She states that her “brain is much more female than male” (Sieczkowski, 2015). She has flourished with her new identity and now has her own reality TV show to share her experiences and life with the world. Bruce Jenner’s coming out with his identity issue and him changing into a woman has opened doors for many people dealing with gender identity problems. But the harsh reality is that not everyone has the transition as easy as her. There are many controversies and prejudices that go along with transgenderism and transsexualism. Religious people believe that a transgender is going against what God had