Judith Butler describes the political reasons behind many feminists’ insistence on defining ‘woman. ' The political system we have had in the West needs representation of women to spread visibility and legitimize women’s issues in politics (I, 2). To achieve this representation, feminists had to create a language that defines ‘woman. ' Conversely, as Butler discusses, trying to define ‘woman’ poses problems of misrepresentation (I, 2). Some feminists’ assert that they are defining women merely as a political strategy; however, Butler says, even for strategic reasons, there are consequences to defining ‘woman’ (I, 6). Western feminists relied on universalizing not just the word ‘woman, ' but the patriarchy as well; women in countries where they suffer many oppressions gave Western feminists a legitimacy in politics to act urgently against misogyny (I, 5). Butler states that representation should not be the only method to political action; “identity of the feminist subject ought not to be the foundation of feminist politics” (I, 8). She calls feminists to break away from identity politics; to break free from attempting to define ‘woman’ (1, 7).
Feminists wanted to avoid the problem of ‘biology is destiny, ' so they separated gender from sex; gender being cultural and sex being biological (II,9). However,
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She believes the ‘incompleteness’ of the word ‘woman’ is in our favor. To Butler, language dictates our lives and to make the language more definitive; then we are limiting ourselves. Butler believes the oppression we face is because our oppressors have the limited language to explain people and if the person cannot be explained then, to the oppressor, they are abnormal. However, she also believes that much social justice movements have mimicked the oppressors by trying to identify the oppressor 's identities (IV, 18) which are a simplification of power dynamics and is problematic since it encourages ranking of
The overriding right to bodily autonomy is considered characteristically male by many feminists. Females in contrasts seem to be assumed to be
Lugones, María C. and Elizabeth V. Spelman (1983) “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘The Woman’s Voice’.” Women’s Studies International Forum, 6 (6): 573-581..
Society has long since considered women the lessor gender and one of the most highly debated topics in society through the years has been that of women’s equality. The debates began over the meaning between a man and woman’s morality and a woman’s rights and obligations in society. After the 19th Amendment was sanctioned around 1920, the ball started rolling on women’s suffrage. Modern times have brought about the union of these causes, but due to the differences between the genetic makeup and socio demographics, the battle over women’s equality issue still continues to exist. While men have always held the covenant role of the dominant sex, it was only since the end of the 19th century that the movement for women’s equality and the entitlement of women have become more prevalent. “The general consensus at the time was that men were more capable of dealing with the competitive work world they now found themselves thrust into. Women, it was assumed, were unable to handle the pressures outside of the home. They couldn’t vote, were discourages from working, and were excluded from politics. Their duty to society was raising moral children, passing on the values that were unjustly thrust upon them as society began to modernize” (America’s Job Exchange, 2013). Although there have been many improvements in the changes of women’s equality towards the lives of women’s freedom and rights in society, some liberals believe that women have a journey to go before they receive total equality. After WWII, women continued to progress in there crusade towards receiving equality in many areas such as pay and education, discrimination in employment, reproductive rights and later was followed by not only white women but women from other nationalities ...
Throughout Gendered Worlds sociologists argue that gender and sex are socially constructed as opposed to being innate. The authors present evidence in regards to history, biology, and contemporary viewpoints using day-to-day examples. Although alternative viewpoints may argue that through biological perspectives, gender and sex are innate characteristics through deeper examination it can be determined that gender and sex are truly socially constructed.
...rms of power and source of pride in society. Emphasizing sexism in language and rising the concern with words can be a vital feminist strategy to provoke social change (Weatherall, 2002). Language can produce a false imagination and represents women and men unequally, as if members of one sex were somehow less wholly human, less complex, and has fewer rights than members of the other sex. Sexist language also characterizes serotypes of women and men, sometimes to the disadvantage of both, but more often to the disadvantage of women. (Wareing & Thomas, 2012). As a result, it is necessary that individuals have the right to define, and to redefine as their lives unfold, their own gender identities, without regard to genitalia, assigned birth sex, or initial gender role. Language about women is not a nonaligned or an insignificant issue but profoundly a political one.
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 ...
When considering gender and sex, a layman’s idea of these terms might be very different than a sociologist’s. There is an important distinction: sex, in terms of being “male” or “female,” is purely the physical biological characteristic differences – primarily anatomical differences. (There are also rare cases of “intersexual” individuals as outlined in the Navarro article, “When Gender Isn’t a Given”.) Gender, on the other hand, is an often misconstrued concept that is commonly mistaken as synonymous with sex. A non-sociologist might surmise the following, “men act masculine and women act feminine, therefore, it must follow that gender is inherent to sex,” however, this is not necessarily the case.
There is an ongoing debate on the issue of gender and some scholars, present gender as being similar to sex. However, according to Butler (270) defines sex as the state of being either biologically female or male; with this definition, Butler refutes the traditional binary opposition amid biological sexes, holding that the conception of binary biological sex is a product of social construction. On the other hand, gender is defined as the behavioral, psychological, cultural traits that are traditionally associated with the binary conception of biological sexes that is either male or female. In the traditional setting, gender or rather gender identity was believed to be a direct expression of an individual’s biological sex, but Butler refuted this assumption
Arianna Stassinopoulos wrote in the 1973 book The Female Woman: "It would be futile to attempt to fit women into a masculine pattern of attitudes, skills and abilities and disastrous to force them to suppress their specifically female characteristics and abilities by keeping up the pretense that there are no differences between the sexes" (Microsoft Bookshelf). In her statement we see a cultural feminist response to the dominant liberal feminism of the 1970s.
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at...
On the other hand, some disagree with the claim that gender is a constructed social identity that is dangerous today. First, the counter argument begins by calling gender a necessary way to give humans characteristics that are recognizable. Since, no one can deny the biology of determining the sex, gender is one of the first things that identifies humans. Secondly, people see the duality between men and women to be a natural consequence, because “anyone can clearly see that humanity is split into two categories of individuals with manifestly different clothes, faces, bodies, smiles, movements, interests, and occupations” (Beauvoir 24); these differences should not be ignored. Nature made men and women dimorphic, hence dualistic mindsets are
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives. Feminist political ideology focuses on understanding and changing political philosophies for the betterment of women.
Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London and New York: Routledge.
Society’s gender infrastructure has changed since the 1920’s and the nineteen amendment that allowed women the right to vote. Or so we thought, many of the gender expectations that were engraved into our early society still remain intact today. Women for many people still mean an immaterial, negligible, and frivolous part of our society. However, whatever the meaning of the word women one has, the same picture is always painted; that of a housewife, mother, and daughter. Women are expected to fallow the structural identity of living under her husband 's submissions. Threatening the social norm of what is accepted to be a woman in society can put in jeopardy the personal reputation of a woman, such treating her as a whore. But, what happens
Wharton (2005:21) views gender as a ‘system of social practices’ which gives rise to gender distinctions and maintains it. What Wharton wants to say is that gender involves the creation of both diffe...