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impact of society on gender roles
influence of Society on gender
societal norms and gender stereotypes
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In this piece the author, Deborah Blum, explores the relationship that gender plays both in our biological make up and in society. Blum is a Pulitzer Prize recipient who is well known for her scientific journalism. Working for the Sacramento Bee Blum she has published a wide verity of pieces but is most known for her book The Poisoner’s Handbook. In this piece titled “Gender Blur” she asks the astonishing question of: do the gender roles of our culture reflect an underlying biology, and, in turn, does the way we behave influence that biology? This is her central topic and does a good job at identifying different aspects that can be examined within the issue, giving specific examples and a wide variety of them.
The article starts with a brief anecdote that gives a good example of childhood behavior, observing how her son at a very early age showed signs of aggressive behavior through his love of predatory dinosaurs, which being so young had not been influenced by society very much. She questions why her son would want to pretend to gnaw off her leg. Why would he do such a thing if he was not biologically engineered to do so? To support this claim Blum consults a behavioral endocrinologist at the University of California, Marc Breedlove, on the topic. He claims that “Yes, we’re born with predispositions, but its society that amplifies them, exaggerates them. (He) believes that – except for the sex differences in aggression, those [differences] are too massive to be explained simply by society” (574). This excellent use of a professional testimony sets up the stage for her next more factual section of the article exploring statically how men and women differ in criminal activity, namely aggressive behavior.
“Aggression does...
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...ce for this piece because it was very broad and didn’t show bias towards either sex. I have to applaud Deborah Blum on her incredible job of not showing much bias toward her gender. It would have been very easy to sympathize with you own sex and depict the other in a bad light. But she didn’t do this instead she used examples within her own life to show that she didn’t have any personal bias being that she is a mother with a son she could inspect the topic mostly free of bias.
For me personally this article enlightened me in the area of gender difference. I never took the time to think about some of the issues mentioned. For example I never thought about how the brain responds to actual hormones and how the brain responds to events because of these hormones. This was interesting to me enough so that I engaged in outside research briefly to explore the issue.
Gould explains that a life without the pressure of gender norms essentially frees a person to develop and mature with a lack of limitations. It is suggested that the idea that an individual’s sex should not matter until one might decide how they want to portray themselves. She recognizes that people may not understand or accept this life choice, but if one can live ignoring constant ridicule and criticism brought on by a society who value gender norms, they will ultimately be more well-rounded in all aspects of their life. (Gould, 1972) Richardson does not necessarily oppose Gould’s view, but rather focuses on how women specifically are negatively influenced by gender stereotyping. It is brought up that “Linguistic practice perpetuates in men their feelings of dominance over and responsibility for women.” (Richardson, 1981) While females are seen in society as dependent, incompetent, immature objects who are defined in terms of their relation to men, males are autonomous, independent beings who are defined primarily to the world of work. (Richardson, 1981) In Richardson’s view, gender stereotyping not only perpetuates hate and sexism towards women but also forces men to behave a certain way in order to uphold the patriarchy. This idea is so engrained in modern society that it would be difficult to raise a child in the idealistic way Gould
As opposed to each other, both sides demonstrate the idea of how gender behavior is socially constructed. However one side, Devor, focuses primary on the idea that societal expectations are the major contribution as to how one should act based on their gender. On the other hand, Blum, focuses on how the scheme behind gender identity is based on biological relations, but she doesn’t completely disagree with Devor’s point to a certain extent. It’s proven that it takes both biology as well as society to determine an individual’s societal gender role, which results to a qualification of Blum’s argument overpowering Devor’s.
There are many different facets to the nature versus nurture argument that has been going on for decades. One of these, the influence of nature and nurture on gender roles and behaviors, is argued well by both Deborah Blum and Aaron Devor, both of whom believe that society plays a large role in determining gender. I, however, have a tendency to agree with Blum that biology and society both share responsibility for these behaviors. The real question is not whether gender expression is a result of nature or nurture, but how much of a role each of these plays.
...ignificant evidence for my research argument indicates that the nature of gender/sex consists of a wide consensus. The latter is significant to original sex differences in brain structure and the organized role through sex differential prenatal hormone exposures through the term used in the article as (the ‘hardwiring’ paradigm). The article is limited to scientific shortcoming that presents neuroscientific research on sex and gender for it lacks an analysis that goes beyond the observed results. The article is based on neuroscience studies and how it approached gender, yet the article suggests that gender should be examined through social, culture studies, ethnicity and race. This article will not form the foundation of my research but will be used a secondary material. The neuroscience evidences will be used to support my argument and will be used as an example.
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.
Historically throughout the earliest centuries, the term gender and sex has been a vital focus in distinguishing the overlap between gender differences. Matlin’s book, Psychology of women, explains that gender similarities of females are at most similar to men, however, considering that culture influences individual’s beliefs; women are expected to behave the way culture entitles us to (Matlin, 2008, p.8). In contrast, the book also reveals that women and men are different from one another in terms of social and intellectual skills according to biological inheritance (Matlin, 2008, p.9). These two perspectives expose valid reasons in terms of the roles that men and women play in society. Even though feminists and female psychologists imply that both men and women are exactly the same, there is however, a strong statistical correlation related to the comparison of men and women according to different brain wiring, strength and endurance (York, n.d., para.10).
When we discuss gender, the first thing that pops into our minds is the physical dissimilarities between men and women. For the longest time, I never realized that there are a diverse variety of issues involving gender, which are examined in the essay “Gender Blur” written by Deborah Blum. I now understand some of the factors involved, such as biological development, gender identification and behaviors, influences on aggression, and how testosterone affects behaviors and career choice.
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.
...socially directed hormonal instructions which specify that females will want to have children and will therefore find themselves relatively helpless and dependent on males for support and protection. The schema claims that males are innately aggressive and competitive and therefore will dominate over females. The social hegemony of this ideology ensures that we are all raised to practice gender roles which will confirm this vision of the nature of the sexes. Fortunately, our training to gender roles is neither complete nor uniform. As a result, it is possible to point to multitudinous exceptions to, and variations on, these themes. Biological evidence is equivocal about the source of gender roles; psychological androgyny is a widely accepted concept. It seems most likely that gender roles are the result of systematic power imbalances based on gender discrimination.9
Human beings have been, and always will be, dichotomized into either male or female. When determining a person’s sex we often look for differences in facial features, body shape or mannerism’s, but another promising way to determine a persons sex and one that is most often used today, is through gender roles. Gender roles are behaviors that portray masculinity or femininity. The theory behind gender roles through multidisciplinary viewpoints is the focus of this paper. Throughout history and in every culture these roles have shifted and transformed into what society says is expectable. In this analysis, gender roles will be examined through a sociological, biological and evolutionary scope.
Starting with those who doesn’t believe in feminism but believe in equity, to the other category who are only against feminism because it belittles men, or because it shows them as rapist or violent. Cathy Young cited different cases to show how men and women are treated, in other way to show how people respond or accept it, for example the raping case in Ohio University and how the jury considered them drunk without punishing the man for raping the girl just because she was drunk too. The arguments had been done about if feminism is a bad thing for men, if it only cares about showing them as violent, rapist, criminals or if feminism are supported because females are (as described) oppressed. The author stated that the gap between men and women is decreasing in the 21st century, they are both treated nearly the same in some fields. The article is published through the internet, to everyone so everyone knows and respect the different perspectives about feminism but in my opinion, I think the author directed it to those who are slowly giving up their right, the novice women encouraging them to speak up their rights, in other way I felt that I’m one of the intended audience to know how people from the same sex as me are thinking so I decide what’s wrong and what’s right, and never to let go of my own right. The author is being both serious and narrative as she concerned more about what other said, she used it as her way of showing different minds and thoughts when in second paragraph she used the quotations more than once and quoted the women’s words ex: ‘ I don’t need feminism because egalitarianism is better!’ and
The first article that caught my attention was “Waging War on the Pay Gap”. As a woman, I felt like I could relate to the article right away. I liked the use of statistics and facts in the article to support what she was saying. I thought the article
Pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Isn’t that a stereotype we deal with from the time we escape the womb? Gender is part of our social structure, just as race and class are. When applied to Camara Phyllis Jones ' article, "The Gardener 's Tale," men are the red flowers and women are the pink. From the moment of birth, men and women are put into different pots. (UK essays,2015). For decades Psychologist have been conducting experiments to determine what has an effect on a person’s gender identity. Their conclusions show that biological influences, environmental influences, social learning theory and gender schema theory all have some type of effect on gender identity. There are many sides to Nature vs. Nurture, specifically when it comes to gender identity. However, both sides discussed here agree that nature and
Society created the role of gender and created an emphasis on the differences between the two genders. Alma Gottlieb states: “biological inevitability of the sex organs comes to stand for a perceived inevitability of social roles, expectations, and meanings” (Gottlieb, 167). Sex is the scientific acknowledgment that men and women are biologically different; gender stems from society’s formation of roles assigned to each sex and the emphasis of the differences between the two sexes. The creation of meanings centers on the expectations of the roles each sex should fill; society creates cultural norms that perpetuate these creations. Gender blurs the lines between the differences created by nature and those created by society (Gottlieb, 168); gender is the cultural expectations of sexes, with meaning assigned to the diff...
Kessler, Suzanne J, and McKenna. Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.