A Response to the Article on Society and Gender

It is fair to believe that all humans are born with equal knowledge and preferences (or no knowledge or preferences). Knowledge gained is subject to what is passed on to them from within the environment and society in which they exist. In the same way that a society may dictate that English is the ‘norm’ language, society more or less dictates what is or is not appropriate behaviour and/or preferences for each gender. Males do not intuitively prefer action figures and hate the colour pink, nor do females naturally prefer domestic task-based toys and love the colour pink. Most of all, not all males or females were born to think, act or behave in the same way.

Although Blum would agree with Devor’s point about the role society plays into shaping gender differences, it’s only to a certain extent as she focuses primarily on the idea of the biological relations that apply to gender identity. With personal reference to her young son, Blum explains how gender identity doesn’t necessary focus completely on societal views. She discusses the story involving her young son at the age of 2 who loved dinosaurs, but it was only the blood-swilling carnivores. The wimpy plant-eaters were none of his interest. As it stated in Blum’s piece, “I looked down at him one day, as he was snarling around my feet and doing his toddler best to gnaw off my right leg, and I thought: This goes a lot deeper than culture” Using this situation, you can conclude that young children is the best example to show that it doesn’t necessary take only society to shift gender behaviors. As Blum says, “Preliminary work shows that fetal boys are a little more active than fetal girls. It’s pretty difficult to argue socialization at that point”(Blum 682) Young children almost have no idea about how society works, furthermore it’s undetermined that they can be affected to act in order to fit in the standards that has been placed regarding the gender you fall under. This is the point Blum makes that counters Devor’s argument based on idea that

Many people confuse the definition of gender and sex. “Gender, on the other hand, refers to the meanings, values, and characteristics that people ascribe to different sexes. Sex is a biological concept, determined on the basis of individual 's primary sex characteristics.” (Blackstone) Society gives social cues on the appropriate behavior for each sex. For example, women are to exert more feminine traits such as being dependent, emotional, passive, innocent, nurturing, and/or self-critical. On the contrary, men should be more

“Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during the famous Bobo doll experiment Children pay attention to what adults do and observe their behavior. After, they may imitate the behavior they have observed. They may do this regardless of whether the behavior is ‘gender appropriate ' or not, but there are a number of processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that its society deems appropriate for its sex” (Bandura, 1961). Certain situations impact a person life leading them to different paths.

Steve Craig, in his article Men’s Men and Women’s Women especially define how different sexes in advertisement can influence a particular audience towards a product; one stereotypical method he describes is “Men’s Women” (Craig).One such ad using sex appeal, and a basic structure of “Men’s Women” to bring in customer was made by BMW in 2008 to sell their used cars. BMW, which is a world-renowned company known for its performance heavy automobiles, targets a male audience by comparing a gorgeous woman to their cars.This ad by BMW, who no doubt make amazing cars, degrade women through its message, and it enforces Steve Craig’s “Men’s women” tactic, but this ad also goes a step further and displays the ever-present patriarchy in advertisement overtly.

Sexism has always been a major issue for women. It seems that today, everyone has to be careful of what they say and do so as to avoid offending someone. While everyone is busy worrying about extinguishing sexism towards women - which still is an issue that needs to be taken care of, who is concerned with sexism towards men? Sexism is just as much of an issue to men as it is to women.

First of all I am going to begin with defining sex and gender. Sex in a sociological perspective is defined as the biological and physiological differences between men and women which are contrasted in terms of reproductive function(Abercrombie et al 2000 :313). On the other hand gender is sociologically conceived as the social roles allocated to men and women in society that is to say gender is learned not innate. However previously it was believed that sex determined gender thus the differences between men and

According to sociobiology our sex, or, our biological differences are what determines our gender. Sociobiologists suggest that biological elements such as our hormones, chromosomes and the size of our brain are what influence our behaviour and consequently what differentiates our gender. Because men produce more testosterone and androgens than women, which are linked to strength and aggression, sociobiologists argue that this explains men’s dominant and aggressive behaviour. (Haralambos & Holborn, 2000)

Summary: The excerpt “The Gender Blur” from the book “Sex on the Brain,” written in first person by Deborah Blum, a science writer, in 1998, explains the sex difference and behavior that a person goes through on a daily basis. She also explains how their childhood may affect their adulthood. Blum states that “[s]ex differences are always generalizations: They refer to a behavior, with some evolutionary rationale behind it. They never define entirely, an individual. And that fact alone should tell us that there’s always—even in the most biologically dominated traits—some flexibility, an instinctive ability to respond, for better and worse, to the world around us” (240). Just because a person acts a certain way one day, does not mean they will

This article was rather interesting to me, especially after reading the previous article about pink brain blue brain. The conditioning of young children does seem to dictate gender roles within society. I hadn’t realized just how often these roles appear throughout the media. I never had given commercials or even books a second thought when seeing boys play with gooey science kits and girls play with easy bake ovens. I have previously studied the princess phenomenon, which is also at times referred to as a “Cinderella complex”. Girls continue to watch the same films that generations of young children have and continue to still watch today. This type of conditioning does pose a negative threat as boys are expected to act “manly” while women

The biggest question asked is how it comes around, however there is not a solid reasoning or proof of one main causal factor. According to Lippa, exposure to testosterone during the second trimester of pregnancy, when the development of both male internal and external genitals and a male-typical nervous system forms, may influence gender identity. (98) Brown counters this argument by saying the formation of a secure unconflicted gender identity and gender role is influenced by social factors, such as the character of parent’s emotional bond or the relationship each parent has with the child; he asserts that the biological factors (genetic complement or prenatal hormones) do largely determine gender identity however they do not act alone, more or less just setting the stage to go one way or the other.

For example, females usually inherit an X chromosome form both parents. Social skills which are a typical female characteristics can be found in he x chromosome. From these findings it can be said that women are more comfortable in social settings. I can think of my husband in social settings where he does not know anyone he is less likely than me to introduce himself. I have no problem introducing myself and striking up a conversation with a stranger. Hormones also have an effect on gender determination. Men and women go through maturity as a result of hormones. Estrogen in women and Testosterone influence skills and tendencies associated with gender. Sex effects how the brain develops. According to our textbook, the force of biology is evident in cases where doctors try to change a child’s biological sex” (47). Doctors mistakenly amputated David’s penis to correct phimosis, a condition in which the foreskin of the penis interferes with urination. The child’s name was changed to Brenda and she did not take to being a girl. Later in life Brenda changed her name back into David and began living a life as a male eventually getting married and raising stepchildren. I believe that biological theory is accurate match for one’s gender.

Society has clearly defined boundaries between what is considered to be male or female. The development of an individual’s gender role is formed by interactions with those in close proximity. Society constantly tells us how we should look, act and live based on gender. Family, friends and the media have a tremendous impact on how these roles are formed and the expected behavior of each gender role.

Is a child’s Gender down to the way they are born or influences from outside sources?

As evident from the generalized patterns found in differences in behaviour and outlook observed between the sexes, it may be tempting, as has been done in the past, to conclude that gender is an unavoidable aspect of human existence as determined purely from one 's genes. Indeed, human physiology is subject to sexual dimorphism; statistically significant differences in brain size and rate of maturation of specific substructures in the brain exist between males and females (Giedd, Castellanos, Rajapakese, Vaituzis, & Rapoport, 1997), yet these physical differences fail to explain how individuals form their concept of their own gender, and why they tend to conform to their perceived gender roles as defined by the society in which they live, when these roles are ever-changing. Thus, it is important to differentiate between the physical and nonphysical traits, and how the labels of femininity and masculinity should not confuse the two aspects. As defined by Unger (1979), “sex” would be used to refer to the biological differences in males and females, while “gender” describes socioculturally determined, nonphysiological traits which are arbitrarily designated as being appropriate for either females or males. With more recent awareness and interest in matters of gender nonconformity and individual gender identity, new research now explains how these concepts of gender are shaped by social influences (Perry