Cartesian Dualism And Gender Differences

Since the beginning of time there has been a distinct division between the sexes. Through sheer definition there is a physical difference between the two but as time has passed there has been an indisputable recognition of the differences in personality and cognition. There are also undeniable differences in the life experiences had by the two sexes that

The purposes of this essay it to not only focus on the concept of hegemonic masculinity, but make use of the concept to provide an explanation for gender violence in society. Violence against women in particular, has become a global problem due to the various forms that it takes place in such as verbal, sexual, emotional, physical and economic abuse (Boonzaier, 2006). Due to the severity of gender violence in society it is vital to determine the underlying cause.

Some see gender as being “Black and White” and it is, literally. With numerous gender ideologies, not only is there division between the Black (African Americans) and the White (fair skinned Europeans), but between men and women as well. Generally, white men and white men only hold most of the power in the world that there is to possess and it has consciously been set up for them to do so. The technical name for this global concept is hegemonic masculinity. This highly sexist and blatantly racist model has been implemented by bigoted western agendas to then be culturally and systematically carried out for centuries; sometimes without question. In her novel “Black Sexual Politics”, Patricia Hill Collins masterfully highlights just how much hegemonic masculinity altered the once blissful power structure, not just in the western world but specifically within the homes of the Black community. She also confers the several quintessential benchmarks within hegemonic masculinity that the Black man must uphold in order for him to unambiguously maintain his “dominant” status.

Usually, those ‘power structures amongst men’ are conveyed through the racial and class vocabularies, but the article criticizes the limitation of such approach. Yes, I understand that why there should be a ‘common masculinity’ interpretation; however, this approach fosters the additive approach which sees race, ethnicity, sexuality and class as separate entities which exist on top of masculinity. The first and second wave feminism was criticized severely for such analyses by the third wave feminists, and as a third wave feminist, I also want to do the

Hegemonic masculinity is considered a dominant form of masculinity in society. An example of hegemonic masculinity is a tough guy who is violent and rough but is not emotional. This excerpt discusses how men in society conform to dominant ideals about masculinity. One reason men are more dominant may be due to upringings in which men are raised to be in charge, more assertive, providers, and to avoid expressive emotions such as sadness, empathy, etc. Men may be raised to hold power and their counterparts, females, may pick up on what they lack which includes being nurturing and being an emotional provider.

Differences in brain structure between males and females result in important differences in perceptions, emotional expressions, priorities and behaviors. (*) Relationship traits, problem solving approaches, mathematical abilities, reactions to stress, language, emotions, brain size, pain perception, spatial ability and susceptibility to disorders are just some areas in which men and women react differently because of their differences in brain structure. (*) To some scientists and theorists these many influential biological differences between men and women make gender roles inevitable. (*)

I like that this reading provided history of hegemonic masculinity and provided the theories of the ever changing term. Something that stood out to me was the idea that, we need to distinguish between "patriarchy and gender" (Holter, 1997,2003). I think that a lot of people to connect the two terms, we I think of patriarchy I think of power over the female gender. When it's slightly more than that. I think that men conform to masculinity and all of the socially constructed attributes just as much as women conform to femininity. I feel that once we drop the image of the ideal man or woman the issues of masculinity and femininity won't be as big of an issue. The two attributes seem to be directly linked to heterosexual attraction. Once our society stops selling this idea of attractiveness in a fixed category in media we can start shaping our own ideas. And there will be more room for people to be non

The interplay between different forms of masculinity is an important part of how a patriarchal social order works,” (22). The creation of a subordinate and dominant relation through the ideology hegemonic masculinity is detrimental to the progression of society. If we create our meaning of women and feminism around the ideals of hegemonic masculinity, we do not move forward as society we continuously trie to be the thing holding us back. By falling inline to oppressive systems of power we only hurt our future and ourselves. By allowing Trumps words to ring true through him now being president –elect, we are telling future women, of color, white, and LBTQIA that they have no rights to their own bodies. By giving up the rights to your body, you therefore are a practicing member of

Thus, concluding that the explanation of biological, psychodynamic and learning approaches does influence on gender development. Each of these approaches explains how gender is developed in their own way. From the biological approach, we found out that gender differences are seen as resulting from sex differences. In other words, women and men act, think and feel differently because of differences in how their brains work. These brain differences may result from chromosomal differences and may also be the result of hormonal differences.

Hegemonic masculinity represent a structure of dominance and oppression in the gender order. This masculinity is socially and culturally endorsed by the society (as noted by Robyn and Wendy) and its granted men benefit in terms of public status and privileges. A fundamental elements of hegemonic masculinity is that women are subordinate to men. Though it is not all men that practice this, but they all benefit from it.

In order to fully understand a more in depth evaluation of both why and how men conform to this social phenomenon, one must know how hegemonic masculinity is defined. This term was made popular by Connell’s work Gender and Power which critiqued the male social role and how hegemonic masculinity has developed (Connell 830). Scholars agree that hegemonic masculinity is characterized by “being emotionally detached and

Testosterone, a key element in the genetic makeup of all human beings. The driving hormone controlled from the pituitary gland. This hormone dictates the sex drive of the male human being. However, this hormone also leads people to believe that males should act and be a certain way. The concept of hegemonic masculinity, where hegemonic is defined as ruling or dominant in a social class, and masculinity is defined as possession of the qualities traditionally associated with men (Morettini, 2016). It originated with concepts such as masculine fundamentalism, which was a form of promoting dominance of a man in a household of married men (Frances & Ester, 2013, p. 143). In today’s contemporary society, hegemonic masculinity is a key problem.

Masculinity is described as possession of attributes considered typical of a man. Hegemonic masculinity is a form of masculine character with cultural idealism and emphasis that connects masculinity to competitiveness, toughness, and women subordination. Masculinity hegemonic is the enforcement of male dominion over a society. Masculine ideology dates back to the time of agrarian and the industrial revolution in Europe when survival compelled men to leave their homesteads to work in industries to earn a living for their families while women remained at home to take care of family affairs (Good and Sherrod 210). Women did not work in industries then because industrial labor was considered too physical beyond their capacity. This led to

The Mental Traits of Sex: an experimental investigation of the normal mind in men and women by Dr. Helen Bradford Thompson is a book written about Thompson’s experimental investigation into the minds of men and women. In the introduction, Thompson writes that she discusses both her experiments and previous experiments that have been conducted in order to bring a more accurate view of differences between the sexes (Thompson, 1). Thompson wanted to make sure that her studies provided the best data for comparing males and females because in the past the data used to compare the sexes were from studies that originally had nothing to do with finding differences. She sought out to find men and women that at least had the same amount of education, so she chose upperclassmen from the University of Chicago as participants. The participants were not told about why the studies were being conducted and each participant put in around twenty to twenty-three hours into being tested (PAGE).

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