Critical Gendered Lens

Gender derives its formative meaning from culture and societal values, it is not a universal entity as there are various cultures, societal values, beliefs, and preferred ways of organizing collective life across the globe and even within a single culture the meaning of gender varies over time. Chapters three and four of Gendered Lives by Julia T. Wood helps to insightfully look at those views, and rhetorical movements (women and men’s movements) that have overtime influenced, defined and given various meanings to gender (masculinity and femininity).

The film industry has created the conventional gender roles of society into their movies; A majority of films have supported some of the male and female stereotypes. In the history of the film industry, the role of men is primarilythat of the stereotypical working class man or hero, while the roles of women are primarily portrayed as being somewhat inferior to men. In the 1930s through the 1970s, men held the leading roles in films while women played smaller roles. Men were typically employed, successful gentlemen, while the woman’s only job was a housewife. The film industry was mostly dominated by men. In terms of jobs, women were given mostly family roles and rarely were shown outside of their homes, while men had

How we learn gender is part of gender socialization. It begins the moment we are born and continues till the end of our life. We are exposed to many factors that may influence our gender identity. Some of the factors are, media, our experience in school and our parents. In Martin & Kazyak’s essay titled “Hetero-Romantic Love and Hetereosexiness”, he explains how the media plays a part in shaping a child’s gender identity. In Thorne’s essay titled “Girls and Boys together…” he explores how sex segregation occurs predominantly in elementary school. In the film “Tough Guise”, Katz explains that men aren’t naturally violent but are taught to be so. And lastly, in Cornell’s essay titled “Masculinities and Globalization” he says that there are

In order to better comprehend the issues in which I will be examining, it is important to have an understanding of the difference between sex and gender, the role and definition of a 'patriarchal society',

Whether we consciously notice or not, doing gender is occurring everyday within our society. Every interaction we have with another individual is doing gender. Doing gender has become a part of our every day lives the same way without realizing it the same way we breathe air without really paying attention that we are breathing. The meaning behind this is that it is occurring unconsciously. Candace West and Don Zimmerman coined the term doing gender in an article they composed. West and Zimmerman argued that gender is something that humans created. As humans, we have the urge to categorize and define everything. If someone was not in favor of their gender role or did something that was not deemed correct for that gender, this person would be committing an act of social deviance. This paper will discuss what doing gender means along with other attributes of doing gender. These attributes includes what pushes us to do gender, why we do gender, the results of doing gender along with discussing what the boys in C.J. Pascoe’s article of Dude you’re a fag accomplished. This essay will discuss what doing gender is along with what causes us to do it and finally what doing it accomplishes.

She believes that because women generally have smaller groups of friends, they feel uncomfortable talking in areas with more people. And since men use their words to fight for a higher place in their social hierarchy, they feel more comfortable arguing in a large group. While this may be true for some cases, Tannen completely disregards the fact that women also use words to fight for dominance. Girls are simply more discrete about it. Instead of arguing and “exchanging playful insults and put-downs,” (Tannen 2) women talk behind each others backs and ruin each other’s appearance that way. Arguments with females are much more verbal than physical as they can be with guys. So if anything, women use language to argue and debate more than men. This completely goes against Tannen’s original thought that women don’t use language to compete, and it doesn’t explain why women talk less in class. At a young age parents tell little girls to be “quiet and ladylike.” This creates the stereotype that girls do not argue or debate. Girls simply do not participate in large group debates because they are raised to be calm and soft

The Lenses of Gender by Sandra Bem begins by introducing the three lenses that will be discussed in the book: androcentrism, gender polarization, and biological essentialism. The most significant aspect to this reading was the concept of females being an addition to males or the ‘other’. Specifically, this idea is derived from a biblical view. When taking a look at the creation of man and the story of Adam of Eve, “Adam is explicitly given the power to name--that is, define--every single creature on earth, including women… Adam is unambiguously said to be created in God’s image. Eve, in contrast, is an inferior departure from this godly standard,” (Bem, 1993, p. 46) This perception of females being below the male standard carries out throughout

In the history of England, there have been many rulers, but none quite like the queens. Between the time of the first Queen of England and the present Queen, there have been many drastic changes. Though these two women share the same name, Elizabeth, they are known for their own contributions and styles during their life in the monarchy. Their eras were full of rich culture and historic importance. These two women made an impact on not only England, but all over the world. Their decisions and actions lead to both times of celebration and times of grievance.

Prior to reading the article Doing Gender, I have never paid attention to the concept of doing gender. I found it interesting how these roles go so unnoticed because they are so enforced in our society. We never stop to think or questions if an individual’s actions are masculine or feminine. For example, some of us are just so use to having our mothers cook and our dad’s do all the heavy lifting but we never stop to think why is it like this or what does this represent.

One reason gender immensely shapes one’s outlook is that it molds communication. Looking at Tannen’s “But What Do You Mean?”, it is clear that males and females have difficulties conversing with one another due to their opposite sexes. She discusses their speech patterns and how they differ from each other in various aspects of conversation, such as apologies, criticism, and praise. In the case of complaints, “[a] man might take a woman’s lighthearted griping literally, and she can get a reputation as a chronic malcontent” (Tannen, par. 26). The translation of a “woman’s lighthearted griping” into “chronic malcontent” within the eyes of a man conveys the common stereotype of women as peevish. Due to their privilege in society, men are expected to solve issues and possess no weaknesses whatsoever. This encouragement of strength simultaneously encourages invulnerability and the lack of emotion. On the other hand, a woman’s standing within civilization has been defined through terms of fragility, and she is assumed to be emotionally sensitive and overdramatic. With this notion in mind, men are prone to disregard a woman’s expression of her concerns, no matter how genuine and important they may be. This complication can be easily avoided if people overlook gender stereotypes

Gender identity display people’s understanding of themselves according to cultural definitions of female and male. In this essay I will attempt to enhance our understanding by exploring different aspects of gender identity, gender roles & sexual identity issues. Relying mostly on my research that is conducted in the U.S.

The way society is taught to be socialized is salient and goes unnoticed, therefore it is valid to claim that gender is socially constructed through our everyday practices, whether we are aware of the construction or not. With socialization beginning the instant a child is born, the process is continuous through out adolescence and varies dramatically across the two genders. With guidance from institutions and arenas such as education, sports, music and the mass media gender seems to be coerced, as it comes with a scripted set of behaviors and attitudes. This essay argues that gender is socially constructed on an everyday basis. To further explain this thesis the essay will draw on early childhood socialization of masculinity and femininity,

Gender and language initiate an approach to the study of language use and looks into relations between the meaning and gender. Christie provides a systematic introduction to pragmatic approaches explaining the rules of social language and how pragmatics can be realized be feminist analyses of language’s nature

The textbook identifies four approaches to gender development: biological, interpersonal, cultural, and critical. Define each theory. Then answer the following question: which of the theoretical approaches to gender do you find the most valid? Be sure to include at least two examples from your own experience as well as two scholarly sources to back up your claim.

Various theories have been used to explain the experience of IPV. The social structure theory stems from the feminist ideology which explains IPV in relation to gender and power relations in society, including the role of patriarchy in providing the requisite grounds for the normalization and perpetration of IPV against women (Kimmel, 2011; Okenwa-Emegwa, Lawoko & Jansson, 2016). For feminists, patriarchy refers to the systematic domination of men in society’s various institutions (Scott & Marshall, 2005). DV is a phenomenon that has always attracted the interest of feminist theorists and it has been explained based on some variant of feminist theories such as radical, Marxist and socialist feminist perspectives. Radical feminists believe that the existence of patriarchy is the root of women’s oppressed and disadvantaged position in society (Beirne & Messerschmidt, 1991 cited in DeKeseredy & MacLeod, 1997). For them, violence is an expression of male dominance over women. They apply this idea to their explanation of the women’s abuse of women and argue that men engage in violent behaviour in their desire to control and dominate women (DeKeseredy & MacLeod, 1997). Socialist feminists believe that not only gender relations but also social class are important and intertwined factors in determining the social order at any particular time in history (Messerschmidt 1986 cited in DeKeseredy & MacLeod, 1997). They argue that most incidents of domestic abuse