Drag Queen Analysis

What is required to be considered masculine or feminine? Is it based upon physical features? Or is it based upon the person’s personality? Unfortunately, in today's society gender is often associated with a person’s physical appearance. A man earns the label of being masculine through his substantial muscles, sharp look, extravagant attire and his remarkable height. Meanwhile a woman is labeled as feminine through her body language, make-up, physical features, social status, and exposing clothing. Gender characteristics should not be defined by physical attributes, they should be defined by the person’s personality. Personality is what truly defines a person’s gender whether a male or female. To have the dignity of being a man or woman, it is a must to behave like a gentleman or a lady.

Imagine a world in which men could act feminine and women could act masculine without being judged. Now try and identify why this may never happen. Men and women are both taught at an early age what they can and cannot do because of what gender they were born as; they are markedly similar in this aspect. There is a known gender stereotype for girls and boys, and the parents of these children enable these stereotypes from the day that they are born. girls are given pink clothes, and boys are given blue clothes. These colors set the rules of how they must behave for the rest of their lives, this idea is known as The Girl and Guy code. It is all black and white thinking, or in the case pink and blue. There is no in-between because once you stray from the code it is immediately recognized and looked down upon. Although the girl and guy code are almost polar opposites, they go hand in hand with one another because they are both used among society as a way to create a better image in front of others. The Woman looks better in the eyes of other women if she is more lady-like, and a man looks better in front of men if he is more manly; both genders deal with a heavy set of homosocial ideals.

Intro: Like various art forms such as film, television, and literature allows artists to express their own sense of identity, that being nationality, race, class, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. In this case, Queen uses music to illustrate the themes of gender and sexuality through their music video I Want to Break Free (1983). This essay will attempt to discuss how Queen’s music video, I Want to Break Free, explores queerness in relation to queer theory. Firstly, I will introduce the ideas and arguments of queer theory through Gilbert Herdt article Same Sex Different Cultures (1997). I will then discuss Queen’s portrayal of drag within the music video and how it can be seen as queer rather than heterosexual. Lastly, I will argue that

Esther Newton’s Mother Camp: Female Impersonators of America provides a unique perspective of American culture from a marginalized, often silenced part of society: drag queens. Newton’s 1960s ethnographic study offers commentary on some of the most basic understandings of America by analyzing the culture of the (mostly homosexual) drag subculture. One of the concepts Newton explores is that all gender is an act. Some conventional wisdom that many accept is the idea of a gender binary, as well as associations of masculinity and femininity with sex. As the typical drag queen involves a man adopting the attire and mannerisms of a feminine woman, he is challenging what society expects of him. Newton argues that the drag queen/female impersonator

In “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes”, Aaron Devor explains how different men and women are seen from the point of view of society. Masculinity is described by dominance and aggression; however, femininity is totally different by passivity and submission. Some people in the society think that women’s duties are childbirth and breastfeeding, so they are weak, and they need to be protected and supported. This is not completely true because everyone is equal, so women should have the right to do whatever they want. They have the freedom to talk and act as they wish, and they do not need to care about the attitudes of others. However, women need to act feminine to be attractive to men. I agree with Deborah Blum in the article “The Gender Blur:

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

Throughout life every man and woman fits into a specific gender role. We are told what is expected of men and women from birth until death. Many people influence our view of how we should act and what we should say such as our parents, friends, and even the media. Males and females play very different roles and these differences are apparent in our every day lives. These differences are not the same as they used to be. Society has changed the way it treats men and women over time.

     Femininity and masculinity are topics that have been debated over in our society extensively, through psychological research and day to day interaction with people. Children learn from their parents as well as society the concept of “feminine” and “masculine.” The majority of people tend to believe that these conceptions are biological but I believe it is more cultural. From birth, female children are shaped by society as being sweet, caring, loving, and delicate and usually associated with the color pink. While male children are shaped by being tough, aggressive, and competitive and associated with the color blue. As these children grow, the boy is given a football to play with and the girl a

There are some confusions about these conflicting situations. Firstly, it’s different when men and women define and evaluate gender identities and behaviors. Secondly, men and women will exhibit different personal characteristics in terms of various social status, occupations, personal ideologies, gender superiorities, etc. Thirdly, the social ideologies manifested by outside world and the subjective ideologies formed by people themselves have complicated differences as well, in such a social environment, various gender ideologies mutually interacted and linked, therefore, it'll be very hard to explain or even draw an accurate conclusion for these confusions by relatively theoretical researching and analysis.

Nobody is born with a set gender, the way we walk, talk, and dress gives off the impression of being a man or woman and therefore, gender is performative, or in other words nobody possesses a gender from the beginning of their life. In our daily lives we build models of a set gender through repetition. From the moment a baby is born, the gender of the child has already been set by society. Growing up, they perform the gender they believe they should be based on how they have observed these genders to be. They do this by watching it be performed by their parents and those around them. Over and over we have seen gender being performed in more or less in the same way. The repetition gives us the idea that this is why we should be acting according to our gender.

     The well-known concepts of masculinity and femininity run rampant in our society. We live in a world where men are told to be masculine, women are told to be feminine and those who do not do as they are told, will suffer the societal consequences.

Gender is a learned social construction on what you do. It is a cultural system based on the binary opposition of men and women but there are also variations

In the United States, our concept of gender, and the differences between men and women, have deep traditional roots. Men are supposed to be strong individuals, who support and defend their families. Women are seen as nurturing, and motherly, more gentle and tame. We believe so strongly that the two genders are entirely separate, with such completely different traits, that it almost seems that men and women are just born with different qualities.

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.

In society, the biological difference between men and women is used as a justification for aligning them with different social roles which restrict and mold their attitudes and behavior. Merriam-Webster defines gender as the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex. Narrow minded society of today is not satisfied with the natural difference of sex, but each insist on adding a cultural difference of gender to it. The unsophisticated, ideal physical facts always become associated with the complex psychological qualities (Holter). It is not enough for a male to be a man; he must also be masculine. A woman, in addition to being a female, must be feminine (Magner). In a more evolved and accepting society,