Emily Davinon Gender Analysis

While reading “Gender,” an essay by Jack Halberstam, the topic of sexism was brought to the forefront of my mind. It has been brought up more often in conversation in the modern era, issues such as how a few cruel insults pertain to female reproductive anatomy and, in a sense, degrade females and ultimately identify them, as well as femininity, as inherently “bad”. Such a thought stemmed from how Halberstam touches on the “problematic stabilization of the meaning of ‘women’ and ‘female’”: meaning there is no room for argument when it comes to your gender—you’re either a girl or not. You either fit into a strict mold, or you do not.

Gender is a topic that not many people are educated on. When people think of gender, they think of boy and girl, people usually think of a girl having a vagina, and a boy having a penis. Many people have their thoughts on how each sex should behave which would be giving people gender roles, girls should play with Barbie dolls, and boys should play with trucks. There is more to gender than just the vagina and penis, In “Understanding The Complexities of Gender”, Sam Killermann talks about the distinct pieces that also comes with gender, like gender identity, gender expression, and biological sex. When people think of gender, the only part people think of is the biological sex.

Mead concluded that gender roles were dependent on cultures. In most societies, women are the careers and the men breadwinners but this is not the case all over the world.

Sex is the biological definition of the person, which is through the classification of the genitals. Gender identity is a person’s psychological belief that they are either man or woman no matter the sexual orientation. Gender has created a grand division between men and women. Discriminating women to be weak, unreliable, and irrational. While Men are to be declared as superior. The fight to become equal evolved from the industrial period where woman was no longer needed to also be a provider alongside her partner.

Sociologists reject the idea that behavioural differences between men and women are biologically determined. Outline the key grounds for this rejection and discuss what this means for a sociological understanding of gender.

To start off I am going to break down each side of the argument. On the nature side of the debate many people will argue that it is our biology that differentiates us from animals and makes us who we are. In the book “Gender, Ideas, Interactions and Institutions” written by Lisa Wade and Myra Marx Ferree he talks about our genes, genotypes, and phenotypes and how males and females are biologically different. Which is absolutely correct, men are formed from different chromosomes, XY than females, who are XX and that is a fact, however that is only one piece of information. Many people will argue that male and female brains are quite different and that we process certain things much differently. In an article titled “Matters of the Brain: Why Men and Women Are So Different” written by Robin

One of the most widely known acts of the suffragettes was when Emily Davison decided to draw attention to the suffrage cause. She stepped in front of the King’s horse, Anmer, during the Derby day of 1913, gaining serious injuries. She died four days later. Thousands of women attended her funeral and tens of thousands lined the streets of London as her coffin passed by.

It is not the same as sex and it is not the same as women. Gender is determined by the origination of tasks, functions and roles attributed to women and men in society and in public and private life.

Gender tends to be a delicate subject. Some people think your gender directly involves your sex, while others think that gender is a social construct. Some people think that your sex determines what a person can do in life. What job they can have, what kind of work they can do- if they can fight. Gender does not determine what a person can do.

West and Zimmerman claim that gender is not something we are but something we do.

More often than not, the sex of a person, is commonly misinterpreted with gender. This is wrong. Your sex is your biological and physiological attributes that define you as male or female. Having “male parts” or “female parts”, strictly make up a person 's sex. Where gender refers to socially constructed roles, or how society defines the components that make up an acceptable male or female. Key word being acceptable. Gender is not something that can be defined solely based off of one’s anatomy.

Gender refers to the concepts o masculine and feminine whereas sex is the biological fact of being a male or female. According to the evolutionary approach, gender differences are neither deliberate nor conscious; they exist because they enhanced or helped men and women perform particular types of roles in the past. Therefore, the role differences we observe are more a product of our biological inheritance than acquired through socialisation.

In her paper on the biological differences in cognition between men and women, Doreen Kimura suggests that the social differences between genders arose out of biological necessity (Kimura 46). Even so, it is difficult to argue that social factors do play a large part in gender in society today. A closer look at both biological and social perspectives will reveal more about the processes that determine gender roles.

The difference between gender and sex can often be misinterpreted. Gender are the behaviors and appearances society dictates a body of particular sex should perform, structures peoples understanding of themselves and each other. Sex refers to biological designations meaning male or female. Throughout my life, I have understood these concepts and had different images/messages from family, religion, and social media, on what I believe is right and what my expectations are.

Although there is a lot of writings about the differences between males and females biologically and psychologically and socially. Because of that, it will be hard to have a stable and constant results. Even when the biological differences are more prominent, the other social and psychological differences are still unfinished matter of debate. There was supposed -until recently- that psychological differences is the major differences which are the results of the biological composition. Thus, women cannot possess some mental capabilities. These views haven't changed since only a short period. Although it is well known that the women's brains are smaller than the brains of