Feminist Local And Global Theory Perspective

Culture often thrives off of polar opposites—hot and cold, bitter and sweet, male and female. By setting up these opposing constructs, one can easily find a set definition for each. A hot surface could scorch someone or a cold temperature could cause them to shiver. In the same way, a bitter substance would be less enjoyable to eat than a sweet one. These terms are often defined by mentioning their antitheses. Because it’s comfortable to embrace specificity and certainty, topics such as gender and gender expression often get simplified into binary existences—however, they don’t quite operate under the same parameters. In an essay entitled “Bad Feminist”, Dr. Roxane Gay explores and warns against the dangers of binary thinking. Throughout

Gender can be defined as “sex roles” which are conditions that one considers to be for men or women. People tends to mistake it with sex or thinks that they are both the same. We discussed about the patterns of gender which how the authors of The Kaleidoscope of Gender describes it as “regularized, prepackaged ways of thinking, feeling, and acting” (Spade and Valentino,2017). It becomes an identity for us. We believe that there is and can only be two genders, being masculine for men and feminine for women. These roles has been forced onto us since birth: blue for boys, and pink for girls. You can see the roles being push onto a person throughout one’s life, but we don’t notice it since it’s “normal” to us.

In the excerpt “Why Do We Make So Much of Gender?”, from his 1997 book The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy, Allan Johnson argues gender through identity and culture. Johnson starts out by expressing opposition on how women are looked at through a patriarchal society and not the biology from which they came. He mentions the feminist argument that women in a patriarchal society are “oppressed” and that this comes from social order (545). He goes on to point out, the focus should be on raising children to adulthood rather than worrying about reproduction. Although, I agree with Johnson’s arguments, there are things in this world that cannot and should not be changed.

What does it mean to be a woman or man? Whether we a man or a woman, in today’s society it is not determined just by our sex organs. Our gender includes a complex mix of beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics. How do you act, talk, and behave like a woman or man? Are you feminine or masculine, both, or neither? These are questions that help us get to the core of our gender and gender identity. Gender identity is how we feel about and express our gender and gender roles: clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. It is a feeling that we have as early as age two or three. In the article, “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meaning of Gender,” the author, Aaron Devor, is trying to persuade his readers that gender shapes how we behave because of the expectation from us and relate to one another. He does this by using an educational approach, describing gender stereotypes, and making cultural references. He gets readers to reflect on how “Children’s developing concepts of themselves as individuals are necessarily bound up …to understand the expectations of the society which they are a part of” (389). Growing up, from being a child to an adult is where most of us try to find ourselves. We tend to struggle during this transition period, people around us tell us what to be and not to be, Jamaica Kincaidt in her short story, “Girl” tells just that, the setting is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly. The mother soberly

“ Gender is society's idea of what it means to be male or female, of the appropriate roles for each sex to play. Society transforms biological sexuality, when a person is genetically declared as a male or a female, into beings of human activity.”

Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990) argues that rather than sex determining gender-gender determines sex. Sex is shaped by gender discourses which give us scripts to perform according to whether we are biologically classed as male or female. The continual performance of these scripts on a daily basis is what makes us male or female. The classic example of this is the third sex, yes, the third sex and that is the transgender( born male in a female’s body or

In chapter nine of The Real World, Ferris and Stein (2014) describe the construction of gender and sexuality in society. They start out by defining sex and gender are not interchangeable, but sex is biological and gender is defined by social or cultural aspects (Ferris & Stein, 2014, p. 243). Furthermore, gender inequality was introduced into the chapter by expressing that in the past, females had less power in society because of their biological differences from males (Ferris & Stein, 2014, p. 246). Although, biological differences are not the only reason why gender inequality exists in society today. For instance, from a functionalist perspective, certain characteristics make women and men better suited for certain jobs (Ferris & Stein, 2014,

There are several sources that tell a person how to be a man or woman. Science tells us by recognizing the X or Y chromosomes. The media shows us through the physically ideal celebrities that grace the covers of magazines and flaunt their bodies in commercials. Sports, wrestling, cars, and blue for the boys. Dresses, make-up, painted nails, and pink for the girls. All of these sources, as well as others, have evolved into an expectation that has become institutionalized within society. This expectation, is placement and belonging into the binary system of person: the man or the woman. In Anne Fausot-Sterling's acrticles “The Five Sexes” and the “The Five Sexes, Revisited”, the

“The social construction of gender comes out of the general school of thought entitled social constructionism. Social constructionism proposes that everything people "know" or see as "reality" is partially, if not entirely, socially situated. To say that something is socially constructed does not mitigate the power of the concept. These basic theories of social constructionism can be applied to any issue of study pertaining to human life, including gender. This is

Since the moment of birth we are placed on the dual track. A newborn is wrapped in a pink blanket emphasizing that the newborn is a female and a newborn wrapped in a blue blanket shows that the baby is a male. After this moment the newborn male or female are gender scripted. A female is typically on the pink side of the dual track expected to be sensitive, feminine, dependent and to stay home to clean the house and take care of her children. On the other hand, a male is on the blue side of the dual track and suppose to be strong, masculine, independent, head of the household, successful and aggressive. We are gender intensified three times in our lives, the first time is when we are born we are place on either the pink or blue side of the dual track emphasizing which track we belong to based on our gender. The second time is when we are beginning adolescence, during this time one is going through puberty and is in search for his or her identity leading to once again basing on one’s genitalia, clarifying whether you are a female or a male. The third time is when a couple is going through a pregnancy, gender scripts are clear indicating that the female will be giving birth to the child therefore is expected to stay home, while the male is expected to provide and protect in all ways for his family. These expectations lead to why men and women are considered as the “opposite” sex, meaning that these two genders have no overlap what so ever. It is

There have been four United Nations World Conferences on Women in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985), and Beijing (1995) that have revolutionized the feminist framework by allowing opportunities for women to converse about the challenge known as transnational feminist activism. Transnational feminist can be described as feminism, or a movement that unites women struggles from all over the globe to progress the fight for equality. Because the entire world is generally dominated by men whether it is in the workplace, politics, or at home, women are disadvantaged in society in comparison to men. Each one of these conferences was considered a “massive global consciousness-raising moment, even if a painful one, as women learned

Gender being ‘biologically determined’ means that whether gender is inherited or passed down by genetics. If a person is a man or woman, (which is usually called ‘The Sex’), that is biologically determined because they inherit the chromosomes to be born a man, or to be born as a woman. In the early 1970’s sex was described by “biology as: anatomy, hormones, and physiology” (West and Zimmerman 1987). Apart from gender being a biological factor, there are other things which are not biologically determined; “Gender was an achieved status, which was constructed through psychological, cultural and social means” (West and Zimmerman1987). Hence the

The existence of men and women are not completely mind-dependent, “as one does not cease to be a woman (or a man) just by altering one’s social environment” (Mikkola 73). Mikkola demonstrates this implication by comparing the label of “woman” with the label of “US Senator”. “Woman” and “US Senator” can both be used as social terms but only “woman” can be used both as a social term and biological term. For example, just by looking at one’s body, it makes sense to us to evaluate one to be a woman but it is not possible to determine the body to be a US senator (Mikkola 70). Gender terms are commonly interchangeable with sex terms because women are ordinary thought to be human females and men are ordinary thought to be human males. Ordinary social agents does not see gender as a purely social matter and thus a conventionalist approach would be “unintuitive” because just changing our social environment will not eradicate all the problematic issues of gender. Mikkola also points out that even if conventionalists are able to convince ordinary social agents to view gender as a strictly social construction, it would be hard to pinpoint what and how much social changes is needed to accomplish gender equality (73). Since gender is a hugely complex issue and difficult to be thought as a strictly social production, Mikkola believes that it is strategically better for feminists to come up with an approach that is more contingent with ordinary thinking.

On numerous occasions, I have been told that I am recognized as a female but my behavior is unladylike and/or the way I dress is not considered fashionable for a boy. I question why people think this way. In addition, I wonder what defines a woman that would suggest that my behavior and dress. Well, I have concluded that society creates the norms that define women and individuals classify gender and sex according to these norms. For many years, feminist have advocated that sex and gender are subjective based on the conditions of the social order around them. I would agree with them that a person’s knowledge is based on his or her structured environment. Our setting classifies ideas of gender and sex by observing a person’s behavior and

When considering gender and sex, a layman’s idea of these terms might be very different than a sociologist’s. There is an important distinction: sex, in terms of being “male” or “female,” is purely the physical biological characteristic differences – primarily anatomical differences. (There are also rare cases of “intersexual” individuals as outlined in the Navarro article, “When Gender Isn’t a Given”.) Gender, on the other hand, is an often misconstrued concept that is commonly mistaken as synonymous with sex. A non-sociologist might surmise the following, “men act masculine and women act feminine, therefore, it must follow that gender is inherent to sex,” however, this is not necessarily the case.