Gender Discourse : Gender And Discourse

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 gender of a person is the masculine or feminine attributes of that individual with respect to the psychological and biological role in society. (Magar, 2009) A gender role can be defined as the way that a person lives in society with respect to its lifestyle. It can be argued that over time the major differences between men and women’s gender roles have faded. In the past traditional roles have been based in their society by their biological orientation. (Magar, 2009) Gender roles can also be described as the behavior and attitudes that are expected of men and women in a society. (Faqs.org, 2011) Although different cultures impose different expectations, many cultures have the same basic gender roles.

There is social roles and then there is social issues. From a very young age, as soon as a child reaches the capacity to understand, they are taught that they are ‘male’ or ‘female’ and that one should follow the social norm (role) that society has placed out for them. A male can only be strong, profound, masculine, stern, and emotionally controlled. While a women should only be nurturing, gentle, and sensitive. This is all before we even reach puberty, which largely created a (social) issue over the course of our generation. It makes it hard for people to find their identities in society. “All the worlds a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits, and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts” (William Shakespeare, Act 2, Scene 7, P. 6).

Gender roles have played a major part in society. According to the book “The Psyche of Feminism” “A gender role is a theoretical construct in the social sciences that refers to a set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate

In American culture in the 1950s, men were the predominant head of the household and women were expected to cook, care for their kids, and clean. This is an excellent example of gender roles, and how they control certain aspects of life. Gender roles are, according to multiple sources, the way people behave, what they do or say to express being a female or male. (“Gender Identity”; Blackstone; "Understanding Gender") They are forced upon an individual from the day they are born even in the most trivial of terms of putting baby boys in blue clothes and baby girls in pink. Throughout that person’s life from then on, they will face cultural expectations every day to act according to their sex. Gender roles can often be confusing and hurtful,many stores are moving away from assigning products to a specific gender, but not only can gender roles affect a person’s behavior, it can play a huge role in transgenderism.

There are countless factors throughout the book that help to create a critical gendered lens. However, I have found that the four most helpful have been the discussions of intersectionality, gender performance, gendered/sexed language, and the three prominent theories of gender/sex. Learning the term intersectionality and what it means in terms of gender and communication really helped shape the way that I looked at all of the content of this course. The idea that a person’s identity is multiplicative rather than additive gives clearly explains intersectionality. The idea that all of the components of a person’s identity work together to make up who they are and how they view the world and are viewed by others is critical to the study of gender

Gender roles is a problem that takes place in both the workplace, domestic conditions, and society. Often signified through the age-old stereotype. That men are required of the more "challenging" or more "advanced" jobs, while women restrict themselves to the less grueling and less beneficial positions. Terms such as "that 's a man 's job" is a leading cause of inequality in the workplace. Not to mention, gender roles and standards are set in the homes of many families everywhere. The so-called "picture perfect family" situation; the husband goes to work while the wife stays home to tend to the children. While romanticized as ideal, this concept is the very essence of a patriarchal society. Meanwhile, the brutally vicious society we live in often berates women 's self-esteems in more way than one. Stereotypes of beauty, or who are skinny, pretty, white, and wealthy, are unfortunately the ideal standard of women and

Gender and the ways gender is portrayed in society varies from culture to culture. Gender roles have changed drastically, especially during the 20th century and continue to evolve to this day. For years now there have been preconceived notions about genders and the roles each one should play in society, home, workplace, etc. Most times gender roles are associated with stereotypes and previous gender roles. Gender role plays different parts in religion, culture, society, time periods, countries, etc. Women rights and power varies in time and location and it is very interesting to look at the events, cultures, and customs that were taking place in that particular time period to get a better idea of the gender role concept.

Gender is considered an axis of social order. Its categorisation into masculinity and femininity is social constructed and maintained in everyday life (Clark and Page, 2005; Mackie, 1994). Gender identity is our innermost understanding of our self as ‘male’ or ‘female’. Most people develop a gender identity that matched their biological sex (their body). Gender identity can be affected by, and is different from one society to another, depending on the way the members of society evaluate the role of females and males. Our gender identity can be influenced from the ethnicity of the group, their cultural background, and family values. Gender like social class and race can be used to socially categorize people and even lead to prejudice and discrimination. From day –to-day, continuous production of gender has been called ‘doing gender’ (West and Zimmermann, 1987), meaning that gender is “made” by us in everyday lives in our interactions with others.

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

Gender plays a signifigant roles in our every day lives. Gender determines whether or not we will dress as a male or female. Gender determines who we will have as friends. Also which role models we choose. While visiting my family in Louisiana my

Gender roles play a huge part in society. Gender plays a role in shaping an individuals identify and beliefs. It also helps identify what is masculine and what is feminine. Certain tasks, duties, and jobs are classified by gender. However, gender appropriate behavior should not be enforced in our society for numerous reasons and can be seen on an individual level and be demonstrated by social learning theory and sex segregation.

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.

Ever since the dawn of time, women and men have been associated with specific gender roles that can be seen controversial in the eyes of many. Traits and roles associated with a specific gender can be either innate or learned over time. Looking into the deeper concept of gender roles and stereotypes, it is clear that these fixed gender roles are not naturally born with, but rather taught, learned, or influenced by external forces.

In 1990 Judith Butler first published her book Gender Troubles, where she questions gender roles. Butler theorizes that gender, as in male and female, is a type of societal/gender colonialism created to keep people who do not fall within the gender roles from being part of the mainstream society. In her 1999 preface, in which she addresses the impact her book had in the decade since its original publication, Butler expresses the concern she had with the “heterosexual assumption in feminist literary theory (61).” Butler utilizes the works of other feminist philosophers to further demonstrate the inconsistency, and disconnect between fighting for women rights and fighting for human rights. Judith Butler makes an interesting argument on the failure to recognize the spectrum of gender, however, she makes a compelling argument on the use of language perpetuating a patriarchal society.