Gender plays an enormous role in every society around the world. There are debates about whether gender is defined by strictly biological characteristics or social attributes. Others argue that gender is a spectrum, rather than the dichotomy of male and female. Masculinity and femininity are sets of attributes, roles and behaviors that are associated with men and boys and girls and women, respectively. Both masculinity and femininity have specific traits that are both biologically and socially defined. People are expected to conform to these traits depending on their biological sex. However, there are people who do not relate to either masculine or feminine traits, and do not feel that they are a “man” or a “woman”. This is when the topic of gender identity comes into the discussion. In the past decades, more research and on gender identity have been conducted. Gender identity is significant in how people are viewed and treated in society.
Gender identity can be defined as “a person’s acceptance of the roles and behaviors that society associates with the biological categories of male and female” (Berger 461). This process of formulating an identity usually “begins with the person’s biological sex and leads to a gender role that society considers inappropriate” (Berger 461). All societies differentiate between male and female roles. Gender roles have evolved overtime and vary across different cultures. In the United States, for example, men were supposed to be the
Gender identity has changed its definition over time. The psychological definition as stated from the social learning theory is that gender identity is the sense of being male or female. Seems simple but we now know in todays world the definition has broadened. Gender identity is now defined as one 's personal experience of one 's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with assigned sex at birth, or can differ from it completely. All societies have a set of gender categories that can serve as the basis of the formation of a person 's social identity in relation to other members of society. From the past when we had many strong women’s rights activist who fought so what your gender was did not
The determination of gender identity is much deeper than whether a person is born a male or a female. The exact identifier that separates gender identity is currently unknown but researchers believe that genetics, hormones, reproductive organs, biological, and environmental factors all play a role in distinguishing a person’s gender identity. A person’s physical gender and their sense of gender are formed at two different times in two different parts of the body. A person’s gender is whether they are born male or female, but the way they identify themselves may be the opposite, which is not uncommon and has occurred since the beginning of time. In culture males are known to be the stronger, more aggressive sex, while females are the
To me gender is what you want to be seen as and sex is the body parts you are born with. Today there are even surveys including a “no comment” option along with male and female. Many factors contribute to gender identity, such as what sex you are attracted to, what sex you feel you belong alongside, or even how much testosterone our body produces. As soon as I came into this world, I was given a pink blanket. From then on I was expected to buy all the sparkly spirals and pink pencils. I am expected to love wearing skirts and dresses to school. I am expected to cross my legs and scorn people that tell inappropriate jokes. To the world is was out of the ordinary that I would pick the blue spirals and green pencils, wear jeans and a tshirt every single day, and to be the one telling those awful jokes my brother taught
Gender is a complex socially constructed idea. Often people interchangeably use gender to refer to someone’s sex. This is not the case. Sex is the biological characteristics that makes someone a male, female or intersex. Gender however is made up of expression, identity, and sexual orientation. Gender identity is how one views themselves such as a woman, man or transgender. Gender identity does not correspond to the sex of that person. Gender expression is how one expresses their gender identity. This could be through a masculine , feminine or androgynous expression. In Western societies, although there has been a push for change in our gender system, the gender system as been a binary system. This binary system only believes that there are
Throughout many studies, researchers have said that gender develops from families, which is part of the social construction in children. According to Coltrane and Adams, Gender is defined as “To what it means to be a man or a woman in a specific time and place” (Coltrane and Adams). People in this world think that gender is automatically part of biological sex, but according to Coltrane and Adams, it is not a direct result of biological sex. The term is defined as “to refer relatively distinct biological differences between male and females such as genitals, hormones, and chromosomes” (Coltrane and Adams). For gender it is also social and it refers to how a person thinks that someone should look, act and feel (Coltrane and Adams). On the daily life, people will usually assume that a person “is” the gender that corresponds to his or her sex: females are feminine and males are masculine (Coltrane and Adams). In addition, gender also describes how the typical man and woman are supposed to present themselves. A man presenting himself as masculine and a woman presenting herself as feminine in particular cultures (Coltrane and Adams). In other words how women should act and how men should act.
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.
At a very young age we are introduced to a gender identity based upon the sex we were born with. Girls are associated with the color pink, dolls, nurturing tendencies, and inclined to be more emotional. While boys are associated with the color blue, the nature of masculinity, sports, and said to be more outspoken. However, gender and sex are two different things. Sex is the biological differences between female and male, while gender is social construct attached with social roles
There are attitudes and expectations made upon on these roles, and therefore it effects the behavior of the individual naturally. In the article by Schilt and Westbrook, it is emphasized that people who live their lives in a social gender, that is not the gender that they were assigned at birth, are disrupting the cultural expectations of gender identity. Two case studies were performed to see how gender normals react to mismatch gender identity and biological sex. West and Zimmerman explain how gender is performed in communications and interactions, and behaviors of people are evaluated based on socially accepted conceptions of gender. They identified and distinguished between sex and gender. Sex was agreed to be broken down as male or female. Thus it is based
My Gender Development Gender identity is the measure by which one identifies as being masculine and feminine, and it is often shaped early in life. Gender varies across cultures over time, and over the individual’s term of life. However, the formation of “gender identity is not clearly understood, many factors have been indicated as the ones changing the gender development” (Boundless, 2014). This factors are described as theories, and throughout these theories we can discover stage by stage the approaches to gender development.
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 concept of gender has a strong social impact on me. When I was born, I was immediately assigned to a biological sex as a female with two X chromosomes. I was then socially classified as a girl in the society with feminine gender roles. Gender is defined as a social principle which attribute to the roles and expectations of males and females through the years of different societies (Phillips, 2005). Gender can be considered as behavioural, cultural and psychological traits
Gender identity is the personal conception of being a man or a woman and the society creates standards and comes up with gender roles basing them on existing norms and traditions which will in turn influence gender identity. For instance, most societies associate strength and dominance to be masculine roles while caring and assisting or subordination known to be feminine roles. This clearly makes gender identity be bred within the society. One’s identity is important as it influences his or her life through events like life experiences, how one is being taken or treated, how to do one associate or socialize with others, the type of job one will have to do and also opportunities that may come up favoring a certain type of gender identity. One is also likely to face obstacles or discrimination due to his or her identity.
Throughout today’s society, almost every aspect of someone’s day is based whether or not he or she fits into the “norm” that has been created. Specifically, masculine and feminine norms have a great impact that force people to question “am I a true man or woman?” After doing substantial research on the basis of masculine or feminine norms, it is clear that society focuses on the males being the dominant figures. If males are not fulfilling the masculine role, and females aren’t playing their role, then their gender identity becomes foggy, according to their personal judgment, as well as society’s.
A person 's gender identity is a multi-faceted social construct that is defined as a person 's
Gender, as defined by the United Nations, includes the psychological, social, cultural, and behavioral characteristics associated with being female or male. It further defines acceptable and allowable behavior in for both men and women in a broad cultural sense (United Nations, 2016). Gender identity impacts our development and how we interact with society. Our daily life decisions are impacted by our gender role beliefs.