Gender Norms In Stone Butch Blues

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 Octavia Butler’s Dawn the idea of gender is deconstructed and reformed from the typical human’s definition. Often people do not consider the role of gender in society today. Usually the first thing one notices when meeting someone new is their gender or their presumed gender. However, there becomes a problem when the person whose gender we perceived identifies as a different gender. Butler forces the reader to examine how they judge and perceive gender. While the ooloi are actually “its” their personalities seem to imply a certain gender. The transgender community often brings up this issue because these assumptions of gender based on our judgments of what defines a male and what defines a female can skew how a transgender person is treated and addressed. In Chapter One of Gender Through the Prism of Difference by Anne Fausto-Sterling, the idea of expanding the number of genders based on one’s biological differences is examined through the five sexes theory. By now the concept of gender being defined solely by one’s biology has mostly been left in the past but the question remains of how do we truly define gender? How does being outside of the social norms that Michael Warner talks about cause us to feel shame when discussing our gender and our perceptions of gender? In this essay, I will argue that preconceived notions of gender create shame when a person’s own perception of their gender does not fit the social norms. This stigma around the limited and strict definitions

We are all living in a society that is filled with social expectations of gender. From our early age, we seem to be able to response to these expectations accordingly. For example, we notice Barbies are for girls while robots and cars are for boys only. In the “Performative Gender”, “Doing Gender”, and “Nerd Box”, authors all indicate gender is learned instead of inherited. They bring out their insightful observation and critical personal experience to illustrate how the social expectations with punitive effects construct our gender unconsciously. These articles provide a great lens for us to understand the mental state and behaviors of the main characters in Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel portrays how living in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania during the 1930s not only repressed both her father, Bruce, and her from coming out as a homosexual and genderqueer, but also trapped her mother, Helen, in her “women box”. Through the graphic memoir, Fun Home is able to present the struggling process that one may need to go through before admitting one’s unusual gender identity and sexual orientation.

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 certainly various points in history that can be construed as trailblazing for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. One event in particular, however, sparked awareness and a call to action that previously could never have been conceptualized in the United States. This unforgettable incident, the Stonewall riots of 1969, altered the public’s view of the gay community and arguably jumpstarted the next revolution in an entirely new civil rights movement.

In society, women are expected to be submissive, quiet, well mannered, and poised. The term “lady like” embodies these characteristics and is only applied to women. Men are expected to be dominant, strong, tall, and athletic. If a man does not have these qualities, he does not qualify as “masculine.” According to Carol Vance, author of Social Construction Theory and Sexuality, explains that femininity was achieved through socialization. This supports the claim that social construction demands women to act submissive and feminine. The expectations posed by social construction have a negative impact as they marginalize the LGBT community or any person who does fit these standards. This has caused issues such as bullying in schools which can lead to suicide. In this way, social construction forms a mold that men and women must feel the need to fit into out of the fear of being abnormal. From the evidence shown here, one can see how social construction does not positively impact sexuality and

Additionally, Leslie helped Jess to push past stereotypes , allowing him to become a better friend and open minded person. She challenged the usual traits that were stitched into girls like they were an article of clothing - simply attaching a tag to them to tell them what they were and what they were not. Yet she seemed to rip her own tag from her body and shout out who she was with such an ecstatic and brave stance. She took Jess by the hand and showed him how much more there was to life then what people are taught. She was different from anyone Jess had ever met. "I hope they have a girl, six or seven," said May Belle. "I need somebody to play with." "You got Joyce Ann." "I hate Joyce

While this visibility does afford transvestites formal recognition, the presence of satire in their representation undermines their plight for recognition as a definition of gender expression and sexual identity (Hennessy, 2000). This, therefore, acts to police and regulate the social and cultural bodies of transvestite individuals within the neoliberal state. Therefore, men and women who show characteristics inconsistent with the neoliberal state's prescribed gender roles are often regulated and policed through the labelling of marginalized and different groups (Keyes, 2014). An autonomous, feminist and individualised woman often is subjected to ‘lesbian' labelling and this form of ‘othering' contributes to the regulation and individualised policing marginalized groups experience under the heteronormative, neoliberal state and its subsequent restrictions on gender and sexual identity (Keyes, 2014). However, the sex-gender matrix that operates under heterosexuality can often be understood in terms of the social struggle of queer visibility in the consumerist culture, to recognise not the form but the function of families in the homosexual sphere (Dnes,

This happens when Dunbar son is offered to draw for his mother and himself. It appears that women have no voice,they are incapable; therefore they need a brave boy to help and protect them. Similarly, it is visible that women are stereotyped as childlike; for instance when Tessie tries to defend herself, Bill asks her to” Shut up” (174) instead of showing compassion, and paying her a last tribute, knowing what is about to happen to

While reading Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman I was very intrigued by the stories and pieces of writing within the book because they really gave an inside view of what it is like to identity differently than the stereotypical born male and female when it comes to sexuality and gender preference. I feel it is rare to be able to have this insight and understand the processes and views that non-typical gender roles have without thinking of the stereotypes you may see through pop culture and media. I feel the writing in the book added so much personality and was just a clear looking glass into the lives of people who are trans or represent other kinds of gender roles. There are a lot of interesting perspectives

She is suggesting that this group of educated young women have the ability to both help and hurt society. Morrison tries to persuade these women to use their new found power to help other women rather that participate in their oppression. But the oppression of women is still a big issue in today’s society, in Teaching Little Girls to Turn Into Plastic Dolls, Carissa Chen brings up many of the gender roles that are ingrained into young girls’ minds. Even after all the fighting for women to be treated as equals during the women’s rights movement, little girls are still told that they must be a certain way: they can't play like the boys or be as smart as the boys, they need to change the way they look if they ever want to be loved by a boy. In this way the people have the power over society, mothers are teaching their daughters to behave a certain way because that is what women have always been told by society that that is what they need to be.

In Parks and Rec one of the main characters Leslie Knope, is a firm believer in women being treated the same as men. She has numerous times throughout the show done outrageous things just to prove a point. Season 1 Episode 4, Leslie decides she is going to ‘infiltrate’ a boy’s club at her work where a bunch of her male coworkers get together and drink each week to try to prove that girls can be in a boy’s club. She goes with her best friend Ann Perkins, a nurse, not an employee of the Parks Department, and they ‘infiltrate’ the get-together. Leslie goes out of her way to be a part of the group and be ‘one of the guys’ and in the end, it’s revealed that she didn’t need to try so hard to impress the guys, since they accepted her the whole time. Alternatively, in Friends, the approach to this subject is different, but it teaches the same thing. Monica Geller is a chef and her dream is to own her restaurant, but when she gets fired from her job she ends up having to hunt for a new one. Along with her struggles to get a new job she works as a caterer, and gets looked down upon by a few of her customers as well as her mother. Her mother had asked Monica to cater for one of her events and since she was so desperate to impress her mother and prove to her she could do this, she ended up losing a fake nail in one of the meals for the night, rendering them useless.

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.

The reinforcement of gender roles and boundaries through societal constructs is shown in Woodhouse’s discussion of transvestites