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Gender Reflection

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Before taking the course Sociology of Sex and Gender, I had not thoroughly or thoughtfully contemplated how gender affects my life and the world around me. The concept of gender, to me, was simply the anatomical sex of a person. One of the most interesting enlightening topics learned during this course was the concept of the gender binary that our society has created. I also found the concept of “doing gender” eye-opening. I discovered ways in which I didn’t realize I was obeying so many gender rules in my own life and fall into so many stereotypical gender roles. Another new concept that was introduced to me during this course was the intersections that gender has between all aspects of a person’s life. Throughout this course, I discovered that I was very naïve to the complexities of gender in our society. If someone had asked me to define gender before I began sociology 131, I would respond that gender was being either male or female. During this course, I have learned that gender is much more complex. The textbook Gender Ideas, Interactions, Institutions defines gender as,
“ The symbolism of masculinity and femininity that we connect to being male-bodied or female bodied” (Wade & Ferree, 2015, p.11). I have learned that the society we live in has created a gender binary, which is the idea that there are only two types of people, male-bodied people who are masculine and female-bodied people who are feminine (Wade & Ferree, 2015). I was very intrigued to

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