Gender, Sexual, And Gender

According to the Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences of Monash University, “Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine.” (Nobelius, Ann-Marrie, med.monash.edu.au). Sex, says Ann-Maree,“ refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs” (med.monash.edu.au). Sometimes people use these terms interchangeably. Sex has to do with you being biologically male or female, and gender has to do with being masculine, or feminine and is determined by society depending in the culture. The reason these terms are often mistaken is because, usually, if one is born male they are assigned a masculine role in society, and there is a difference in expectations with the masculine and feminine roles. These genders were created by society. There are cases where neither roles apply for a group of people or individuals. These ideals of gender roles being assigned are being challenged by individuals. For example a family member of mine is one of the individuals whom the

One who claims any gender other than male or female would be considered taboo or highly unusual by our society. Biological sex is often thought to determine one’s gender identity. Though sex and gender align for the mass of our population, there is a minority group that does not feel that they belong to either male or female genders. To understand gender fluidity, one must recognize that sometimes a person’s gender and sex do not align. A person may not feel that their biological sex reflects who they are, they may feel uncomfortable with the expectations and roles placed on them due to their sex. These gender roles are created by social expectations of our western society. Gender roles are merely social constructs, and if one does not want to conform to societies conjectures placed on them due to their biological sex, they should have the freedom to non-conform.

Sex is the measurable organs (anatomies), hormones and chromosomes that determines us as male, female or intersex. It is what we are born with, a product of biological processes (DNA, evolution, mutation, replication, reproduction, and selection), sex is a biological construct, as opposed to gender which is a social and cultural construct.

Similar to race and ethnicity, sex and gender are terms that can sometimes be confused. Sex “refers to physical or physiological differences between males and females” and gender “refers to social or cultural distinctions with being male or female.” A person’s sex relates strictly to biological factors, while a person’s gender relates to characteristics that are identified as masculine or feminine in society.

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

‘‘Sex’ is a biological term; ‘gender’ a psychological and cultural one’ (Oakley 1972, p.158). To further expound on Oakley, ‘sex’ refers to the biological framework a person is born with while ‘gender’, an identity that we acquire as a result of social and cultural influence. Sex is naturally constant throughout an individual’s life whereas gender is a variable. Via gender socialisation, men and women constantly learn to adapt to society’s expectations associated with their biological form as society changes. This very concept clearly elucidates the dichotomy between sex and gender. Therefore, coming from such a perspective, it is true to say that we are born as human beings (males, females or intersex) who formulate socially accepted gender identities as a product of social and cultural implications (Abbott, Wallace & Tyler 2005). Conventionally, societies associate the male and female sexes with their definitions of masculinity and femininity respectively.

Nobody is born with a set gender, the way we walk, talk, and dress gives off the impression of being a man or woman and therefore, gender is performative, or in other words nobody possesses a gender from the beginning of their life. In our daily lives we build models of a set gender through repetition. From the moment a baby is born, the gender of the child has already been set by society. Growing up, they perform the gender they believe they should be based on how they have observed these genders to be. They do this by watching it be performed by their parents and those around them. Over and over we have seen gender being performed in more or less in the same way. The repetition gives us the idea that this is why we should be acting according to our gender.

Throughout the second season of ABC’s American Crime, there were an extreme amount of ways in which race, sexuality, gender, and ethnicity were depicted, troubled, and interrogated. While watching the second season of American Crime in class, it almost seemed as if the entire series was made just to explore each and every component of this course, Ethnics 1010. The series successfully explored through numerous situations with all of these important components that we have discussed throughout the semester. However, there happens to be three specific components that I would like to elaborate on throughout this essay.

Without a critical gendered lens, it’s unlikely that one would even consider the concept of “doing gender”. It’s important to understand that people’s actions are a direct result of socially constructed gender norms. Over time, a person’s actions might feel normal and as if they come naturally, but in reality they are learned actions that result from socially constructed gender norms. People typically don’t consciously think about how they are going to perform their gender, unless they are overtly defying norms to challenge constricting gender/sex norms.

In what ways is the male gender superior to the female gender in relation to “The Homeric Hymn to Demeter”? It tells the story of Persephone, goddess of spring, taken against her will by Hades. Her grieving mother, Demeter, goes through great lengths to be reunited with her beloved daughter. The hymn portrays a great divide in authority between both genders. The male gods use their authority without consequence. They assert their power on others without taking into account who it affects. Zeus and Hades interpret authority as power’s equal; however, true authority requires one to have a sense of community and be able to take responsibility for their actions. The females shown in the hymn provide a model for community that the males learn from. Through Demeter’s defiance, woman are able to free themselves from the imbalance of authority.

More often than not, the sex of a person, is commonly misinterpreted with gender. This is wrong. Your sex is your biological and physiological attributes that define you as male or female. Having “male parts” or “female parts”, strictly make up a person 's sex. Where gender refers to socially constructed roles, or how society defines the components that make up an acceptable male or female. Key word being acceptable. Gender is not something that can be defined solely based off of one’s anatomy.

The construction of a self-identity can be a very complex process that every individual is identity is developed through the lenses of cultural influences and how it is expected to given at birth. Through this given identity we are expected to think, speak, and behave in a certain way that fits the mold of societal norms. This paper aims to explain how gender perform gender roles according these cultural values. I intend to analyze the process in which individuals learned and internalized their respective gender identities, through their cultural background. I will be conducting a set of interviews with the intention to compare my experience as a self-identified male of Mexican descent, to the experience of another male character of Japanese heritage in order to understand how we come to self-identify as masculine in diverged cultures. In this paper, I argue that the construction of gender identities is a direct consequence of societal influential factors such as family values; values that reflect the individual’s culture. This analysis will not only utilize evidence from these identity formations, but also in explaining why and how these self-identities were constructed using both theoretical sources and empirical studies as a framework.

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.

You are born with sexual attributes but gender qualities are developed after birth (Tovey and Share, 2003). The variations between the two sexes are an outcome of culture and society (Giddens, 2001). The best way to prove the difference between the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is the situation of transsexuals. These people fit biologically into one sex but feel they belong to the other. Through surgery and hormone treatment they try to change their biological sex and by doing this they also have to learn how to act like the sex they have changed to. They also have to take on new masculine/feminine roles (Browne, 2005). One in every two thousand babies is born intersex which is a baby with mixed female and male characteristics.

There are distinct differences between Sex and Gender. Sex is divided up into two divisions, male or female, based upon their reproductive system. Gender is the notion set by society on what social behaviours are acceptable for males and females, for example the expectation that females are more caring or nurturing than men. Gender can be further divided into two subcategorise: identity and stereotype. Gender identity is the concept that your sex and gender do not have to be the same but can different, i.e. a male at birth can identify as a female. These notions of acceptable behaviour set by society create gender stereotypes for both male and female, which can cause a person to reject their gender identity if they do not conform these gender stereotypes.