Gender and Individual Identity

When taking gender into consideration, there is one person who is responsible for many radical ideas, that is Judith Butler. Butler argues that gender is socially constructed and that instead of being either male or female from birth, gender is a product of repeated performance in everyday life. (Butler, 1999).

In the present century, women are thought to be smarter than men. They are seen as better students and harder workers. According to David Brooks, author of “Mind over Muscle,” this idea of women is made because of the gap in passing classes and reading between females and males (576).

Gender is actually a set of rules, customs and traditions assigned to people of a particular sex. Gender is not biological but sex is. Rather, according to Lorber, it is influenced by our society and our culture. By proving this claim, Judith Lorber has put forth the example of the man and this example is efficient in distinguishing “gender” as a practice than as an innate attribute.

Gender has been described as masculine or feminine characteristics that encompass gender identity sex as well as social roles (Nobelius 2004). According to sexologist John Money, there is a difference between gender as a role and the biologically of differences in sex (Udry 1994). Within scholarly disciplines, cultures and contexts, gender frequently has its own mean, contextual frame of reference and the manner in which it is used to describe a variety of issues and characteristics. The sociocultural codes, conventions and the suggested and literal rules that accompany the notion of gender are vast and diverse. There has been and continues to be much scholarly debate regarding the idea of gender and how it has been viewed historically; as well as changes in the grammatical use of the

An ever changing, yet common issue, in today's generation revolves around how society views gender. The general consensus dictates that gender, as a whole, is a spectrum, rather than a standard set for each individual male and female to follow throughout everyday life. However, there are those individuals who wish to remain reluctant in changing their view of society. Some believe it is better to allow the education system to be segregated by gender, in order to provide more resources to both girls and boys. One person in favor of this public education reform is David Brooks, a neuroscientist who published the article titled “The Gender Gap at School.” A thorough analysis of the effects of literature on men and women, biological factors

Sociologists reject the idea that behavioural differences between men and women are biologically determined. Outline the key grounds for this rejection and discuss what this means for a sociological understanding of gender.

Gender as a Social Construction This annotated bibliography is focused on research that supports the idea that gender has been socially constructed. Haslanger’s chapter offers an understanding of what is meant by the term ‘socially constructed’ and how gender can be defined from this viewpoint. Zimman complements Haslanger’s argument by explaining that it is our discourse that influences our perceptions of gender. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s chapter is helpful when explaining how gender is socially constructed by exploring how from birth we are treated and labeled according to whether we’ are male or female.

At our inception we are simply biotic matter without any sense of gender. However as we age, our sense of gender beyond the objective view of our biology reminds us that men are different from women. Are we truly different entirely from one another, or are the differences in gender brought about by our social interactions? Drawing on the works of authors of Anna Quindlen, Virginia Woolf, and Cathy Song, it is apparent that these divides are not rooted in our genetics. Although, on the surface, they agree that socialization is a cause of gender difference, they convey different meanings for our expectations concerning gender. Woolf’s claim is without an outlet by which women can escape the gender expectations society expects of them, which reinforces

The word identity has become the most discussed idea in our society. It is described mostly, to be a word that stands for who we are. Therefore, because of who we are, identity has come to be a word that we use to claim and understand people’s actions in our society. So in this paper I will be analysing how social practices surrounding identity relates to gender in social, personal levels, through the work of three authors; by Ian Hacking on “kind making”, Margaret Somers on “Narrative construction of identity” and finally, Frederick Cooper and Rogers Brubaker on “beyond identity” . However, I will tilt more toward Frederick Cooper and Rogers Bruakers article on identity. This is because I feel that their article contributes better to my

Transgender can be defined as a person whose self-identity does not conform precisely to conventional notions of the male or female gender. This self-identity problem can usually be accompanied by numerous forms of treatment to change ones’ physical appearance, and make it more consistent with their identified gender identity. In many cases, the individual can identify with the gender of the opposite sex to the point one believes that he or she is a member of that gender group trapped in the wrong body. This is also called Gender Dysphoria or formerly known as Gender Identity Disorder. The person with gender dysphoria or GD at times does not know that he or she have an actual disorder but more of a general discomfort with his or her biological sex. This also creates complications in their everyday life, when they are unable to interpret their feelings or rationalize problems they experience in a social setting (Gender Dysphoria, 2014).

(Eisenchlas, 2013) Humans, being labelled by social creatures, are greatly influenced and shaped by society as well as social interactions, because of this gender roles are socially constructed rather than biologically

Over the years in American history, women have fought for the rights and freedoms that men were born with. For a while now after all this hard work women have put in to get these rights, you would think there wouldn’t be any more hoops to jump through, but you would be unquestionably wrong. Emily Martin wrote “The Egg and The Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles” to show the world that there is gender stereotyping not only in our culture but also scientific language as well (Martin, 39). In reproductive roles males are depicted as the heroic warrior who go on missions to get to females, while women are seen as wasteful and passive, not working nearly as hard as the men. Not only does science exhibit females in such a derogatory aspect, but it’s teaching children in early age science textbooks the gender bias as well. Scientific stereotyping seems to be influenced by cultural stereotyping which in itself is a drastic problem. When will it be acceptable for males and females to work together as equals in a humane environment? Academic research throughout the conversation of language in science indiscreetly displays gender bias towards males, aiding the theories that Martin addresses in her article.

In her text Passionate Men, Emotional Women: Psychology Constructs Gender Difference in the 19th Century, historian Stephanie A. Shields delineates the ways in which the Western modern project required in its logic of construction a need to create and reproduce an epistemological, discursive, and pseudo-scientific dichotomous relationship between the genders. Specifically, Shields emphasizes the ways in which a certain dogmatic praxis of evolutionary theory, in juxtaposition with social science, worked to produces a science of psychology that in turn generated a hierarchical understanding of gender relations, premised on the politics of emotions and the mind/body divide.

In her paper on the biological differences in cognition between men and women, Doreen Kimura suggests that the social differences between genders arose out of biological necessity (Kimura 46). Even so, it is difficult to argue that social factors do play a large part in gender in society today. A closer look at both biological and social perspectives will reveal more about the processes that determine gender roles.

As evident from the generalized patterns found in differences in behaviour and outlook observed between the sexes, it may be tempting, as has been done in the past, to conclude that gender is an unavoidable aspect of human existence as determined purely from one 's genes. Indeed, human physiology is subject to sexual dimorphism; statistically significant differences in brain size and rate of maturation of specific substructures in the brain exist between males and females (Giedd, Castellanos, Rajapakese, Vaituzis, & Rapoport, 1997), yet these physical differences fail to explain how individuals form their concept of their own gender, and why they tend to conform to their perceived gender roles as defined by the society in which they live, when these roles are ever-changing. Thus, it is important to differentiate between the physical and nonphysical traits, and how the labels of femininity and masculinity should not confuse the two aspects. As defined by Unger (1979), “sex” would be used to refer to the biological differences in males and females, while “gender” describes socioculturally determined, nonphysiological traits which are arbitrarily designated as being appropriate for either females or males. With more recent awareness and interest in matters of gender nonconformity and individual gender identity, new research now explains how these concepts of gender are shaped by social influences (Perry