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Essay Gender and Sexuality

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Gender has been around throughout history; however, within recent years, gender has separated itself from the traditional view of sex, e.i., male or female, and has become centered on ones masculinity or femininity. Of course gender is more than just ones masculinity or femininity, gender has become a way for one to describe, he or she, in a way in which they are different from everyone else. Gender has turned into a sense of identity, a way for one to feel different and fulfilled among all of those around them. Of course gender’s sense of freedom would seem outside of structure and only affected by one’s own agency, however, structure is a key component in establishing gender. We can look into both ethnic Mexican’s…show more content…
Staying a virgin until marriage is a gender role that is strongly focused on women only, and lets men slide. Women who do lose their virginity before marriage were seen as a disgrace to their family, as Lopez-Gonzalez writes, women’s “fear of family condemnation surpassed the fear of God,” thus, women became forced to accept this role and maintain virginity (44).
While virginity was kept out of fear for some women, a larger part of keeping virginity was a man’s view of “clean” and “unclean” women. A virgin in society is able to progress farther, as marriage is her only chance at mobility. Non-virgins were seen as used, unclean, and they were considered undesirable partners as men did not want “a piece of bread that has been touched by others hands” (Lopez-Gonzalez 45). Through this women were more or less forced to remain virgins until marriage unless they wanted to give up any chance at social mobility and marrying a respectable man. Therefore, because of ethnic Mexicans’ view of virgins and non-virgins women are forced to maintain their virginity until marriage in order to be respected and accepted by their family, the church, and society as a whole. While one can argue that the women are choosing to maintain their virginity, and that agency is entirely at work, they fail to see that is cultural practices and acceptance that force women to maintain their virginity. These practices maintained by ethnic Mexicans allow for structure
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