How Gender Impact On Young Women 's Experiences And Identity

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

In order to better comprehend the issues in which I will be examining, it is important to have an understanding of the difference between sex and gender, the role and definition of a 'patriarchal society',

First of all I am going to begin with defining sex and gender. Sex in a sociological perspective is defined as the biological and physiological differences between men and women which are contrasted in terms of reproductive function(Abercrombie et al 2000 :313). On the other hand gender is sociologically conceived as the social roles allocated to men and women in society that is to say gender is learned not innate. However previously it was believed that sex determined gender thus the differences between men and

When contemplating the topic of gender role and its impact on identity one cannot help but realise that these gender roles have a huge part to play on a person’s identity. As gender is a combination of male and female it gives way for a number of characteristics to accompany each sex making them different from each other. This has an important position to play on identity which Kath Woodward stated in her book “Questioning Identity: Gender, Class, Nation” where she said “Without difference there would not be such thing as identity”. (Woodward, 2000, pp.51) Unfortunately, however, with these differences there are inequalities. In this essay I would like to elaborate on this further by looking at the meaning of gender and how it impacts

The concept of gender has a strong social impact on me. When I was born, I was immediately assigned to a biological sex as a female with two X chromosomes. I was then socially classified as a girl in the society with feminine gender roles. Gender is defined as a social principle which attribute to the roles and expectations of males and females through the years of different societies (Phillips, 2005). Gender can be considered as behavioural, cultural and psychological traits

West and Zimmerman claim that gender is not something we are but something we do.

Inclusion to this does gender have an impact on young women’s experiences and identity. I feel that it does as there is a huge impact on how young women see themselves when they compare them to the media. However if we work and build programmes around how to make young women confident in themselves and to be able to believe they are themselves and that they do not have to look like the celebrities. By doing this essay it also has challenged me as a youth worker, as I never really understood how young women’s work came about and how it was founded, and especially how the lens model was made, and how youth worker do gender conscious work and how it has an impact on young women’s lives. Also by doing this essay also I have talked about sexual orientation with young women I would like to explore this more. As I have not really got

Gender identity is the personal conception of being a man or a woman and the society creates standards and comes up with gender roles basing them on existing norms and traditions which will in turn influence gender identity. For instance, most societies associate strength and dominance to be masculine roles while caring and assisting or subordination known to be feminine roles. This clearly makes gender identity be bred within the society. One’s identity is important as it influences his or her life through events like life experiences, how one is being taken or treated, how to do one associate or socialize with others, the type of job one will have to do and also opportunities that may come up favoring a certain type of gender identity. One is also likely to face obstacles or discrimination due to his or her identity.

Sometimes he feels feminine and other times he feels like a male. In the novel, “Middlesex” written by Jeffrey Eugenides, the main character Calliope Stephanides is forced to choose between her/his gender identity. The book sheds light on the development of identity in America. It highlights the roles of males and females in that time and the level of power that each gender possessed. Some people thought that a person had to be either male or female, there was no in between. And they preferred women to have vaginas and males to have penises (to be cisgender). The article, “Identity Dimensions versus Proactive Coping in late Adolescence while taking into account Biological Sex and Psychological Gender,” written by Dorota Kalka and Bartosz Karcz, addresses the formation of identity and stress coping. It was a study done to investigate the relationship between proactive coping strategies and the dimensions of identity formation, along with the role of biological sex and psychological gender as moderators for this relationship. There is a direct relationship between how a person deals with stress and what

This essay will look at is why this research is important and how this research was conducted, it will highlight some of the key results that were found during the research and what it could mean in terms of femininity in the modern day. It will also mention the shortcoming of the research conducted and the limitations of the research.

Adolescents are faced with many difficult life decisions which, when coupled with their lack of self-knowledge, cause identity crises. Not secure in themselves, teenagers must make decisions concerning how they will act, with who they will associate with, and what life decisions they will choose. Ultimately, the progression by which they determine their identity must inevitability be one of trial and error. In the book Reviving Ophelia, clinical psychologist Dr. Mary Pipher discusses the social and cultural pressures faced by today 's adolescent girls based on her individual clients’ stories. This paper will examine how gender role socialization effects girls more specifically, depending on the teenage girls’ developmental level. Another crucial theme to be analyzed is the idea coined as lookism and the American culture, which according to the book is a determination of a woman 's value based solely on appearance. Another common factor in each of the case studies presented by Pipher is the theme of resisting authority and shutting out parental guidance substituting help with media and peers. By analyzing these young girls’ stories, it is clear to understand why young girls find themselves going down the wrong path growing up.

To properly explain how gender identities are influenced by culture, I will present a set of interviews in order to analyze the results through a compare and contrast method. Being that I

“Gender” is a social construct that is developed solely by our society and the early developmental stages of an adolescent’s life. By introducing youths to the roles, behaviors, expectations and activities that correspond with males or females we give a clear guideline of what is accepted from a young male or female. An individual however can identify his or her gender based on their own system of beliefs without corresponding to their natural biological sex. Our lives are shaped by our true biological identities but the influence of the world and society is enough to define what a male and what a female truly is to an individual.

The words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are commonly confused with each other in regular, everyday conversations when the two have very different meanings. The term ‘sex’ refers to the biological and physiological characteristics of a person, such as male or female; ‘gender’ is a social construction that refers to masculine or feminine roles in society ( Nordqvist). For

The term ‘gender’ was coined by John Money in 1955: “Gender is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself/herself as having the status of a boy or man, girl or woman, respectively” (Coleman and Money, 1991, 13). In