Learning To Be Gendered Analysis

In the excerpt “Why Do We Make So Much of Gender?”, from his 1997 book The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy, Allan Johnson argues gender through identity and culture. Johnson starts out by expressing opposition on how women are looked at through a patriarchal society and not the biology from which they came. He mentions the feminist argument that women in a patriarchal society are “oppressed” and that this comes from social order (545). He goes on to point out, the focus should be on raising children to adulthood rather than worrying about reproduction. Although, I agree with Johnson’s arguments, there are things in this world that cannot and should not be changed.

How we learn gender is part of gender socialization. It begins the moment we are born and continues till the end of our life. We are exposed to many factors that may influence our gender identity. Some of the factors are, media, our experience in school and our parents. In Martin & Kazyak’s essay titled “Hetero-Romantic Love and Hetereosexiness”, he explains how the media plays a part in shaping a child’s gender identity. In Thorne’s essay titled “Girls and Boys together…” he explores how sex segregation occurs predominantly in elementary school. In the film “Tough Guise”, Katz explains that men aren’t naturally violent but are taught to be so. And lastly, in Cornell’s essay titled “Masculinities and Globalization” he says that there are

Boy or girl? A question that is asked when soon-to-be parents find out they are having a baby or even in the mind of a child that was born androgynous. There are many ways and techniques to determine the gender of a person. Sometimes, although the anatomy of the person is male/female, the person feels that they should not be that gender. Science can help us determine gender in ways that people would never think possible. The article "How Science Is Helping us Understand Gender" by Robin Marantz Henig focuses on the confusion and the difficulty of people not knowing their own gender and the pain that surrounding people can afflict onto them because they are different or choose to be a gender they were not born to be.

1.A. In the “doing gender”, author’s definition of sex is combined social condition and it is not just focus on the biological area. And also, author mentioned that different definition about sex, gender and sex category. Firstly, sex is build on traditional biological standard. It distinguished male or female by genitals. As the definition of sex, the people who was born without clearly character of male or female, those people called intersex. People’s definition of sex brings some bad influence to children’s growth. According the reading “Beyond Pink And Blue”, Intersex always received the medical treatment, and people usually can not give a right definition to the intersex people. “Recent estimates indicate that approximately one or two in every two thousand infants are born with anatomy that some people regard as sexually ambiguous.” (Preves. 2003) We can’t definite the sex just through the sexual organs but also need to combine the social implications. Secondly, sex category is a good way to definite sex, which through people’s actors, behaviors to help create definition of sex. In the article “doing gender”, author argues that people need to combine the physical characteristics and social norms to definite gender, rather than just use biological characteristics to definite the gender. It is more like the sociology of gender. For instance, in the society masculinity is more appropriate for men. otherwise, femininity is more appropriate for women. As a conclusion, the

Being born a man or a woman in todays society is more than a simple biological fact. It’s a biological fact that harvests social consequences. From delivery, gender is assigned to males and females in life binding forms by way of blue or pink. Gender is the social construct of what we know biologically as male or female, but masculinity and femininity is how the two roles are played out in society. Our role as feminine and masculine are institutionalized through social interaction and is perpetuated through our social institutions. Forms of social institution include hospitals, family, churches and schools. These institutions tie gender roles to individual identity from infancy to death.

When It comes to gender spectrum, most people believe that when the sex is determined for a baby, they come up with a preconceived notion of the child’s gender. However, gender is not just based on the sex of the child, there are a few more qualities that are to be taking into consideration. How one identifies themselves, the emotions and experience one goes through in their own body, and also gender expression all play a role and how one can identify their gender. Gender is the state of being male or female but is also considered a social and psychological reflection of one’s self-image that cross references with one’s sexual nature.

Previous research has suggested that differences in gender have an effect on decision-making when multiple options were available. A study performed by Kallie Reiter examined the gender differences in decision-making when multiple options were available among college students. The researchers tested this by measuring the amount of time it took students to choose a food line to wait in at the cafeteria. 116 male students and 116 female students from two separate cafeterias on two different campuses participated in the study. The participants were unaware of their participation in this study because it was a naturalistic observation design and they were chosen by convenience. A cell phone or other type of timer were used to measure the amount

At birth, an individual’s gender is chosen in a split second and is often based on the outward physical characteristics of their body (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009). This leaves little room for genders that fall outside of the standard societal binary. There is an emphasis on “doing one’s gender” in a manner that represents the structure of the

all but cultural. The way we tend to think about men and women and their gender

When gender is discussed, sex is the identification between male and female whereas gender is described as the roles we fulfil as separate sexes. Although brains seem different in structure there is no measureable difference in intelligence between men and women.

There is a 4:1 boy to girl ratio found in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This gender disparity, although heavily studied, is little understood. There are two main theories that attempt to explain this gender disparity: the extreme male brain theory, which is supported by research on fetal testosterone, X-chromosomes, Y-chromosomes, and the female protective effect; and the biased diagnostic criteria theory, which is also supported by many research studies that explore phenotypic differences in the symptoms of boys and girls with ASD. Ultimately, the gender disparity is best explained by a merging of these two theories, in a model that shows that there are genetic differences that lead males to be more likely to develop

Gender roles can be defined as how society expects men and women to portray themselves. This can be observed through separation of household chores and acceptable jobs for each gender. Women are expected to do all household chores, while men are expected to do all work outside of the home. An example could be a woman doing laundry, while the man mows the lawn. In previous generations women were expected to stay home while men were the bread winners. This stigma could even be seen in the times of hunter gathers, the men would go out and find food for the homes, while the women would stay back and make clothing and other assorted items. This type of mentality was carried on through the generations and passed on through parents teaching their

There have been many theories and studies on the development of gender identity and roles. At age 3, it was said that children begin to learn their gender and start to understand genders of others. However, “young children still believe that gender can change and is not permanent. Children of this age are still not aware that males and females have different body shapes (Oswalt, 2008).” Children at age 7-8 began to understand that gender is permanent and start to behave in gender appropriating ways. Behaviors are then mimic by members of their own sex. Another theorist, Piaget, expressed that by examining the child’s daily activity and interaction is when development of gender identity begins. Our genes play an important factor in development,

I learned about gender lessons while growing up because in society, it is believed that males and females should do what they are expected to do. For example, women should stay home taking care of the children, making sure the house is clean while men go to work to provide for their family. While growing up, I found this to be true because my father would always leave to go to work early in the morning and my mother would stay home taking care of my brother and I. By the time he had come home, the food would be set on the table ready for him to eat. I remember when my cousins would all come home to visit, and I was not allowed to play with them. We were taught that boys play cars with boys and girls play Barbie

Children learn from a incredibly young age that mothers and fathers are different, that girls and boys play different, and both grow up to be mothers and fathers. This article explains how the human psyche is branded; “The input is from family, friends, media, religion, and even politics” (Diamond, 2000, p. 46). Sex is referred to as human’s biological make up, either males with a penis, females with a vagina, and in some rare cases a mixture of both. Use of the term ‘gender’ was first introduced to most people at school