Penelope Eckert's 'Learning To Be Gendered'

Imagine a world in which men could act feminine and women could act masculine without being judged. Now try and identify why this may never happen. Men and women are both taught at an early age what they can and cannot do because of what gender they were born as; they are markedly similar in this aspect. There is a known gender stereotype for girls and boys, and the parents of these children enable these stereotypes from the day that they are born. girls are given pink clothes, and boys are given blue clothes. These colors set the rules of how they must behave for the rest of their lives, this idea is known as The Girl and Guy code. It is all black and white thinking, or in the case pink and blue. There is no in-between because once you stray from the code it is immediately recognized and looked down upon. Although the girl and guy code are almost polar opposites, they go hand in hand with one another because they are both used among society as a way to create a better image in front of others. The Woman looks better in the eyes of other women if she is more lady-like, and a man looks better in front of men if he is more manly; both genders deal with a heavy set of homosocial ideals.

Deborah Tannen is an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Her research mainly focuses on expressing interpersonal relationships in conversational interactions, including how gender and cultural differences affect these interactions. In her essay Tannen uses gender to portray the differences between male and female conversational styles in classroom discussions. She formulates the theory that males naturally prefer and dominate contributions to these debate-like discussions while females incline to participate in less hostile conversations. Tannen presents her argument effectively using simple vocabulary and appropriate literary devices however, as the essay progresses she detracts from

In her book “Gender Outlaw: On Men, Woman, and the Rest of us,” Kate Bornstein goes over a lot of the major issues regarding gender awareness and identity politics. She talks about the ideas of labeling ones self, understanding gender differences, how people view laws, behaviors, and the medical and scientific privilege that make transitioning challenging for a lot of people. Bornstein touches on many of the issues today that affect trans people. She includes poetry, pictures, quotes, essays, and a play to raise questions and discuss the idea of gender. This is a great book to introduce and discuss the issues that affect the lives of trans people as they navigate and explore the lines that define gender.

In American culture in the 1950s, men were the predominant head of the household and women were expected to cook, care for their kids, and clean. This is an excellent example of gender roles, and how they control certain aspects of life. Gender roles are, according to multiple sources, the way people behave, what they do or say to express being a female or male. (“Gender Identity”; Blackstone; "Understanding Gender") They are forced upon an individual from the day they are born even in the most trivial of terms of putting baby boys in blue clothes and baby girls in pink. Throughout that person’s life from then on, they will face cultural expectations every day to act according to their sex. Gender roles can often be confusing and hurtful,many stores are moving away from assigning products to a specific gender, but not only can gender roles affect a person’s behavior, it can play a huge role in transgenderism.

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

They explain how from birth society labels infants as male or female and thus initiates them into a continuing learning process of what it means to be a boy or a girl. Naming and colour coding are used as examples of how infants are immediately plunged into a life of gender processing by adults, which they then later adopt themselves. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s work aims to demonstrate, through reliable sources and studies, that gender is not something we are born with, but something we learn to

When it comes to gender, it is as easy to determine as quantum physics; all the pieces are there but it is impossible to put together. Without hard evidence, all people can do is to make assumptions. The two biggest arguments on how gender is determined right now is based upon social and biological construct. Arguing for the sociological aspect is Aaron Devor, writer of the article, “Gender roles behaviors and attitudes”. Dover believes that, “People use femininity and masculinity to claim and communicate their membership in their assigned, or chosen, sex or gender” (Devor 505). Devor considers that society has certain roles that are predetermined towards males, females and anyone in between. A man has to act a certain way to be masculine and a female a certain way to be considered feminine. On the not so opposite side of the spectrum is Deborah Blum, author of the work, “The gender blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?”. Blum doesn’t necessarily disagree with Devor, but asks the question, “Do the gender roles of our culture reflect an underlying biology, and, in turn, does the way we behave influence that biology” (Blum 512). Blum is arguing that maybe it was our genetic makeup that built the foundation on how a gender should act. Both authors present valid points for their arguments, but in the end, it is Blum who comes over on top with her usage of tone, evidence, and the use of a counterargument.

Throughout all of history, males and females have always had certain expectations in which they need to uphold. Both males and females are expected to act, dress, and do certain things that the opposite sex normally would not do. If somebody were to act as someone else of the opposite sex, society would then look down upon that person and humiliate them for what they have done. If a man or a woman desires to act or dress as the opposite sex, they should be able to without being humiliated or shamed. Society has too many expectations and regulations that people have to follow in order to fit in or be considered “normal”. No one should be shamed for how they want to feel or act. What we look like on the outside does not always match who we actually are in the inside; which is what actually truly matters.

There are several sources that tell a person how to be a man or woman. Science tells us by recognizing the X or Y chromosomes. The media shows us through the physically ideal celebrities that grace the covers of magazines and flaunt their bodies in commercials. Sports, wrestling, cars, and blue for the boys. Dresses, make-up, painted nails, and pink for the girls. All of these sources, as well as others, have evolved into an expectation that has become institutionalized within society. This expectation, is placement and belonging into the binary system of person: the man or the woman. In Anne Fausot-Sterling's acrticles “The Five Sexes” and the “The Five Sexes, Revisited”, the

Since the beginning of time, gender has played a big role in how one acts and how one is looked upon in society. From a young age children are taught to be either feminine or masculine. Why is it that gender plays a big role in the characteristics that one beholds? For centuries in many countries it has been installed in individual’s heads that they have to live by certain stereotypes. Women have been taught to be feeble to men and depend on them for social and economical happiness. While men have been taught to be mucho characters that have take care of their homes and be the superior individual to a woman. For the individuals who dare to be different and choose to form their own identity whether man or woman, they are out casted and

Since the moment of birth we are placed on the dual track. A newborn is wrapped in a pink blanket emphasizing that the newborn is a female and a newborn wrapped in a blue blanket shows that the baby is a male. After this moment the newborn male or female are gender scripted. A female is typically on the pink side of the dual track expected to be sensitive, feminine, dependent and to stay home to clean the house and take care of her children. On the other hand, a male is on the blue side of the dual track and suppose to be strong, masculine, independent, head of the household, successful and aggressive. We are gender intensified three times in our lives, the first time is when we are born we are place on either the pink or blue side of the dual track emphasizing which track we belong to based on our gender. The second time is when we are beginning adolescence, during this time one is going through puberty and is in search for his or her identity leading to once again basing on one’s genitalia, clarifying whether you are a female or a male. The third time is when a couple is going through a pregnancy, gender scripts are clear indicating that the female will be giving birth to the child therefore is expected to stay home, while the male is expected to provide and protect in all ways for his family. These expectations lead to why men and women are considered as the “opposite” sex, meaning that these two genders have no overlap what so ever. It is

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.

The idea of “boy clothes” and “girl clothes” is something heavily engrained in our culture. We often attribute certain clothing items or styles to be specifically for a girl or for a boy. Feminine dresses and skirts for girls and pants and suits for boys. Why is it that clothes hold so much meaning to them? Because of this much gendered approach to dressing, there has always been a strict limit to what gender can wear what. Gender roles and specific ways that each sex should act are culturally assigned to men and women and are reinforced by the use of clothing as they highly emphasize the qualities of biological sex. Fashion is something that promotes gender stereotypes of femininity and masculinity and this is represented in clothing, hairstyles, shoes, accessories and more.

Today’s society is composed of two genders, male and female, each gender truly not much different from the other, as they only differ based on the twenty-third chromosome pair they were born with. In The Second Sex, de Beauvior quotes, “The division of the sexes is a biological

Everyone wears articles of clothing from the day they are born until the day they die. During infancy and early childhood, these garments are mostly indistinguishable between genders. However, in the United States, once a child reaches the end of elementary school, clothing becomes separated by gender. This trend continues throughout everyone’s lives, conditioning them to the likes and dislikes of society. While anyone can choose what type of clothes to wear, clothing made for females and males are extremely different on the accounts of their marketing, cut and sizing.