Sex, Gender, And Gender

The determination of gender identity is much deeper than whether a person is born a male or a female. The exact identifier that separates gender identity is currently unknown but researchers believe that genetics, hormones, reproductive organs, biological, and environmental factors all play a role in distinguishing a person’s gender identity. A person’s physical gender and their sense of gender are formed at two different times in two different parts of the body. A person’s gender is whether they are born male or female, but the way they identify themselves may be the opposite, which is not uncommon and has occurred since the beginning of time. In culture males are known to be the stronger, more aggressive sex, while females are the

Although men and women have significant biological differences, the question whether gender-specific labels stems from these biological differences or are gender constructed remains a polarised nature versus nurture debate. Whether it is through the process of socialisation or genetic make-up, “gender identity” is given from a person’s birth, determining how a person culturally interacts and the expectations society places on them. Along with a “gender identity” comes a whole set of “norms”, “values” and so-called “gender characteristics”, which are supposed to define the differences between a male and a female. According to the World Health Organisation (n.d.), the term “sex” is often used to define the biological and physiological

Throughout my life I had never stopped to think about sex and gender. Until seventh grade, when my social science teacher asked me, “What is your favorite color?” As I gave my answer, “Blue!” the room filled with a moment of silence that you could even hear a pin drop. As I looked around, the faces and eyes of every student in my classroom were pointing at me with an angry and guilty look. I always thought that there were only two categories that a human being can belong to, male or female. But, I never thought that there were certain things that a girl is allowed to like in society. When we are little we are taught certain things like, “Pink is for girls, and blue is for boys.” Have you noticed that when a woman is pregnant the first question asked is, boy or a girl? One of the many reasons why this question is asked it’s for the family members or friends to know whether to buy pink or blue

A person’s sex is determined on the basis of three fundamental human physiognomies, chromosomes (XX for a female and XY for a male), gonads (ovaries for females and testes for males) and the obvious being genitals (vagina for a females and a penis for males). However socially, gender identity is formulated on the grounds of stereotypical roles from both

Determining an individual’s gender based on their anatomy was the common practice in western society since the early 1950’s when television commercials begin thus ushering in consumerism and gender normality’s. Easy bake ovens were advertised as toys specifically for girls, while trucks and cars were designed to appeal to boys. This was the beginning of nonscientific gender norms.

Gender and gender roles are a somewhat complicated idea to understand. Contrary to popular belief, gender and sex are two different things in that “gender is not inherently nor solely connected to one’s physical anatomy” (“Understanding Gender”). When parents automatically assign their child a gender based on their sex organs, it leaves very little room for change later in the child’s life, because children born with female sex organs are not necessarily girls, just as children born with male sex organs are not necessarily boys. Rather, gender is based on mindset, personal identity, outward presentations, and behavior of the individual. Binary genders, or the broadly

Women of colour were the first to advance frameworks for recognizing the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, and class (11). Frankenberg and hooks share a racist discourse of hyper visibility towards African Americans; however, Frankenberg notes the invisibility towards Asian Americans and Native American minorities (12). Here, race is constructed as a biological category while whiteness embodies superiority. Hooks argues that stereotypes; however inaccurate, are one form of representation for a desired category and project a myth of sameness (341). Stereotypes perpetuate a single story thus excluding any opportunity for unique difference. Categorizations are a fantasy of whiteness that validates the dominant status quo. White supremacists demonstrate an inability to comprehend reason by projecting their inadequacies onto the Other. hooks does not claim white people are evil nor does she intend to evaluate them, rather she is acknowledging the terror she feels in response. Whites feared interracial relationships would erode the colour line and thus segregation was an effective strategy that limited people of colours opportunities to compete in the marketplace or hold political power. Lastly, both scholars criticize the educational systems lack of popular discourse towards multiculturalism in the curricula or media (15).

Throughout the second season of ABC’s American Crime, there were an extreme amount of ways in which race, sexuality, gender, and ethnicity were depicted, troubled, and interrogated. While watching the second season of American Crime in class, it almost seemed as if the entire series was made just to explore each and every component of this course, Ethnics 1010. The series successfully explored through numerous situations with all of these important components that we have discussed throughout the semester. However, there happens to be three specific components that I would like to elaborate on throughout this essay.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” is a question that is commonly used in a world where roughly 350,000 babies are born each day. Questions such as the one previously stated are what helps to determine what gender a child would be. “Learning to Be Gendered” by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet focuses mainly on the factors that potentially influences gender. These factors can include names, colors, voice change and the societal norm of what a boy and girl should be. Eckert’s main argument is that being gendered isn’t something one can to gain based off of physical characteristics but rather on their own and through their interaction with society. Names and clothing are just a small part of the symbolic resources used to support a consistent ongoing

After the birth of newly born babies, a specific gender is engraved on them based on their sexual dimorphism – male babies are assigned as boys and female babies are assigned as girls, and another category generally involves intersex babies. According to the scholars gender does not have natural existence but instead it is just a concept that is constructed by cultural and

Is it a boy or a girl? When we first hear about the announcement of a new life coming, our brains right away insist on “knowing the gender”. In the essay Learning to Be Gendered, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell, discuss that gender is a form of separating people by characteristics. Not necessarily because there is a biological reasoning behind classifying someone by gender.Eckert and McConnell are definitely right, from birth we teach our children to associate with their gender and their gender only. They provided many examples of why they believe that as a society we are teaching children from birth, to be associated with their gender and their gender only. Gendering children has been produced by

Let me give you a scenario; It’s 3:00am. Rushing down the halls of a hospital you are on your way to support a person who is doing one of the most beautiful and complex things in life. Giving birth. You are the doctor in the room. Cutting the umbilical cord you hand the mother her child. She smiles up at you with tear rimmed eyes and you wrap the child up in a blanket and hold out to her a beautiful baby _____. Boy or girl? It doesn’t really matter which you say so long as you say one or the other, right? Within a few moments after birth and a quick scan between the legs of the child will enable you to develop a gender label for the child that they will carry for the rest of their life relevant to their sex.

The construction of a self-identity can be a very complex process that every individual is identity is developed through the lenses of cultural influences and how it is expected to given at birth. Through this given identity we are expected to think, speak, and behave in a certain way that fits the mold of societal norms. This paper aims to explain how gender perform gender roles according these cultural values. I intend to analyze the process in which individuals learned and internalized their respective gender identities, through their cultural background. I will be conducting a set of interviews with the intention to compare my experience as a self-identified male of Mexican descent, to the experience of another male character of Japanese heritage in order to understand how we come to self-identify as masculine in diverged cultures. In this paper, I argue that the construction of gender identities is a direct consequence of societal influential factors such as family values; values that reflect the individual’s culture. This analysis will not only utilize evidence from these identity formations, but also in explaining why and how these self-identities were constructed using both theoretical sources and empirical studies as a framework.

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

This class is all really interesting for me, except the two features I talked above, all the other topics are just too attractive and applaud me. The gender problems totally right, and I believe this happens in every country. When I translated “Sex” and “Gender” in the dictionary, it gives us the same meaning: male and female. Thus I ‘m really surprised when I found they have different meanings in class! As referred to by Allen, "Sex is a biological classification while gender refers to cultural norms of femininity and masculinity". (Allen, 2011, p. 42) There are lots of boys whose femininity and lots of girls who wear like boys and they want to be boys. I know it cause my high school is a girls ' school, and many of my friends don’t love dressing and don’t love boys. They even hate their chest, and thinking of getting rid of it all day. However, we don’t have a physiology course talking about this. Talking about them, the next chapter sexuality is really connected. We don’t allow gay marriage in China, and although it does not touch the law, but it will cause a lot of problems in everyday life, it even leads you to death sadly. Five years ago, homosexual people in China were really active, they wants to get their right to happiness in China too, just like here in America and those countries support gay marriage. "They start all kinds of activities, they want something like homophile movement" (Allen, 2011, p123), which happened in the 1950s, middle-