The Natural And Ethical Implications Of Sex And Gender

The article I am researching and analyzing is “Conflicting Paradigms on Gender and Sexuality in Rap Music: A Systematic Review” written by Denise Herd. This article was published in the academic journal “Sexuality and Culture”, on July 1st, 2000. This article is centered around rap music with its social and cultural significance for youth audiences, all around the world and how it plays a major role in shaping young adults beliefs, intentions, and attitudes that relate to sexuality. But, there are very few studies that are worried on behalf of health issues. They have researched the actual content in lyrics in relation to gender and sex. This paper compares literature in relation to gender and sexuality involved with rap music from many different perspectives, a huge base is the feminism theory, along with culture studies and relations. This review shows that conflicting paradigms, come together in this literature and that very few studies are both strong and rich, these paradigms including misogyny or sexual agency . Research in the future should approach this hardship as well as expand on changes over time in how gender relationships and sexual relationships have been chooses in this specific music category.

There has been an ongoing debate on nature versus nurture that has been around for years. What determines our identity? Our biological nature or the things we grew up around? The answers to these questions still remain uncertain, but are still widely discussed. Deborah Blum shares her opinions on these issues in “Gender Blur”. In her writing, she challenges where we separate biology from society. While our biological nature determines our gender, our surroundings and the things we are exposed to make up our true identity.

As we look throughout the course of global history, it becomes very clear that the Western European views of gender, sex, and sexuality are incredibly different and much more harmful than that of other cultures. While Native American tribes were wholeheartedly accepting Two-Spirits and African Yorùbá communities thrived off of the contributions of both sexes equally, European societies were already repressing and oppressing the masses. Any deviations from the traditional gender binary were seen as “genetically inferior, and… used to account for their disadvantaged social positions” (Oyěwùmí, 3). By teaching the public that deviation from this “norm”, “other-ness” is toxically internalized and spread by the very people it was first taught to.

From the moment that the parent learns the biological sex of the baby, even as early as the ultrasound, they begin the first step of making many steps towards the long journey of the child’s socialization.  Even as they consider what the child should be named, they decide whether it is a boy or a girl name and then they proceed with decisions such as what color the room should be painted in association with the biological sex of the child. Will the child be dressed in frilly pink dresses or in blue jeans with plaid shirts? Will the child gain more time with the father fishing or with the mother shopping? From the time the sex is determined, the journey is only just beginning on how the child will be associated with it’s biological sex. As time goes on, a person’s biological sex is typically further upheld by traditions, rituals and compliances to meet the social norms of sex, gender, and gender roles.

The complex biology of the female body is the foundation of life’s most basic instinct: to survive and reproduce. The ability to bear and bring new life to earth, hormonal fluctuations, and menstruation cycles that follow the moon like the tides of the ocean all add to the mystique of ‘the woman’. Although the biology of a woman is very important (and fundamentally different from the biology of a man), it would be inappropriate to believe that biological sex is solely what makes a woman. This would be reducing humans to the animal level, and would be inaccurate because humans above all are social beings. In society today, gender roles and stereotypes put pressure on a woman to conform to cultural expectations. Is there a disconnect between who a woman feels she is on the inside and whom the outside world expects a woman to be because of her body? It seems to be that a combination of the biology and the way a woman identifies with herself would be the most appropriate way to describe what makes a woman a “woman”.

Discuss what you think the sources tell us about beauty’s place in the history of gender and sexuality. Consider as well the historical evidence you have about efforts to enhance beauty through adornment or other alterations of appearance.

In today’s society exists the ethical dilemma referred to as unisex which can be actively described as the direct efforts to blur the line separating male from female. According to most, this is done to further the idea of equality between men and women. But to others it is a moral concern that ultimately could be detrimental to the members of the affected society. Avoiding a consequence such as this would thusly mean promoting the ideas encapsulated within the moral frame of Utilitarianism. This essay will showcase the problem with unisex and its relationship to the utilitarian. It, however, is necessary, first, to elaborate on the topic of unisex to better define and emphasize its problematic features. Unisex is defined as: (Adjective) of, designed, or suitable for both sexes; not distinguishing between male and female; undifferentiated as to sex. Or (Noun) The state or quality of being unisex, also referred to as ‘Gender-Blindness’. This term ‘unisex’ is used in opposition to the act of Gender-Specification, which is the separating of labels or items- boy or girl, for Women or for Men. Though the term ‘unisex’ was popularized in the early 1960’s, the demand for things to be categorized as such, grew exponentially in the early 2000’s and peeks in 2016. This is due to the growing influx of people verbalizing and arguing their disapproval over gender specification, parents especially.

The epidemic of gender inequality is sweeping the nation. Everyone is trying to become what society wants them to be, instead of living for themselves. Many seem to confuse a person’s sex, with their gender. Sex is defined by the biological appearance’s that distinguishes us as male and female. A persons’ gender is how they are viewed by society and how men and women differ. from the first ultrasound to the first breath you take society has already planned out the gender roles that you should follow, like a to do list. If you are male you are automatically destined to play sports and if you are female, you are destined to be a housewife, and raise children. In Random

A large number of people believed that there does not exist, and never has existed, a society in which women do not have an inferior status to that of men. Common-sense views on differences between men and women tend to assume that there are distinct, consistent and highly significant biological differences between the sexes (Haralambos and Holborn 96). However, these common-sense views were criticized, and the criticisms suggest that the difference between men and women were as much social as biological. Sex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential, whereas gender is the social elaboration of biological sex (Eckert and Mc Connell-Ginet 1). Gender is a term that has psychological and cultural connotation; if the proper terms for sex are ‘male’ and ‘female,’ the corresponding terms for gender are ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine;’ these later might be quite independent of (biological) sex (Stoller 9). This depicts a clear-cut difference between gender which is a social construct and sex which is a biological construct. These differences are mostly based on a number of factors among which are: hormones and the brain, brain lateralization and relative physical stature.

In her essay, One is Not Born a Woman, Monique Wittig explains, “‘Women’ is not each one of us, but the political and ideological formation which negates ‘women’ (the product of a relation of exploitation). ‘Women’ is there to confuse us, to hide the reality ‘women’ . . . For what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we call servitude.” Monique Wittig attacks the concept of naturalizing biology and the ‘woman’ category. She believes that the form of a woman’s identity is a product of normal and intrinsic human facts. Thus, her main point is that one is not born a woman but becomes a woman based upon the social constructs of gender and

The audience was in an uproar as they had guessed the wrong gender of a woman, Danielle, on a recently aired episode of Maury: MAN or WOMAN. Danielle held many features that the audience characterized as a woman: the long, curly red hair, the “coke bottle” body, the model walk, the perfectly formed busty boobs and the flawless skin; however, Danielle, biologically, was a male. This uproar was prompted by the defilement of societal expectations that an individual’s biological sex should determine a fixed gendered behavior. In essence, Danielle was to be a Dan with expected man behavior and male genitalia. This, however, is a common misconception

Most people believe gender and sex are kindred, but they’re not. There is a difference between gender and sex. According to OpenStax, “Sex is how society classifies a person’s genetic and biological anatomy. Gender is how an individual views their identity, regardless of sex. Sex is biological in nature and determines one 's biological destiny. Gender, on the other hand, helps define one 's role within society”. Sex is based on genetics, whereas gender is based on the environmental surrounding. Lorber wrote: “Individuals are born sexed but not gendered, they have to be taught to be masculine or feminine” (1994). What if children aren’t taught to be masculine or feminine? Of course, these social cues are what mainly divides men from women, and nature from nurture, but does it also divide sex from gender?

These descriptions are incorporated into the laws that govern the populace and provide either privileges or limitations. This should reiterate the idea that gender is a social construct with the ability to be changed both in terms of attitudes towards it and policies that control it. An example from American society would be in the way that homosexuality is treated. The mere fact that homosexual marriage is allowed in only a few states highlights the privilege heterosexuals have and the restrictions placed on those who don’t behave in the same way as the majority. Marriage is a social factor that has become an important part of creating and legitimizing the next generation; however, it is this idea of the next generation that problems many of the social problems arise. As Heléna Ragoné’s essay “Surrogate Motherhood: Rethinking Biological Models, Kinship, and Family” points out, there is the tendency to think of gender as motherhood as the biological birth of a child. Homosexual couples complicate this model and to fix the disparity by implementing laws that makes their marriage illegal. Western society also attempts to force people into deciding on a gender. This drives the gender dichotomy we have in place and eliminates the prospects of incorporating those who don’t neatly correspond with either category. With this model in mind, Western scholars have viewed other cultures gender and sexual activities (and even some of the

One’s sex is what determines our place in the patriarchal society that is the United States. Politically and Legally, most laws and regulations have been designed to acquire about our sex and not our gender. In the more recent decades, gender has become more prevalent than ever before, and the issue of where gender lies in these exclusive laws has become a widespread issue in our society today. The textbook definition of one’s sex is “the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.” (Mills) Whereas one’s gender is referred to “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.”(Mills) Historically women have always been portrayed as

Sex and gender are not equal - contrary to common assumption. Sex, as defined by Rosman, is the “physical differences between male and female [based on] biological and anatomical composition of genitals and secondary sexual characteristics” (141). On the other hand, gender is defined as “the culture-specific set of behavioral, ideological, and social meanings constructed around the understandings of these biological and anatomical differences” (142). So what does this mean? Indeed, the assumption of sex equating to gender is not necessarily true because gender is culturally constructed. Different societies often have different perceptions of what gender is: for instance North American heteronormative culture in comparison with the gender relationships of people in Wogeo (minimal differences between men and women) or of the people in Samoa - specifically focusing on the fa 'afafine.