The Ugly Truth: Gender Analysis

After analyzing the hit TV show “Leave it To Beaver,” I noticed how different the gender roles, both male and female, are portrayed much differently than our modern-day gender roles. For example, in the YouTube clip: “Beavers Big Contest,” it seemed that the mother was staying home, cleaning the house, folding the laundry, etc. while the father was working all day. As mentioned in chapter 3, the husband was most definitely responsible for the families’ economic survival. We still have these kinds of situations today, but there are also many more families where the roles are reversed and the family is depending on the woman for their economic survival. Aside from that, the family relationships that were observed also seemed slightly different than the relationship I have with my family. For example, everybody in the family was present. Moreover, there wasn’t any separation or divorce. Today, divorce in families is much more common and often expected. Also, Beaver would always refer to his father as sir. I know that my family does not use the terms ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ while addressing each other. I also haven’t seen

In the Victorian era, men continued to act as the superior gender to their female counterparts. Because men were usually more educated and wrote more works of literature, women were often absent from the bookshelves of the past. In The Stranger Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, the evident lack of women in the storyline elucidates the social roles they had at that time— to be maids, prostitutes, or innocent witnesses. Simultaneously, the lack of attention paid to women paradoxically bring more awareness to the topic. There are a few female characters in the novel, but they only play as observers, serving minor roles to the central plot of the story. Written at a time when gender roles were unstable and shifting,

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.

We live in a society where for decades we have been socialized to believe that there are only two genders: male and female. The idea of gender is socially constructed. Society and culture create gender roles and through those roles we all learn to enact our specific roles. With this in mind, this essay will seek to examine how gender shapes the structural and lived experiences of Chicanxs and Latinxs in the U.S. This essay will draw from Abrego, Acosta, Ocampo, and the documentary “No mas bebés” to see how gender affects an individual’s experiences in the U.S.

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

Margaret Wente’s July 2015 Globe and Mail article, “What Women Can Learn From Men” addresses a common phenomenon, the comparison: between men and women. With her article, she hopes to advise women on how they can improve themselves and their lives with simple changes. Furthermore, she wisely chooses to avoid a sexist approach by commending men on their behavioral traits despite her gender. Infact, using logical implications, she portrayed herself as an example rather than offend her audience. Additionally, through evidence, figures, facts and a link, she skillfully supports her theories thus making her article significantly factual and effective. Although Margaret starts by stereotypically generalising men, she depicts some of their great qualities that women can truly learn from. Using different approaches, she portrays women and their thoughts then skillfully explains how they can better themselves by “thinking” like men. Despite how she initially condemned men, she concludes by logically beseeching that man-shaming “has gone far enough” and should stop.

Sociologists reject the idea that behavioural differences between men and women are biologically determined. Outline the key grounds for this rejection and discuss what this means for a sociological understanding of gender.

The women roles in both of the story reflects no authority and trapped with how the women should behave in their respective eras. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Gilman uses the traditions of the horror story to evaluate the position of women that trapped inside the marriage with no authority. She is so mentally bound to her marriage that she states unassumingly, "You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?" (Gilman).

Gender Matters is a collection of various essays on feminist linguistic texts analysis, by Sara Mills. Mills develops methods of analyzing literary and non-literary texts, in addition to conversational analysis based on a feminist approach. The author draws on data from her collection of essays gathered over the last two decades on feminism during the 1990s. The essays focus on gender issues, the representation of gender in reading, writing, and in public speaking. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of feminists’ analysis of sexism in literature and the relation between gender and politeness. The article is informative for my research paper, as my

Writer Ngozi Adichie says a feminist is a “person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes,” meaning both sexes are treated equally. “Cinderella” does not portray women as equal to men, rather it suggests that a woman’s value highly depends on a man and teaches girls to become patient victims. For instance, it places attention on a woman’s chastity, beauty, passiveness, as the story accepts abuse, discourages powerful women, and insists on a double standard.

In society these days there is a noticeable difference in the treatment of men and women, the most common examples would be found in the social, business and culturally convention realms. These ways of life have double standards in many different ways. There are many ways to convey the ways of discrimination towards women by men.

This news article titled “Beast of Sexism” was published on September 6, 2015. The author of this article is Bina Shah from Pakistan.

Rather than comparing things men should do or could do better Johnson comments about human and adult qualities not man or woman. “These are all wonderful human qualities, but why should we associate them primarily with manhood, and not adulthood?”(548). this in regards to the kinds of things a “real man knows”. As with leadership, why does gender matter if a person is a good leader or manager that is what counts. This concern of gender also is brought up in a speech by Psychologist Philip Zimbardo titled

Gender is a topic that not many people are educated on. When people think of gender, they think of boy and girl, people usually think of a girl having a vagina, and a boy having a penis. Many people have their thoughts on how each sex should behave which would be giving people gender roles, girls should play with Barbie dolls, and boys should play with trucks. There is more to gender than just the vagina and penis, In “Understanding The Complexities of Gender”, Sam Killermann talks about the distinct pieces that also comes with gender, like gender identity, gender expression, and biological sex. When people think of gender, the only part people think of is the biological sex.

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