It is a central organizing principle of societies, and often governs the processes of production and reproduction, consumption and distribution,” (FAO, 1997). Gender and sex are put into categories and they are not the same thing. Sex in biological and physiological terms refers to male and female and defines them in such ways as breasts, testicles, women’s menstruation cycle, and hormones. Gender also refers to socially constructed roles, activities and behaviors. How do gender and sex contribute to the concepts and constructions of masculinity and femininity?
Society and culture really create the roles of what is usually exepted as appropriate for a person of a specific gender. I would also say that society does somewhat contribute to the excepted role of a specific sex in society. Culture will always play a huge part in the separation of what is expected of a man, women or other sex in society. Do our concepts of gender and sex contribute to the ways we embrace gender and sex in diversity? Of course the concepts we have created to define how gender and sex differentiate contribute to the way society looks at gender diversity.
This includes our organs and genitalia. When we all were young the sex also defined the masculinity and femininity of the person. But in today's society no matter the actual sex or gender of the person. the dominating role is perceived as the masculine role and the weaker or more submissive person is perceived as the feminine role. Do our concepts of gender and sex contribute to the ways we embrace gender and sex in diversity?
Other people, however, may think that this is solely due to sexual discrimination and they argue for women’s rights and against discrimination in general. There are several different things that need to be known in order to even consider preparing a proposal for a known problem. Understanding a problem, its causes, and problems with past solutions are needed to be understood in order to come up with a possible solution for that problem. Even though many women have made gains in occupations, the man-women wage ratio was raised by 10% in the 80s. It rose 4 more in the 90s, and in the next decade it grew even more quickly (Schneider).
Discrimination: Still Present Today In today’s society discrimination is a particularly controversial issue. From the end of the 19th century, women’s growth of education, and demands for greater equality of opportunity has increased. [1] The Gender Discrimination Act in 1975 prohibits discrimination against a certain gender in areas of employment. [2] Another highly debatable topic is amount of ethnic minority in the media and its visible under representation as well as stereotypes in news. Minorities use to be slaves, and had very little status in society, but that status was built up to the point where there now suppose to be equals.
What do you understand by gender and to what extent is a person’s behaviour regulated by their gender? This paper will aim to define gender and to look at how people in society are delegated by the gender they presume to be. Gender is understood and defined by most feminist as a set of socially constructed category that is culturally defined as masculine and feminine. This in society is easily mistaken with sex, which refers to the physical, internal and external sexual organs of a person. A person being born a female does not necessarily mean they are destined to be of feminine gender, even though this is what is seen as the norm in most societies today.
In every society there seems to be a definite set of standards for individuals based on their gender. The foundation of what people see as appropriate and what they see as inapt for a specific gender is an idea that is implanted in our minds as we grow up. The beliefs, lifestyle, and guidance of our parents and other adults who have great influence in our lives are what prevents us from challenging these gender-roles, thus letting them be passed on to the future generations. Humans all originate from one central point, so why is it that in different parts of the world there are different ideas of what is the “proper” role of women? Need for food and shelter caused early humans to seek a nomadic existence.
The Cocktail Waitress is a research project undertaken to better understand the division of roles, which gender and gender stereotypes heavily influence. As Spradley and Mann (1975) point out, the customs and mores of every culture result in feminine and masculine roles being created; furthermore, even when changes occur in these gender roles, the labels of masculinity and femininity won’t disappear, but simply change, creating new guidelines and expectations for an individual. If this theory of gendered roles is valid, than all aspects of Western culture are not only affected but perhaps even dictated by these roles. As an example outside of sociology, we frequently see polarization in voting trends and media coverage of political campaigns where females are running (Heldman, 2005) (Atkeson, 2008); as well, often in these campaigns, the female candidates will be the one’s specifying their personal traits and even self-handicapping themselves at times (Hendrix and Hirt, 2009). If the presence of the handicap rule is found to be prominent in Brady’s Bar, than the possibility of correlation between how we treat gender at the most basic level (a part time waitress job at Brady’s) and the effects of females with a higher status, may become evident.
Intro: Women leadership. Just the thought is something that many people still find hard to support, and others are actively fighting for everyday. Our society is one made up of millions of different types of people, and yet it seems it always comes down to just two factors : Male or Female. In a world where gender is everything, and gender roles are stressed from the day we enter the world, it is often to hard to break out of the stereotypes placed on ourselves and prove that all of us are, gender aside, simply human. Has society and culture hindered women’s abilities to lead, and are women still constantly judged against?
At some point, we as women are bound to hit a breaking point. An article by Columbia University describes what happens when women try to balance all of this at once. The article explains that Johnathan Platt, a Ph.D. student in Epidemiology at Columbia University, created a survey and found that when women make less than their male counterparts not only are they two and a half times more likely to experience depression but also as much as four times more likely to deal with anxiety (“Wage”). As if disturbing our mental health is not enough, I believe the gender wage gap also affects our self-confidence as women. For women, we do not need another excuse to feel that we are inadequate, especially because we are told daily; however, the gender wage gap does just that.