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?
In order to build background knowledge to audiences, Michael Cramphorn first introduce how the gender different in psychological aspect. Michael highly supported Simon Baron-Cohen’s idea, which is about “Gender Different in brain” (Cramphron 148). He is a psychopathologist of University of Cambridge, and he indicated that different structure of brain between male and female result in primarily different personality and reaction of life. Even though Michael is not professional in this field, his objective and informative tone is persuasive for our readers to understand and believe the gender difference has existed when we at birth. For example, Michael indicated that “Gender difference caused by chromosome.
Concrete Responses The essays included present a compelling but biased study within the context of class, race and gender. History shows racism has been clearly practiced in the past; however much has been done to correct the unbridgeable and immutable differences in race, gender and class status in the United States. Rothenberg emphasizes, in the collection of essays, past views of Euro-Americans’ superiority in intelligence and abilities over darker skinned races. Throughout the history of the United States, discrimination against race and gender has been documented thus creating various classes according to race and gender. Racism has been defined as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2010).
Theory Summary Essay In this theory Gayle coveys how sex is used to display dominance and power. She breaks down today’s view on sexuality and the stereotypical and hypocritical categories placed on gender. She focuses on homosexuals, pedophiles, children, women, transvestites and more. She argues that sex shapes society’s social norms, in other words society no longer uses sex as only for reproduction. She references western culture in this argument to suggest our humanity is built solely upon the idea of sex as a natural force that is the basis of social structure.
These ideas were then challenged in the 1990’s with third wave feminism and postfeminism, both of which are concerned with the mass media’s influence on our understanding of gender. The sex of a human is biologically determined, but our ideas of typical femininity and masculinity are socially and culturally informed and perceived through the mass media. Second wave feminist perspectives are all concerned with the problems of patriarchy and hold many different anti-patriarchal views. Radical feminism, a second wave perspective, focused its criticisms on the issue of pornography. Andrea Dworkin, a radical feminist, claimed that pornography had a direct
HOMOSEXUALITY: NATURE OR NURTURE According to Eberstadt, the most influential factor in our adult behavior is our rearing. Whether we are happy or troubled, whether we succeed or fail to succeed in life, our sexuality, all of this, Eberstadt states, is primarily controlled by whether we had attentive and loving parents. On the other hand, Hammer states that almost every aspect of our behavior is affected by and influenced by our biology in general and our genes in particular. He feels that if you wish to understand people, you would be well advised to look not to the psychiatric couch but to the biogenetic laboratories. As it relates to human sexuality, Herbert (1997) calls these clashing claims the nature vs. nurture models of human behavior.
Race has always been a very controversial subject and that have been related with biological and hereditary traits that sets people apart, creating inequality. Scientific racism and dominant groups have validated and tried to legitimatize those assumptions. In contrast, Michael Omi and Howard Winant theory” Racial Formation” observes race as a, “Social constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories are determine by social, economic and political forces” (1986, p. 61). This paper will critically analyze race from a historical background, then how socially constructed categories of race were used to control and subjugated African slaves in America and other invisible minorities, next, how even today race is problematic in contemporary situations and finally, how sociologist have risen up to reconstruct those mythical representation of race . Race is associated with biology, the dominant racial ideology uses skin color to determine an individual race.
Are gender and sex the same thing? Explain why or why not? According to Monash University, “Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine” and “Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal, and external sex organs” (A.Nobelius, 2004). I believe gender and sex are different. Main difference is, gender describes external view of a person such as their behavior or voice and sex describes in more biological features such as their physical appearance or their organism.
Therefore, this paper will analyze further the lyric of Beyonce’s song “If I Were a Boy” which responds to the gender issue in United States. This song is about the feeling of a girl when she wants to be a boy. The lyric is closely related to the gender issue because there are many phrases or sentence which represent the gender role of man. As Beate Krais (2006) stated that ‘the construct of the social role is, as is apparent in the use of the term “actor”, a specifically sociological variant of the paradigm of rules and norms as the mechanisms that transform individual action into social action” (Krais: 2006, p. 125). It indicates that the role of individual in social life is based on the social paradigm which constructs the action in society.
Lea Cherbaka February 17, 2010 Reaction Paper – The Social Construction of Gender “I am arguing that bodies differ in many ways physiologically, but they are completely transformed by social practices to fit into the salient categories of a society, the most pervasive of which are “female” and “male” and “women” and “men (Lorber 1990, 10).” The first thing that comes to people’s minds when they think of “the social construction of gender” is the characteristic that is normally associated with men and women. For example, men are strong and women are sensitive. In her article, Judith Lorber discusses the inequality between the genders and how society is the factor that has created such a divide between males and females. When reading this article I thought that Lorber provided a lot of examples for her argument, which allowed me to relate to many of them. For example, one of the main points she touched upon was the male dominance in sports.