Different culture and different periods of history construct gender differently. Due to the social construction of gender, gender always ranks women below men of the same race and class. The rich details of the historical and field studies have given the notion that violence is always related to masculinities. Men is always referred as the subject of the action “violence against female” when speaking of the phrase “violence toward women”. Men privilege has existed because of the multicultural cultural masculinities. As a consequence, the growth of violence against women has risen since the unequal relationships between the two genders have lasted for varying periods. Women should seek for various abilities of addressing and overcoming the violence in order to protect them.
Masculinities are the earlier understanding of the male sex role. Due to the development of human beings, males were the main strength of an army, but females should be a caring, supportive character; males have become a powerful role progressively. Some related statistics show that there are more than one kind of masculinity can be found within a given cultural setting and institution. However, there are different definitions based on what it means to be a man in different cultural contexts around the world. For instance, hegemonic masculinity, in the war time is generally associated with the stereotype of men acting as defender of freedom, powerful, honor, but women remain in supportive, symbolic, suppressed, and traditional roles. In another word, hegemonic masculinity has developed into the most power, and also means that masculinity is hegemonic. According to R.W. Connell’s article, “Masculinities and Globalization”, she extensively explains masculinities...
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...he children. Women are not given much thought when it comes to power positions, economic and political roles. It is still a male’s world today; women need to fight for equality in order to prove that female is not a weak role. By relating to the domestic violence against women in Crenshaw’s article, it has given the conception that women are generally viewed below men since women are dependent and powerless. Women’s dependences somehow lead to the violence against themselves by men.
The development of human beings has passed down a concept that masculinity is the most influential power. To cut off the traditional thoughts against the two genders, the best way is to address feminist protections toward women. Refer to Crenshaw and Lorber’s articles, they indicate that there are various kind of government associations are attempt to defend for women by creating laws.
She taught at universities both in Australia and the United States. Connell highly disagreed that the ideas about what established masculinity are ethically definite. In other words, masculinity is important to whom is referred to. For example, “if women are seen as weak, passive and emotional, then men are supposed to be strong, aggressive, and rational” (Seidman, 221). Additionally, masculinity is based on how people interact with each other in which correlates with their race, class, and sexuality. With this said, Connell said, “to recognize diversity in masculinity: relations of alliance, dominance and subordination… This is a gender politics within masculinity” (Seidman, 223). To point out Connell’s theorizing masculinity, she believes that diversity defines masculinity has its own relationships with authorities. In our text, Seidman gave a brief example of how the roles carry out to the social authority such as President, Senator, CEO, General, media executive, or surgeon. It is stated that while there are many senators, executives, or CEOs who are women, it is definite identify as masculinity because people think those high authorities is only for a male role. In our text, Connell has mentioned that “every society has a dominant or a “hegemonic” type of masculinity” (223). This means that she believes men has the power or control type of their masculinity in the
140). Hegemonic masculinity alludes to the stratification and interpretations of masculinity and, progressive systems of force, power, and acknowledgement among men, and amongst men and women (Connell, 1993). “International research has strongly confirmed the initial insight that gender orders construct multiple masculinities” (Connell, & Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 835). At any point in time, one type of masculinity can be socially elevated and more prominent in social settings (Connell, 1993). Hegemonic masculinity is the arrangement of gender stereotypes that encapsulates the current acknowledged response to the issue of the authenticity of patriarchy—which ensures the predominant position of men and the subordination of women (Connell, 1997). Furthermore, a considerable body of research shows that masculinities are not simply different but also subject to change” (Connell, & Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 835). “Hegemonic gender norms set expectations about what is “appropriate” for men and women” (Friedman, 2015, p. 147). For example, in our neoliberal capitalist culture men and women are bombarded with marketing that supports hegemonic masculinity and defines what being a man or woman should look like. “Hegemonic masculinity was understood as the pattern of practice (i.e., things done, not just a set of role expectations or an identity) that
Hegemonic (Heg·e·mon·ic/ heɡəˈmänik/ adjective) masculinity is a concept first popularized by sociologist R.W Connell, hegemonic masculinity refers to the dominate role of men, and subservient/subordinate role of women in society (Connell). Hegemonic masculinity reinforces the age old idea that men are meant to be tough, strong, and reckless; whereas women are weak, obedient, and subservient to men. The concept of hegemonic masculinity and its ideals, is enforced by societies that rely on such genders. Such strong reinforcement of toxic masculinity can leave long lasting and harmful effects on individuals. Societal expectations of masculinity directly affects an individual’s relations with the same sex, and can lead to irrationals decisions motivated by: shame,
The feminist movement raises political campaigns for the rectification of rights that should be permitted to women in the public, workplace and most importantly in one’s home. Women’s movement turn out to be a significant role as time advanced, diminutive ideas were anticipated at first, minor alterations occur but not much was being done for the privileges of a woman therefore making the women’s movement more hostile. It can be proposed that women are far too emotional to have equal rights as men due to the hormones that occur while a woman is pregnant or on her menstrual cycle, although the women’s movement has been more beneficial than crucial. Women have helped enhance the economy drastically, improve the family time in homes, as well as
Masculinity was made hegemonic, by defining power in terms of force and control. This is because men are naturally created with body physique, which is characterized by a higher controlling force than women are. Therefore, using force and control to define power naturalized male superiority. The male body was used to represent power, which was masculinized as force, physical strength, control, speed, toughness, and d...
Both Deborah Blum’s The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over? and Aaron Devor’s “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” challenges the concept of how gender behavior is socially constructed. Blum resides on the idea that gender behavior is developed mainly through adolescence and societal expectations of a gender. Based on reference from personal experiences to back her argument up, Blum explains that each individual develops their expected traits as they grow up, while she also claims that genes and testosterones also play a role into establishing the differentiation of gender behavior. Whereas, Devor focuses mainly on the idea that gender behavior is portrayed mainly among two different categories: masculinity and femininity, the expectation that society has put upon male and female disregarding any biological traits. Furthermore, both could agree with the idea that society has an effect on how an individual should act based on their gender. Yet, additionally Devor would most likely disagree with Blum regarding the assumption that a biological factor is involved in this following case, but I reside on Blum’s case. Although society is indeed one of the major contributions as to how one should act, as Devor states, biology is somewhat like a foundation that leads to how one should behave as they grow and acknowledge their gender difference as well, residing on Blum’s argument.
Masculinity is a subject that has been debated in our society for quite some time. Many wonder what it means to be masculine, as it is difficult to define this one –sided term. Pairing this already controversial term with “feminist studies” can bring about some thought - provoking conversation. Feminist studies of men have been around for many years with regards to the feminist movement. It seeks to create gradual improvements to society through its main principle of modifying the ways in which everyone views what it means to be a man. Feminist studies of men bring forth the discussion of hegemonic masculinity; how this contributes to the gender hierarchy, the radicalized glass escalator and ultimately the faults of this theory.
In “Gender as a Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism”, the author Barbara Risman explains her theory to readers about how gender should be thought of as a social structure. Thinking of it as such would allow people to examine how gender is ingrained in almost every part of society, thus putting gender on an equal level of importance with economics and politics. In society, gender dictates many of the opportunities and limitations that an individual may face in his or her lifetime. Barbara Risman points out the three aspects of the gender structure that happen at an individual, interactional, and institutional level (Risman, pg. 446). First, gender contributes to how a person will develop themselves in life. This is the “individual level”. At an interactional level, men and women face different expectations that are set by society. The individual and interactional level are linked because sometimes, changes to one level can affect the other. The third level, the institutional level, notes that gender is affected by laws, rules, and organizational practices that dictate what
The terms sex, gender and sexuality relate with one another, however, sociologists had to distinguish these terms because it has it’s own individual meaning. Sex is the biological identity of a person when they are first born, like being a male or female. Gender is the socially learned behaviors and expectations associated with men and women like being masculine or feminine. Gender can differentiate like being a man, woman, transgender, intersex, etcetera. Sexuality refers to desire, sexual preference, and sexual identity and behavior (1). Sexuality can differentiate as well like being homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, etcetera. Like all social identities, gender is socially constructed. In the Social Construction of Gender, this theory shows
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had been so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives.
Gender is such a ubiquitous notion that humans assume gender is biological. However, gender is a notion that is made up in order to organize human life. It is created and recreated giving power to the dominant gender, creating an inferior gender and producing gender roles. There are many questionable perspectives such as how two genders are learned, how humans learn their own gender and others genders, how they learn to appropriately perform their gender and how gender roles are produced. In order to understand these perspectives, we must view gender as a social institution. Society bases gender on sex and applies a sex category to people in daily life by recognizing gender markers. Sex is the foundation to which gender is created. We must understand the difference between anatomical sex and gender in order to grasp the development of gender. First, I will be assessing existing perspectives on the social construction of gender. Next, I will analyze three case studies and explain how gender construction is applied in order to provide a clearer understanding of gender construction. Lastly, I will develop my own case study by analyzing the movie Mrs. Doubtfire and apply gender construction.
Social Construction of Gender Today’s society plays a very important role in the construction of gender. Gender is a type of issue that has raised many questions over the years in defining and debating if both male and female are equal. Today, gender is constructed in four different ways. The The first way gender is defined is by the family in which a child is raised.
Society has stamped an image into the minds of people of how the role of each gender should be played out. There are two recognized types of gender, a man and a woman, however there are many types of gender roles a man or a woman may assume or be placed into by society. The ideas of how one should act and behave are often times ascribed by their gender by society, but these ascribed statuses and roles are sometimes un-welcomed, and people will assume who they want to be as individuals by going against the stereotypes set forth by society. This paper will examine these roles in terms of how society sees men and women stereotypically, and how men and women view themselves and each other in terms of stereotypes that are typically ascribed, as well as their own opinions with a survey administered to ten individuals. What I hope to prove is that despite stereotypes playing a predominant role within our society, and thus influencing what people believe about each other in terms of their same and opposite genders, people within our society are able to go against these ascribed stereotypes and be who they want and it be okay. Through use of the survey and my own personal history dealing with gender stereotyping I think I can give a clear idea as to how stereotypes envelope our society, and how people and breaking free from those stereotypes to be more individualistic.
Violence against women appeared from a long time ago and happened in every country. It caused pain in both mental and physical for women. There were so many people trying to stop this problem but it was still not completely fixed. There are many reasons that lead to this issue all over the world. After many surveys and investigations, we realized that the main reason is Discrimination and Unequal power. Some legends and stories in the past made people think men’s role is more important than women’s role in society. And because men are stronger, more active than women so they can do more work. This also makes people think men deserve more rights than women. They soon forced on human’s mind that men are also...
Throughout history, there have been constant power struggles between men and women, placing the male population at a higher position than the female. Therefore, in this patriarchal system women have always been discriminated against simply due to the fact that they are women. Their rights to vote, to be educated and essentially being treated equally with men was taken away from them and they were viewed as weak members of society whose successes depend on men. However, this has not prevented them from fighting for what they believe in and the rights they are entitled to. On the contrary, it has motivated them to try even harder and gain these basic societal rights through determination and unity.