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Essay about feminist literature
Essay about feminist literature
Essay about feminist literature
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“Did it happen before to see someone and wonder if he/she a male or female?” To understand the appraisement of identity, people should ask themselves “Is there a difference between sex and gender?” The society recognizes that sex is the biological state that recognizes one 's actual personality once he/she is conceived, yet sexual orientation is the perspective that the individual has and grows up with. Elinor Burkett’s article, “What Makes a Women?” the author provides theories to prove that women should not be stereotyped or identified by males. Burkett is an American journalist, film producer, and documentary director who has been known for her great work. She was born in 1949, in New York. “The Body Lies”, by Amy Bloom is an excerpt from …show more content…
Essentially, Burkett trusts that some other sort of gender with the exception of women ought not to get the opportunity to speak to women because “their truth is not my truth. Their female identities are not my female identity” (54). Burkett uses comparison to persuade the persures that women ought not to be stereotypes or characterized by men. For instance, she analyzes herself as a women to men including female-to-male transgender individuals to uncover the immense contrasts between them. At first, Burkett describes to others that female-to-male transgender people have not lived their life profoundly as women because of their propensity to the inverse sex, while having a female 's body. Especially, she brings up that transgender individuals are not very delicate about issues as women generally may be. Also, Burkett notice that the true character of a man as having a manly or female identity relies on upon the hormones that the one has. In this manner, female-to-male transgender individuals who have not gotten the female 's hormones, have not gotten the encounters of coping with their period while being at school as a sample, so they might not perform women. Bloom concurs on Burkett 's point by giving an illustration of a female-to-male transgender. According to Bloom, “When Lyle entered …show more content…
In Burkett 's article, she trusts that sex is the same as gender and what comes next changes from a man to another. As Burkett mentions, “so long as humans produce X and Y chromosomes that lead to the development of penises and Vaginas, almost all of us will be “assigned” genders at birth. But what we do with those genders- the roles we assign ourselves, and each other, based on them- is entirely mutable”(59). Burkett distinguishes the gender of a man in view of the parts that the individual doles out to him/herself, which totally varies from each other. Along these lines, the main two generalizations that society can basically depend on depend on the birth state. Case in point, if two individuals were conceived with penises, they will promptly be stereotyped as guys. Consequently, Burkett trusts that gender is the thing that figures out who a person is, however the roles that take after is the thing that really differs. Then again, Bloom 's perspective is that gender is not based the biological state that is relegated during childbirth, however it is for the most part about the body that a person feels good with, which implies that “they will be motivated, whether or not they succeed, to have surgery that will bring their bodies into accord with the gender to which they have known
Andrews begins his narrative by comparing the outlooks upon being transgender to a more normal stance or as his girlfriend (who is bisexual) put it “‘Why can’t you just be gay?’” “‘Why can’t you be normal?’” Being transgender was still a fairly new concept at the time whereas being gay or bisexual was more widely accepted. He affirms the outlook upon being transgender by means of a quote from his current girlfriend “‘Why do you have to mess with this whole transgender thing?’” He
The definition of gender has become way more revolutionary and expressive compared to the twentieth century. Gender used to be similar to sex where someone would be identified as a male or female based on their biological genitals however, this day in age it is way more complex. Someone can be born a male but mentally they feel like a male. In “Sisterhood is complicated” Ruth Padawer explains the journey of different transgender males and the obstacles they face while attending Wellesley college. Wellesley is a women’s college that has been around for a very long time and is in the process of the battling the conflict of whether they should admit transgender students. Ariel Levy author of “Female Chauvinist Pigs” tackles the stereotypes and
To begin, I think it is important to analyze the difference between “sex” and “gender”. Up until researching for this paper, I though that the two terms were interchangeable in meaning, rather, they are separate ideas that are connected. According to Mary K. Whelan, a Doctor of Anthropology focusing on gender studies, sex and gender are different. She states, “Western conflation of sex and gender can lead to the impression that biology, and not culture, is responsible for defining gender roles. This is clearly not the case.”. She continues with, “Gender, like kinship, does have a biological referent, but beyond a universal recognition of male and female "packages," different cultures have chosen to associate very different behaviors, interactions, and statuses with men and women. Gender categories are arbitrary constructions of culture, and consequently, gender-appropriate behaviors vary widely from culture to culture.” (23). Gender roles are completely defined by the culture each person lives in. While some may think that another culture is sexist, or dem...
Being Trans gender is when a person’s self identity does not conform with their conventional sex. Talking about people identifying as a transgender individual is a difficult and very controversial topic to discuss. One author, Ruth Padawer has brought the topic to light, presenting us with examples from one of the most prestigious women’s colleges in the United States. In her piece, “Sisterhood is Complicated” from 2014, she ponders on the idea of if people who identify as transgender should be allowed in an all women’s college. In her piece, she states that “Some two dozen other matriculating students at Wellesley don’t identify as women. Of those, a half dozen or so were trans men, people born female who identified as men, some of whom had begun taking testosterone to change their bodies.” All of which made the switch to be transgender after being accepted into the school. So, in a college of all women, some are switching genders and it challenges the idea of an all women’s college. The piece continues to go through and tell us the story of three trans men and their experience at Wellesley college.
The quote of Simone de Beauvoir, “ One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” is saying that anyone can be a woman and is able to know more about women than a woman. Since we have different beliefs, we shouldn't judge people by the biology terms. Both news article authors are feminists and support of feminism, but they propose different perspectives on the word, woman. I agree with the quote because trans women are increasing in the community and receiving unfairness where also the change of society, cultures have a major effect on ideas and people's preference.
Transgender is defined by Wikipedia as, “the state of one's gender identity (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) or gender expression not matching one's assigned sex.” The article explains how a transgender individual may define themselves as having the characteristics that are normally associated with a particular gender but will choose to identify elsewhere on the gender continuum. It use’s the love story of Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker as an example. It took five years for Zackary to transition from male to female and Rhys from female to male. But both truly believe that they were born the wrong gender, and choose to correct this wrong with hormone treatments, surgery and personality changes that to the more tradition eye may seem absurd and abnormal. This is one of the main reason such transgender couples are talking about their transformations. To beach this gap between transgender’s and the rest of the population. It is believed that by educating society, we are more likely to accept something than if we do not fully understand the parameters that surround such an issue.
In this article, Shaw and Lee describe how the action of labels on being “feminine” or “masculine” affect society. Shaw and Lee describe how gender is, “the social organization of sexual difference” (124). In biology gender is what sex a person is and in culture gender is how a person should act and portray themselves. They mention how gender is what we were taught to do in our daily lives from a young age so that it can become natural(Shaw, Lee 126). They speak on the process of gender socialization that teaches us how to act and think in accordance to what sex a person is. Shaw and Lee state that many people identify themselves as being transgendered, which involves a person, “resisting the social construction of gender into two distinct, categories, masculinity and femininity and working to break down these constraining and polarized categories” ( 129). They write about how in mainstream America masculinity and femininity are described with the masculine trait being the more dominant of the two. They define how this contributes to putting a higher value of one gender over the other gender called gender ranking (Shaw, Lee 137). They also speak about how in order for femininity to be viewed that other systems of inequality also need to be looked at first(Shaw,Lee 139).
First; comes, the notion of nature. West and Zimmerman term this as sex, referring to a person’s biological makeup through genitalia, having a penis or vagina, or simply chromosomal pairing of XY or XX (29). Although there is no escape or control an individual has, if their foetal tissues formed into a penis or vagina, biology does play an underlying role in an individual’s identity and personality formation which is socially constructed. What is the correlation between biology and socially constructed gender then? The case study West and Zimmerman present of “Agnes, a transsexual person who was born (31), ” and raised a boy, but went through sex reassignment surgery, and identifies as a female, shows that although biology may result in a certain genitalia, an individual’s response to that may be one that is conforming or opposing to it. By the terms conforming and opposing I mean to say that Agnes could have either continued to
Kate Bornstein the author of Gender Outlaw, states that sex, gender and sexual orientation are all interchangeable like the shuffle of cards. As in her case, she was a transsexual man, but still desired 'only' women. As a transsexual lesbian she contends that though you may be born a certain sex (the physical genitalia), your gender identity can be the complete opposite. When Bornstein was still a physical man she stated: "I felt I was a woman, and more importantly I felt I belonged with other women." (Bornstein, 24) The problem, in her eyes, is how people treat one another differently because of gender. Throughout her book, she states that society is the cause of the problem. She condemns the social structure that is based around a bipolar gender system. What is a 'man' and what is a 'woman', in her mind, makes no difference. Her goal is to, "...dismantle the (two-gender) system..." and do away with any bias people have toward those who do not fit into the gender system that...
Laurie B. Green from the University of Texas at Austin studies the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike during the Civil Rights Movement in her article,” Race, Gender, and Labor in the 1960’s Memphis: “I AM A MAN” and the Meaning of Freedom”. Laurie Green opens up her article immediately showcasing African American workers carrying signs stating,” I AM A MAN” while on the other side of the sheet stood white national guardsman with their bayonets ready. Green goes onto to explain how that “I AM A MAN” statement was a complex and critical statement against Memphis, 222 showed anger over big city plantation mentality. She goes on to explain how “I AM A MAN” went on to include African American women also, in the fight for rights. Green then argues
In today’s society, it can be argued that the choice of being male or female is up to others more than you. A child’s appearance, beliefs and emotions are controlled until they have completely understood what they were “born to be.” In the article Learning to Be Gendered, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell- Ginet speaks out on how we are influenced to differentiate ourselves through gender. It starts with our parents, creating our appearances, names and behaviors and distinguishing them into a male or female thing. Eventually, we grow to continue this action on our own by watching our peers. From personal experience, a child cannot freely choose the gender that suits them best unless our society approves.
What Do Women Want? In the article, “What Do Women Want,” written by Dennis Prenger, he explains what he thinks women want. He believes that what women want most is to be loved by a man she admires, but women want many things other than a man. Women are all unique individuals who have different wants and needs.
In the text "The Sexing of the body" Sterling argues that scientist should not only worry about the physical feature to determine someone's sexuality but also on the characteristics. Sterling writes," But behaviors are generally social activities, expressed in interaction with distinctly separate beings. Thus, as we move from genitalia on the outside to the invisible psyche..."(Sterling, 29). When a scientist steps out of that box of determining gender based on the physical feature it can change the perspective of how gender is viewed in society. In the same way, The Text "Baboons with Briefcases vs Langurs with Lipstick" by Susan Sperling shows how scientist should overlook physical features and DNA to determining what is gender. Sperling writes, "Other things shape behavior besides genes and Shape it in important ways for the organisms in question..."(Sperling, 250). Our behavior can say a lot about the gender we are but Sperling demonstrates that even the behavior aspect of determining gender should be furthered studied. Both of these Authors show how scientist try to construct and validify the our sexuality is already with us and it not constructed by society. When viewing how scientist makes their studies there is some type of biased and gender stereotypes connected to these
Gender and sex have been defined by sociologists as two different things. Sociologists have defined the term ‘sex’ as relating to the biological differences between men and women based on their anatomy, whereas the term ‘gender’ relates to the social and cultural differences that men and women display (Bruce and Yearly 2006). Although the term gender has a biological basis, it is important to note that it is the social and cultural factors that shape the way gender is defined (Connell 2009). These social and cultural factors encompass people’s self representation, their social representation and how they are viewed by others from a sociological point of view (Rocha-Sanchez and Diaz-Loving 2005). These are the definitions for sex and gender that I will be using during the course of this essay.
Sex and gender are terms that are mixed up from day to day and seen as similarities rather than differences. Sex is what distinguishes people from being either male or female. It is the natural or biological variations between males and females (Browne, 1998). Some of these variations are genitals, body hair and internal and external organs. It is the make-up of chromosomes, men have one X and one Y chromosome and women have two X chromosomes, these are responsible for primary characteristics (Fulcher and Scott, 2003). Gender on the other hand refers to the sociological differences between male and female. This is teaching males and females to behave in various ways due to socialisation (Browne, 1998). Example: masculinity and femininity. Girls are supposed to show their femininity by being non-competitive, sensitive, dependent, attractive and placid. If and when some girls don’t succeed in keeping this image they will be referred to as a tomboy. On the other hand, boys show their masculinity through aggression, physical strength...