In her online article “What Makes a Woman” (2015), Elinor Burkett asserts that the trans society should not reduce being a woman down to the genitalia and that a woman is created through the experiences she endures in her lifetime. Burkett supports her claim about what creates a woman by presenting the reader with evidence taken from trans-genders who are fighting against women’s rights and goes to challenge them by sharing her view on the topic. Burkett’s purpose is to dissipate the undermining of women’s characteristics by silencing their experiences in order to generate awareness of what a woman’s identity is. She has a young adult audience that is aware of current events in the trans-gender movement in mind because she writes with a tone …show more content…
She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a doctorate in Latin American History. She also received a master’s degree from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She has been published by elite publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Harper’s Bazaar. Burkett was also a professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism for 13 years. She has a prominent level of education and is an elite journalist. Burkett has passionate beliefs in feminism and woman power. Many writers agree with what Burkett lays out in her “What Makes a Woman?” article. Jaclyn Friedman “find[s] so much of the nature versus nurture argument about trans-ness a snooze, for reasons Burkett herself articulates in the essay” (Friedman). Barbara Cohn Schlachet believes Burkett’s article was “brilliant” and feels the same way about the social constructs of trans-genders (Schlachet). Dana Beyer, however, disagrees with Elinor Burkett and believes that she “knows nothing” about the experience of being a woman “pre- and post- transition” (Beyer). Elinor Burkett is very honest about how she feels about the trans-gender movement. She lays out the current events and tells the readers how she feels about them. Burkett is a direct writer and does not alleviate the position on the nature versus nurture
Throughout my reading of Deborah Blum’s, “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” I have to admit that I had some mixed feelings. My initial reaction upon first glance, was that the essay was very intriguing. The title was inviting, the topic was argumentative, and the opening was captivating. However, after reading further and analyzing it from a rhetorical perspective, I admit that I was disappointed. Although Blum did indeed demonstrate examples of each ethos, pathos, and logos appeals, filling her writing with facts after facts, the overall writing was not well put together.
Keller, Evelyn Fox. Reflections on Gender and Science: 10th Anniversary Edition. New Haven and London: Yale University, 1995.
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.
Betsy Lucal, "What it means to be gendered me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System."
As well, by Castillo sharing the story of Chloie Johnson, it gives the audience a chance to live through the transgender vicariously. Another example in which Castillo creates a shocking experience for the reader is when she states that “The NCAA in its ‘Transgender Handbook’ debunked the notions that people born male would have advantages over females, and that men would pretend to be trans females in order to have a completive advantage.” This addition to her article was very crucial to her argument as it disproves
In this essay, Gay deconstructs the stereotypical view of a feminist, by showing that you can be a feminist, even if you’re not in the small box the rest of the world thinks you should be in, in order to qualify as a ‘feminist’. Throughout the essay, Gay uses several quotes and stories from other women who are either afraid to say that they’re feminists, or don’t quite understand you don’t have to be in the limiting ‘box’, even though in their moral beliefs and actions, these sourced women are, in fact, feminists. According to Gay, if we didn’t have this stereotype, then maybe more women with diverse lives and views would be able to ‘come out’ as
Barbie is tall, thin, has large hips and a large chest; she is beautiful, blonde, and she loves to shop; overall, Barbie is the feminine ideal. As researchers Jacqueline Urla and Alan Swedlund acknowledge, “little girls learn, among other things, about the crucial importance of their appearance to their personal happiness and to their ability to gain in favor with their friends” (1995:281). Gender roles are both centered around behavior as well as around bodies; this poses huge problems for transgender people, as well as explanations for transphobia; society has, for so long, accepted gender and sex to be synonymous. Because of this, a person whose gender is female and whose body is (rhetorically) male is a frightening and concerning deviant to most people’s understanding of the way in which gender exists. Everything that has to do with ideals for bodies leads to problems for transgender people; whether it is, as Urla and Swedlund also commented, that “...woman’s body was understood through the lens of her reproductive functions” (1995:287), or the general idea of “norms” for body proportions. When considering women’s bodies’ main purpose to be that of reproduction, it is apparent why the concept of transgender people may be concerning; transgender women -- that is, people, assigned male at birth but who live as women -- are women whose bodies cannot reproduce in the way that women are expected to; transgender men -- people assigned female at birth but who live as men -- may still have bodies which are viewed as useful mainly for their reproductive capabilities, but which they do not intend to acknowledge or use as such. When things stray so drastically from a norm which has long been accepted with minimal thought, onlookers panic that other norms will start to change as well. Straying from this norm also
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).
In their publication, “Doing Gender, ” Candance West and Don H. Zimmerman put forward their theory of gender as an accomplishment; through, the daily social interactions of a man or woman which categorize them as either masculine or feminine. From a sociological perspective the hetero-normative categories of just sex as biological and gender as socially constructed, are blurred as a middle ground is embedded into these fundamental roots of nature or nurture.To further their ideology West and Zimmerman also draw upon an ethnomethodological case study of a transsexual person to show the embodiment of sex category and gender as learned behaviours which are socially constructed.Therefore, the focus of this essay will analyze three ideas: sex, sex
The article “What Makes a Woman” focuses on how transgender should not define a woman because they have not lived their whole lives as a women, have not gone through the struggles, complications and life experiences that women go through. The author also brings in the idea of women and men having different brains to support her argument. The author, Elinor Burkett, effectively uses the three appeals of logos, ethos and pathos to get across her message. The first appeal is ethos that mentions other people’s opinions. The second is pathos by showing Burkett’s emotions. And finally, the third appeal is logos, which includes data statistics.
Gender Outlaws (Smith, 2010) breaks the laws of gender by defying gender normative rules that exclude trans, queer and other non-conforming gender expressions often oppressed by “gender-norming rules,” rules, “expected to observe” or be subject to ridicule and often times labeled as freak by those who consider themselves as normal (p. 28). A gender outlaw seeks to, redefine the notion of gender and are carving out spaces of their own” (p. 30).
An abundance of transgenders are finally identifying as their true gender in our generation. In fact, in the United States alone, there are 700,000 transgenders (Gates 2011). However, our generation isn’t welcoming these true identities, but shaming them. Though, it is incredible that slowly the idea of transgenders is becoming more acceptable, the amount of hate and harassment these human beings receive is unacceptable. Human beings, that is what they are, right? This leads to the next question. Why is our generation shaming something we are? Human beings, right? As we are all human beings, we shouldn’t be treating transgenders as if they are a different species. Many argue that these individuals
Wood, J. T. (2013). Gendered lives: communication, gender & and culture (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Kimmel, Michael S, Amy Aronson, and Michael S Kimmel. The Gendered Society Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
When the subject of gender issues is brought up, people generally split into two sides to argue about either women or men and the inequalities they face. While these arguments are all perfectly valid, a lot is left out that most people wouldn’t notice. Many of the issues that are rarely discussed involve people who lie outside the binary labels of ‘male’ and ‘female’. These people have many issues involving gender inequality, but the only time they’re ever discussed is when something tragic happens to them. As Sydette Harry, a writer, puts it, “I’d like to wake up one morning see a picture of a beautiful black trans woman without a murder headline next to it” (Devereaux). Men and women’s failures, issues, and successes within the realm of gender are broadcasted daily, but where is everyone else? These people shouldn’t have to be murdered in order for their voices to be heard. Transgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary individuals are victims to issues and inequalities that are real, prominent, and just as important as those of binary genders.