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Gender roles in females and males
Gender roles in society
Gender roles in females and males
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According to Brenda Cooper, the most basic understanding of heteronormativity is that gender is ‘natally ascribed, natural, and immutable’. The literature surrounding gender identity initially defines two categories, male or female and is something that is resistant to change. However, the transgendered identity problematises this assumption within the response from popular culture and in particular, film. With the contradictory ideas addressed in the films Boys Don’t Cry and The Crying Game , gender identity is certainly a complex notion. This essay will explore ways in which these texts conform to, or are in denial of, the transgender identity through discussion of stereotypical masculine and feminine identities, transgender as performance, the complex nature of sexuality and the revelation of biological sex.
Identity, for many, is a concept which has enabled individuals to share mutual life experiences in order to share similar social positions such as sexuality, gender and class. Thus, in Boys Don’t Cry Brandon, a female to male transgender, predominantly acknowledges heteronormativity through visual images and mannerisms of stereotypical masculinity. Cooper suggests that the dominant image within the texts narrative is the ‘self-actualisation’ that Brandon is a male. The fact that Brandon is constantly referred to through the masculine pronoun ‘he’ and admires himself as a man by looking in the mirror. Cooper suggests that his life being a man is not an ‘abnormal or deceptive act’ and that the narrative ‘privileges’ Brandon’s self- identity over his biological genitalia. In order to construct his masculinity even further, Brandon imitates the aggressive behaviour of the two heterosexual characters John and Tom. Brando...
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...eronormative ideas and in turn, deny the transgendered subjectivity. In Boys Don’t Cry there is a strong sense that Brandon acknowledges stereotypical masculinity and the narrative represses any form of the transgender through Lana’s denial of Brandon’s biological sex. Similarly in The Crying Game, Dil conforms to heterosexual femininity and when her true biological sex is revealed, she continues to be a woman. On the other hand, both texts also challenge heteronormativity through the recognition of identities outside of the norms of gender and sexuality. Boys Don’t Cry and The Crying Game both provide the narrative with shocking revelation scenes which force the viewer to accept these new forms of queer identities. In conclusion, texts may open up different approaches to gender identity, yet it is never clear to which approaches we should or should not acknowledge.
William Pollack, in his article “Inside the World of Boys: Behind the Mask of Masculinity”, discusses on how boy tries to hide behind the mask and the stereotypical of masculinity. He demonstrates how boy hide their deepest though and feelings and real self. Pollack open the essay with “a fourteen-year-old boy, he is doing badly in school and he might fail algebra, but when teacher or his parent ask about it, he said everything is just fine. He hide his true identity behind the mask, and let no one see his true self.” After read the story, I think the story is really useful source to write an essay about how boy become men and they are emotionless.
In this article, Eckert and Ginet use pathos in the last two pages of the articles. The tow writers express their feelings when they mention “ In words, they do not have the option of growing into just people, but into boys or girls”( Eckert and Ginet,742). These sentences show to the readers, they emotion about how children become adults and know what your gender is.The tone for these sentences is cruel with the reality because children have to mature at an early age to know what their gender
“Boys Don't Cry” portrays the true story of Brandon Teena, a teenager who is faced with a serious sexual identity crisis. Although Brandon was born with a woman's body, he feels at heart and mind that he is a man. Brandon is portrayed as a loving and romantic individual who's not afraid to embrace himself in a world that often dismisses divergency. This unfortunately leads to Brandon's death at the age of 21. Two men, driven by ignorance, jealousy and hate lead to the murder of Brandon. Gender roles and social norms often deem people from becoming their true selves. Boys Don't Cry explores the constant struggle in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community through the eyes of Brandon Teena.
Patricia Young’s poem Boys is packed with literary devices used to convey the way heteronormacy is advocated in our society. She uses tropes and schemes such as allusion, metaphor
Sex exists in a binary system of male and female, and people can be forced into this binary. A mother of an intersex child states that the surgery comes from “the message that a child’s body is not acceptable as-is and should conform to what the state thinks it should be” (“Their Baby Was Born”). Sex, just like gender, exists in a binary, and when individuals do not fall into the two categories, society becomes uncomfortable. Sex, like gender, is socially constructed (Fausto-Sterling). This means that sex is a spectrum and not the binary it has been made to be. However, society continues to see the binary as normal and will attempt to force individuals to fit the already established system. Because they are in the middle of the sex spectrum rather than at the ends, most intersex individuals in the documentary experienced and continue to experience the same pressures to conform described by the mother and Fausto-Sterling. One person identified with the female gender, but her mother raised her as male. Despite her gender identification, she was continually told to be more masculine and to conform to her assigned male sex and gender. Others also had their appearance shaped through surgery and other means to fit into the sex-gender binary but now choose to identify as neither male nor female. However, this lack of gender-sex identification can leave them socially isolated since
Putnam, A. (2013). Mean ladies: Transgendered villains in Disney films. In J. Cheu (Ed.), Diversity in
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
In the story, “Boys and Girls”, the narrator is not the only one coming to terms with their identity.
Mental health professional have tried to correct their ‘‘gender identity disorder’’ with brutal aversion therapies. Tran’s youth who came out often faced crises throughout their family and social systems. Once out, developing a sense of realness about their new gender became extremely important. An urgent need develops ‘‘to match one’s exterior with one’s interior’’ In ad...
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 discussing the subject of male identity, especially as compared to female identity, Farrell is very careful to remain very objective throughout his rhetoric. Part of his balanced approach to proving his argument, is the use of an objective point of view. Farrell’s deliberate objectivity can be seen in aspects of his piece such as his word choice, free of denotative language, his lack of any first hand anecdotes, a removal of any indication of his gender (except his name), and a strict third person style throughout his piece. All of these characteristics combine to make his argument effective to a large demographic of people, unlike many pieces on gender identity, whose audience is usually limited to at most a spe...
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).
Works Cited Kane, Matt. “Transgender characters that changed film and television”. Entertainment Media at GLAAD. 12 November 2013. Web.
When children are faced with emotional events that challenge their ideas, they take another step on the road to being “grown up” as they discover their identity. The short story “Boys and Girls” written by Alice Munro illustrates this coming of age by allowing us to follow the development of a young girl. We follow the main character, who narrates the story, as she changes from beginning to end. As the story opens, the narrator acts like a care free child, not paying heed to her gender. She then begins to react strongly to the way she is treated by her family and their expectations of her young womanhood. Once she realizes that some changes are inevitable she begins to adopt a new understanding of who she is which is evidence of a more mature way of thinking. This story demonstrates that difficult childhood experiences regarding gender contribute to a developing maturity and are frequently met with varying degrees of resistance.
In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls,” our narrator is a young farm girl on the verge of puberty who is learning what it means to be a “girl.” The story shows the differing gender roles of boys and girls – specifically that women are the weaker, more emotional sex – by showing how the adults of the story expect the children to grow into their respective roles as a girl and a boy, and how the children grow up and ultimately begin to fulfill these roles, making the transition from being “children” to being “young adults.”