Gender Norm Violations In The Subway

1704 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender roles in modern society

In society, people take for granted the reasoning behind the gendered actions they perform. Gender is a socially-constructed concept that according to West & Zimmerman, individuals strive to achieve gender in their everyday interactions. In fact, gender is a concept that has many norms—which are actions that are deemed right or wrong for each gender. For the purpose of this class, I have performed a gender norm violation while observing and recording the results. The norm I had chosen to violate is a rather small one—the norm that in a heterosexual relationship context, a male must treat his female partner first. To break this norm, I decided to allow my partner to sit down on the subway during rush hour when there was a seat available. Typically, while riding the subway home during the packed rush hour, there eventually becomes a seat where he insists that I sit down. For this violation, I did …show more content…

His reaction was what I expected, he did not agree and further tried to convince me to sit on the seat. However, after a bit of back and forth banter, he eventually agreed. The subway was extremely packed and I expected no one to react due to general societal norms like minding their own business. Besides the people observing our conversation, surprisingly, there was one man who, in a jokingly way, stated that I was the one who “wore the pants” in the relationship. This statement caused me and my partner to awkwardly chuckle and carry on and it also emphasizes that this is a gender norm violation.
As previously stated, the norm of the male in a heterosexual relationship taking care of or letting his girlfriend go first is a gender norm—and if the female wants to treat the male first, it is considered irregular. For my

Show More
Related

  • The Male Gender as a Performance in Beer Advertisements

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    Aaron Devor in, “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender,” argues that gender is a performance. He supports his argument by recognizing how society rewards, tolerates or punishes conformity to or divergence from social norms (widely accepted behaviors set by society). If a male fails to fall into his expected characterization of dominance and aggression or a female fails to act out in passivity and submission, they are at high risk of societal punishment.

    Read More

  • Gender Conflicts In The Girl With Bangs By Zadie Smith

    956 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gender role conflicts constantly place a role in our everyday life. For many years we have been living in a society where depending on our sexuality, we are judged and expected to behave and act certain way to fulfill the society’s gender stereotypes. The day we are born we are labeled as either a girl or boy and society identifies kids by what color they wear, pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Frequently, we heard the nurses in the Maternity facility saying things like, “Oh is a strong boy or is beautiful fragile princess.” Yet, not only in hospitals we heard this types of comments but we also see it on the media…

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Becoming Members Of Society: Learning The Social Meanings Of Gender

    969 Words  | 2 Pages

    Aaron Devor’s essay “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender” describes how despite popular belief, gender and sex are not directly related and how social norms affect individual’s choice of gender. Devor‘s main argument is that gender is not determined by genitalia, but instead by the individual's own choices. Michael Kimmel’s essay “Masculinity as Homophobia” claims that gender equality is a positive thing for males and that social norms force men to act a certain way. Kimmel’s main argument is that men are always having to protect their masculinity in order to prevent themselves from appearing weak. Both authors present compelling arguments for both gender equality and for how social norms influence individuals’ gender choice. However, the two authors approach the same topic in different ways. Kimmel takes a more laid-back approach to the topic by using simple words and a conversational tone that relates to the casual gender sociologist. Devor writes a more sophisticated essay using complex terms and a more formal tone that relates to the serious sociologist that research gender studies.

    Read More

  • Sociology Essay On Gender Norms

    544 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gender norms. They seem to be involved in every aspect of society. With more and more focus being put on gender equality, it is easier to identify and question the gender norms that have been created. However, one place that gender norms seem to continue to reign dominate is in cases of sexual violence. In cases of sexual violence there is often a clear example of how gender norms have affected the situation. In Scully and Marolla, they mention the quote “Considering the

    Read More

  • The Gender Blur

    1540 Words  | 4 Pages

    In “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” Deborah Blum states that “gender roles of our culture reflect an underlying biology” (Blum 679). Maasik and Solomon argue that gender codes and behavior “are not the result of some sort of natural or biological destiny, but are instead politically motivated cultural constructions,” (620) raising the question whether gender behavior begins in culture or genetics. Although one may argue that gender roles begin in either nature or nurture, many believe that both culture and biology have an influence on the behavior.

    Read More

  • Gender Norms: Society's Constructed Privilege System

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every society forms different cultures and social norms how people behave and constructs stereotypes and expectations of people based on how they were seen throughout history and cultural backgrounds. Once set, norms are unlikely to be changed over time. This social construction decides which group will have benefits and privileges and which won’t. One example of these social constructed norms is gender. Gender, regardless of how different cultures define it, is generally and mostly made up of masculinity, femininity.

    Read More

  • Learning Gender In a Diverse Society

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...

    Read More

  • West And Zimmerman's Doing Gender

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gender, in society today, is clarified as either being male which embodies traits of masculinity or on the other hand being female embodying traits of femininity. However the embodiment of these traits are just actions, decisions, or expressions rather than sexual anatomical features we are born and constrained by. Gender depictions are less a consequence of our "essential sexual natures" than interactional portrayals of what we would like to convey about sexual natures, using conventionalized gestures. (West, Zimmerman p.130) This excerpt reinforces the idea that society should view gender not as a absolute but rather a work in progress during your day to day routine. This capability to accept that gender is something you do rather than something that is leads opens up the tolerance to realize the implications that traditional gender views have impacted

    Read More

  • Examples Of Breaking Social Norms

    522 Words  | 2 Pages

    I chose to break a social norm by sitting/ laying on the floor of an aisle in a grocery store, engaging in deviant behavior, instead of shopping for groceries. Sitting on the floor of a grocery store is a case of deviant behavior because it goes against society by breaking the norm. Because the standard behavior of people in a grocery store is to walk and look around, with usually a basket or cart, shopping for desired items, the expected response of others would be feeling uncomfortable, awkward, and confused. Upon performing my act of social deviance, numerous people demonstrated the anticipated reaction. As people turned down the aisle, I occupied, conversations died down to whispers or stopped altogether. Of the people who questioned me on my

    Read More

  • Masculine and Feminine Norms and Gender Identity

    1481 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout today’s society, almost every aspect of someone’s day is based whether or not he or she fits into the “norm” that has been created. Specifically, masculine and feminine norms have a great impact that force people to question “am I a true man or woman?” After doing substantial research on the basis of masculine or feminine norms, it is clear that society focuses on the males being the dominant figures. If males are not fulfilling the masculine role, and females aren’t playing their role, then their gender identity becomes foggy, according to their personal judgment, as well as society’s.

    Read More

  • Argumentatice Essay Gender Roles

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    ‘Boys will be boys’, a phrase coined to exonerate the entire male sex of loathsome acts past, present, and potential. But what about the female sex, if females act out of turn they are deemed ‘unladylike’ or something of the sort and scolded. This double standard for men and women dates back as far as the first civilizations and exists only because it is allowed to, because it is taught. Gender roles and cues are instilled in children far prior to any knowledge of the anatomy of the sexes. This knowledge is learned socially, culturally, it is not innate. And these characteristics can vary when the environment one is raised in differs from the norm. Child rearing and cultural factors play a large role in how individuals act and see themselves.

    Read More

  • Breaking My Norm Violations

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    A norm violation is when a person violates a norm which is defined as social expectations that guide behavior. The norm I choose to violate is walking on the left side and opening the left door instead of walking on the right side and opening the right door. I chose this norm because I hate it when people walk on the wrong side or use the wrong door in public; however, being on a college campus I have learned to become more tolerant because many foreign exchange students are used to walking and entering on the left side. To me this was a norm I could violate that would make me and other feels uncomfortable, but would not be a huge inconvenience to others. On a busy Saturday I chose to break this norm throughout the day while I was out and about at the

    Read More

  • How Sexuality is Socially Constructed

    2048 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gender is a socially constructed phenomenon, and how acceptable one’s relationship is determined by society’s view of gender roles. Because the majority of the population is characterized as heterosexual, those who deviate from that path are ...

    Read More

  • The Social Construction Of Gender

    3360 Words  | 7 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Negative Attitude toward Women

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every culture has different social expectations for men and women. Most of the time traditional norms or stereotypical gender roles are created by society. What they observe seem to be true and convince others to believe it; as a result, the “script” come from stereotypical gender roles about masculine and feminine nature: Hamilton McCubbin and Barbara Blum Dahl states clearly, “men should be brave, strong, ambitious, and aggressive, while keeping the...

    Read More

More about Gender Norm Violations In The Subway

Open Document