On March 1, 2018 I saw Rule Of Thumb by Lori Teague and Christine Suarez.
Currently, acceptance (or rejection) of gender, sexuality, and race equality is a racy topic in media. So I was excited to explore the topic of gender fluidity in Lori Teague’s and Christine Suarez’s Rule of Thumb. The program stated that the show aimed to “advocate for a new understanding of gender expression, one that allows bodies to express gender fluidly. ” I was intrigued to here a new perspective through dance on gender fluidity, but as I continued through the program I became skeptical of Rule of Thumb because I noticed that that cast had no men. Gender fluidity concerns males and females and I was curious about why the choreographers chose to have an all female cast. It would’ve been an interesting aspect to add men who identity as female or do not fit into the stereotype of an alpha male. Also, the sub title of Rule of Thumb is This is my body. From this sub title and the overall performance, I believe that Rule of Thumb was less about gender fluidity and more how
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Lori explained to me that when she started working on Rule of Thumb, she began by chewing on the topic of gender fluidly and even led dance workshops on gender fluidity. Eventually, this exploration led her to specifically look into how people are perceived based off their looks and how to overcome these labels. Then, I asked Lori why they chose to have an all female cast. Lori explained that while this was a hard decision, overall she felt that being female was a large part of her and Christine’s past and overtime the Rule Of Thumb became a collection of personal testimonies of societies confining labels on women. They wanted to tell a story personal to them and the cast and since gender identity/fluidity is such a broad topic it would be hard to reach every aspect of
... man? We couldn’t stop laughing at the ridiculousness of it because Olivia was by far more feminine that I. And then it hit me! Sitting in the passenger seat, without her dress and boots visible from any onlookers, it was her hair that all could see. Long hair which is one of the most recognizable feminine traits was lacking. Her hair, maybe achieved two inches in length, creating a more masculine profile. She may not have seen such a trim as a masculine act but others, obviously had.
Valenti, Jessica. Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters. Emeryville, CA: Seal, 2007. Print.
Blum, Deborah. “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. 6th Edition. Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 573-580. Print.
The most important events of this film all revolve around the female characters. While there are some male charac...
Another example of a gender cue was when Toddy’s friend Richard came to visit and Victoria was hiding in the closet (at this point in the movie Toddy had already suggested to Victoria that she should pretend to be a man), when Richard opened the closet and Victoria, dressed like a man, punches Richard in the face. In order for Victoria to convince everyone she was a man, she had to cut her hair in order to enhance her looking like a man. During this time, women were viewed differently and therefore treated differently, I believe that a huge indicator of this is the way women and men shook hands with each other. When men shake hand with men their hands cup each other and they give a firm shake, however when a man shakes a women’s hand it is not really much of a shake. The women give the man her hand in order for him to kiss it. A fifth gender cue I noticed was when Victor Victoria was rehearsing one of her numbers, the choreographer told her the she needed to dance broader, use more of her
Betsy Lucal, "What it means to be gendered me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System."
Believe it or not, gender scripts shape our everyday lives. The way we think, act, or even the way we interact with one another is undeniably influenced by gender roles. References toward gender are placed subliminally around us in ads, billboards, and on the television. These messages subconsciously tell us as a society what is acceptable behavior and what is not. As learned in class, gender scripts are socially constructed behaviors that society sets for all of us to follow. If someone behaves differently from the already established norms, that person is looked as weird or as an outcast from the rest of the group. The iconic film Love and Basketball allows us as viewers to see gender scripts being defied and role reversal emerged.
...ation of men and women to the reader; we accept the cliché’s and gender-roles as the collective standard.
“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).
At the start of the semester, my oblivious state of nature associating with the Chinese culture reached an unacceptable level. Implementing a necessary change, I decided to educate myself on different cultures starting with China. I failed to ponder that such a rich, deep culture existed outside America. Encompassed by this country’s unique yet suffocating melting pot culture, my outlook believed ideas such as uniformity between American Chinese food and Authentic Chinese food. After this course, my bigot perspective widened as I witnessed diversity in the world. Before this class, when I thought of Chinese food, my connotation jumped to thoughts associated with chop suey, but as I progressed my education, my mindset gradually pondered foods like steamed buns or “New Year Cakes” with authentic Chinese food.
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).
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
The Web. The Web. 09 Mar. 2014. The 'Standard' of the Kane, Matt. “Victims or Villans: Examining Ten Years of Transgender Images on Television.” GLAAD. N.p., 21 Nov. 2012.
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.
West and Zimmerman see everyone as an actor ‘doing’ or preforming their gender, which is similar to the ideas of Judith Butler. West and Zimmerman differentiate sex as the socially agreed on criteria for fitting into being male or female, typically this being genitalia or chromosomes, at birth. Then there is their definition of gender that is to west and Zimmerman, the degree in which an actor is masculine or feminie, in regard to what the social expectation is for each ‘sex category’ (West & Zimmerman, 1991). The sex category is a system in which the assumed sex of an actor is placed based on their body and behaviours. Another strong point that is made by west and Zimmerman is that as humans there is a large need for us socially to categorise things wether and make an assumption on if that category is positive, negative or neutral. We categorise people in ways of gender, race, age, and sexuality or by social class. Because of this need to categorise, there is also an expectation that one will conform to that category, and not act out on it and if you do then, it would be deemed socially unacceptable (West &