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Gender affecting identity
Impacts of feminism on society
What does gender identity mean to a person essay
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Recommended: Gender affecting identity
A significant amount of genders exist, not just the obligatory binary. Society created an illusion of two categories the world’s population supposedly divides into at birth. People feel obligated to follow these fake expectations, feeling trapped or wrong if they didn’t fit in the restricted puzzle of gender identity. Individuals having trouble understanding themselves and their gender show signs of isolation; they believe that they do not belong. No one should experience the inability to express their identity or undergo others looking down on them for not fitting in society’s false rules.
In other words, the existence of gender identity expands out in a spectrum, not binary. This means not simply male and female. A variety of genders now receive recognition, such as transgender, bigender, gender neutral, etc., but don’t appear accepted all throughout the Western culture and most places in the world. With society’s perception on gender roles, individuals assigned with one sex at birth might fit in a completely
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Infamous ones can vary, going from females focused on material objects and considerably weak, or males unable to cry to consider themselves ‘real man’ and not able to wear certain clothes like dresses or skirts. Besides gender, society assigns gender roles to everything: clothes, shoes, colors, everyday objects, and many other unreasonable objects. Currently, feminism plays a large part in gender roles as well. Women most often get subjected to degradation from gender roles, but men experience just as much of this form of harassment. Relating perfectly to gender identity, society’s ‘rules’ destroy the concept of having more genders due to its categories. If inanimate objects need no reason to contain assigned roles, gender shouldn’t either. A person can identify as more than just a female or man and go about with no problems about
Realistically, when someone is more powerful, they have the ability to set the rules. Men have historically held power in society, which means that women did not have as much stance or freedoms as men have had in the past. For example, Canadian women did not have the right to vote until the year 1916. This factor has continued to trail into the present day, creating the ‘weak’ image towards women, overall forcing and pushing men to become the opposite of this factor. Thus, cultural ideals of masculinity rely on the ideas of femininity through patriarchy and gender binaries. The emphasis on characteristics of men are being exaggerated, as society is pressuring men with unattainable standards of masculinity such as being tough, muscular and buff. Men continue to conform to these characteristics, in the fear of being oppressed through exclusion, which only strengthens society’s standards even more. This leads to more societal pressures on men, thus leading men to experience more societal pressures in the fear of feeling excluded. These “systems of inclusion and exclusion are divisions or barriers that prevent people from joining and belonging.” (50). For example, if a man wears nail polish, they may be oppressed and excluded through facing ridicule and bullying, because wearing nail polish is considered “girly”, therefore this boy is rebelling against society’s socially
Fresh from the womb we enter the world as tiny, blank slates with an eagerness to learn and blossom. Oblivious to the dark influences of culture, pre-adult life is filled with a misconception about freedom of choice. The most primitive and predominant concept that suppresses this idea of free choice involve sex and gender; specifically, the correlation between internal and external sex anatomy with gender identity. Meaning, those with male organs possess masculine identities, which involve personality traits, behavior, etcetera, and the opposite for females. Manipulating individuals to adopt and conform to gender identities, and those respective roles, has a damaging, life-long, effect on their development and reflection of self through prolonged suppression. This essay will attempt to exploit the problems associated with forced gender conformity through an exploration of personal experiences.
Gender is such a controversial subject. There are some people who see it as what you are born as whereas other people see it as a choice to be whatever you want. There are people who judge whatever gender you are, no matter the choices you make. Paul Theroux wrote about how restrictive masculinity is in his article “Being a Man.” There are so many more restrictions on being feminine. Theroux’s idea of masculinity being restrictive is being challenged on the account that being feminine is seen as bad, and weak.
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).
As meaning making creatures, humans attempt to categorize and definitively understand anything they observe. Although this crusade for understanding is not inherently bad, it often produces unintended negative consequences. As humans sort, classify, and define everything, they simultaneously place everything into a box that constricts creativity and fluidity. Concerning gender, these boxes create harmful conceptions of each person on the planet. Although these conceptions of gender are constructed and not “real” by any means, they have real implications in the process of socialization that influence how each person lives his/her life. In the United States, the commonly socialized “boxes” of gender have done a great
Prior to the 1970s when the theme of gender issues was still quite foreign, the societal norm forced female conformity to male determined standards because “this is a man’s world” (Kerr 406). The patriarchal society painted the image of both men and women accordingly to man’s approach of societal standards that include the defining features of manhood that consist of “gentil...
"A lot of people see gender as very one-sided, girl or boy, but in reality, even the choices of one, the other, both, or neither just don't feel right.” Many people don’t realize that there are more gender identities than just “male” and “female.” In June 2016, The Williams Institute at UCLA estimated that about 1.4 million US adult’s genders don't align with the one they were assigned at birth. One can identify as the opposite gender from their assigned sex, as no gender, as both, or as a unique identity not so easily categorized.
Imagining if I transformed into the opposite sex for a week, my experiences of truth and reality would be quite different, yet strikingly similar to my life as a woman. Although my peers would accept me the same and know nothing altered, my mindset would have done a complete 180 degree flip. Although it is the expectation that humans identify with a single gender, multitudes of modern Americans refuse to succumb to this idea and prefer to identify with a sense gender fluidity. “The term "gender identity” . . . refers to a person's innate, deeply felt psychological identification as a man, woman or some other gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned to them at birth” (par. 2). Some refuse to accept that gender is as one may say black or white, male or female. However, if I transfigured into a man, I would need to adjust my sense of reality in regards to the new expectations that come with the given gender.
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.
The sex and gender binary is a socially-constructed classification of sex and gender into two distinct and biological forms of masculine and feminine. The binary is a restricting concept that enforces the ideology that solely two genders exist—it is a social boundary that limits people from exploring gender identity or mixing it up (Larkin, 2016). As Mann depicts it, the binary constrains us to take on one gender identity, and to follow through with the expected roles assigned to that gender. The implications are that it compels people to fit into the binary and follow the patriarchal, heteronormative traditions of society (Mann, 2012). However, the binary was not always so clear-cut, but certain concepts from scientific research such as the
there gender. The word “Gender” should be used less and less and individuals should be
Gender identity has been a delicate issue when it comes to determining if a person's gender is set at birth or develops and changes as a person ages. A person’s gender is not as simple as being classified as either male or female. There’s a considerable amount of external factors that can influence someone’s identity. Although society has a major role in gender identity, sex assignment at birth is not final; furthermore, a person's gender can be influenced by psychological, physiological differences and undergoing changes to the human body. A common misconception many people believe is that gender and gender are the same or go hand in hand with one another.
Around the world gender is genuinely seen as strictly male or female. If you step out of this “social norm,” you could be considered an outcast. This disassociation includes, biological males/females, interssexed, and transgendered individuals. These people are severely suppressed by society because their gender identification, behaviors, and even their activities deviate from the norm. Most Americans are exceedingly devoted to the concept that there are only two sexes. Therefore, the constrictive American ideals of male and female gender identities inhibits growth and acceptance of gender expression.
According to Kate Bornstein and their work Gender Outlaw, “the first question we usually ask new parents is: Is it a boy or a girl?” (46). This question creates a sense of a rigid dichotomy, by which individuals must outwardly conform to either being male or female. Individuals who do not prescribe to this binary concept of gender identity find themselves ostracized from much of society – ignored, ridiculed, and laughed at as an insignificant minority. For this group of people, “either/or is used as a control mechanism,” creating a normative group by which power can be derived from (102). According to Bornstein, the concept of the gender binary being the “natural state of affairs” is one of the most dangerous thoughts proliferated about gender within modern society (105). For individuals who do not conform to this socially created structure, they are seen as opposing the natural order of things, and subsequently, their power is stripped by society, and they are deemed as unnatural and inhuman. These oppressive labels create intense feelings of gender dissonance, and the pressure to conform can often overwhelm the individual, directly resulting in often horrific
Gender Theory in Everyday Life”, the various definitions of “trans” depict that it is not possible to place one’s gender into only two categories. In the definitions of “trans”, transformation or transitioning is a common theme. Transforming into their true self or transitioning from one gender to the other. In the third definition, transgendered individuals are seen as transcending gender, thus making gender non-existent; not only to them, but when they view other individuals (Kessler and McKenna 1-2). The individuals in “When Girls Will Be Boys”, had to create a safe space, and find allies that would provide them with resources to help them in their progression as a trans individual. Trans people truly want to be integrated into society, but they are cognisant of the social standards in place that make them othered (Quart 49-50). In the instance of the varied definition of trans and the experiences of people in “When Girls Will Be Boys”, they are all going against the social norms and actively fighting to create a seat at the table. They refuse to to fit in the status quo of accepting that there are only two genders, and one must stay in either category. Instead, they challenge that thinking by being themself, thus having a hand in creating the new norm. These individuals are not passively combating the misconceptions, miseducation, and misinformation. They are actively creating a space for others and themself to grow in self and in