Throughout history, we have seen the same stereotypes placed on gender, men should be strong and brave. They are the ones that support their families while women are the caregivers and the nurturers and handling the household. According to Emily Kane in “Glamour Babies” and “Little Toughies”, “gender is not a straightforward amplification of underling biological differences between male and females; rather, gender is constructed through social processes and enforced through social mechanisms.” With that being said Kane feels that we should not limit ourselves to those preconceived notions of what men and women can do. According to Kane, we should not believe that men and women could not develop certain mental or psychological attributes merely because of their sex. This mean that we do not have to fall into the trap of preconceived notions, such as; if we are born a girl we will love the color pink and do poorly in mathematics.
“Gender is fundamental to the human experience, and society has created such a distinction between the two that the lack of neurological information regarding the differences between the developing sexes creates a remarkable paradox” (Glaeser, 2011, p. 2). Males and females are thought of to be vastly different in terms of “their personality, abilities, interests, attitudes, and behavioural tendencies” (Zell, n.d., p. 3), as well as their “interruption, risk taking, helping behaviour, leadership styles, body image, intelligence, occupational stress, jealousy, and morality, among other topics” (Zell, n.d., p. 9). However, it is society’s strict gender roles that seem to keep males and females from having close to anything in common with each other. “Gender roles involve the degree to which people adopt stereotypical masculine versus feminine traits, behaviours, and interests, rather than their gender identity (i.e., whether they identify as male or female”
Gender is it a concept or is it made apparent by our DNA when you are born or does it change as you grow older? Often gender is something that society defines at birth. According to society certain gender roles are pre established when we are born. The majority of society believes that if you are born to a specific gender you should adhere to the gender roles while other people believe that instead we may be born to a gender but it does not always decide if you are that gender. Science has proven that just because you are born a male or female does not mean that you mentally see yourself as that gender.
This essay focuses on the extent to which men and women conform to their gender roles in the western culture. Generally, we see people swapping the words ‘gender’ and ‘sex’, which is wrong. We are born with a sex allotted to us. Both ‘biological sex’ and ‘gender’ are distinctive. Gender is not associated with one’s physical constructive, then again, it is far more confounding.
According to sexologists John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, sex and gender are separate categories. “Sex, they argued, refers to physical attributes and is anatomically and physiologically determined. Gender they saw as a psychological transformation - the internal conviction that one is either male or female (gender identity) and the behavioral expressions of that conviction” (Sterling 4). Although there are biological differences between the two sexes, but gender roles are socially constructed. They determine how males and females should think, speak, dress, behave and interact with society.
Who one loves and/or is attracted to is not indicative of woman nor man. Gender and sexuality, unlike performative acts, style, or patriarchal definitions and standards of woman are involuntary, decided by an individual’s genetics and DNA. A woman doesn’t lose or forfeit womanhood because she loves another woman, she merely performs and defines her own womanhood differently. Gender too has no say in the definition of womanhood. Male born individuals define themselves as woman via their attitude, style, gestures, performance, as well as through corrective surgery to make the physical body reflect the internal identity.
(Reading, 2014) Defines gender identity as “a personal conception of oneself as male or female (or rarely, both or neither)”. Gender expression, which is defined as the ways in which we each manifest masculinity or feminity or the outward manifestations of personality that reflect the gender identity. Sex is either of the two categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions. In this essay, gender identity, gender expression and biological sex will be critically evaluated and examples will be given in order to distinguish between gender identity and gender expression. Gender is a socially constructed way of seeing a person as either male or female.
1 / 2 GENDER AND SEX In the 21st century, the words gender and sex have a fine line of difference between them. Though the words might look same but one is used to depict the social status and the other one is used to depict the biological status. Where 'Sex' talks more basically about the physical traits, 'Gender' carries a social tone. We have things decided for us even before we are born. Our food choice, clothes, school, name, career, etc.
Each person should be taken as an individual, and the media has started to reflect these views in all areas. Even if cultural manipulation does not exist, there still would be differences between males and females. In conclusion, I would like to reiterate my assertion that the gender roles are a social construct. Gender roles are not innate. It’s almost as if Draco himself established these gender roles, and death was the penalty for opposing his law.
A few years later, the children declare themselves as boys or girls and behave as such. The Human Rights campaign define gender identity as “One 's innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One 's gender identity can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth.” For years the origin of gender identity has been studied from different sciences such as biology, sociology, anthropology and psychology but this query hasn’t been totally clarified yet. There has been a lot of controversy regarding the influence of nature and environment on the development of gender roles. The Planned Parenthood Corporation of America Incorporation states the following about gender roles: “Gender roles in society means how we’re expected to act, speak, dress, groom, and conduct ourselves based upon our assigned sex.