Lauren Berg
SOC 310
Reading Response 3
11/10/11
Gender and Society
In the
article Doing Gender, West and
Zimmerman explain the roles of the terms sex, sex category, and gender. In
western society we have placed a lot of importance on these terms and built
around them many our society’s notions of who should be dominating and who
should be submissive. The gender roles discussed in this article give a well
defined outline of societies’ gender interactions, which dominate our daily
lives and effect just about everything that we do.
Sex is
determined by classifying males and females based on biological criteria. A sex
category is “sustained by the socially required identificatory displays that
proclaim one's membership in one or the other category”. Membership in a sex
category assumes the criteria of that sex, weather the person has the criteria
or not. Gender consists of the things we do to make our sex visible and to fit
into the society’s standards of that sex category. We are not born knowing how
to be a certain gender, it is something that we learn; it is an achieved
status.
To step
outside of gender norms is to risk rejection and ridicule, so most people learn
to live under society’s gender criteria. As the article implies, “the most
normal girl is the tom girl”; knowing how to be a gender is not something that
we are born knowing. Being feminine or masculine is a process that is learned
over time. We socialize our children as they grow up in a way so that they
learn to dress correctly for their gender, talk correctly, and behave in a
suitable way. Gender is everywhere, in everything that we do.
Many people
even take gender to an extent of masculinizing and feminizing foods. In that
case, I broke a female gender role today by choosing to eat a more masculine
meal, a big meaty sandwich, instead of a salad. Some gender norms are more
important than others, such as people having the same sex as their sex category.
The book says, “we do not think, ‘Most persons with penises are men, but some
may not be’ or ‘Most persons who dress as men have penises.’ Rather, we take it
for granted that sex and sex category are congruent. Doing gender means
creating differences between girls and boys and women and men, differences that
are not natural, essential, or biological.”
In my
Gender, Social Justice and Globalization class we learned a lot about the
injustices caused by gender throughout the world. Gender varies dramatically
from culture to culture. In many parts of the world, for example, women are
forced into working in brothels, and it is expectable for no one to help them
escape from enslavement and it is expectable for their clients to rape them and
use violence against them.
A big part
of gender how we dress. This varies from culture to culture as well. In western
society it was once only acceptable for women to wear long dresses with corsets
and not allow much skin to show. As time has changed, so has the acceptable
clothing for genders. It is now acceptable for women to wear pants and most
women today do not even own a corset. Under certain sects of Muslim culture a
religious dress attire is expected to be worn, and is often enforced by the
repercussions that are inflicted upon violators. For example if a woman does
not wear her head veil she may be raped or even burned to death, and the blame
would be put on her because she was dressing “promiscuously”. Weather we notice
it or not, we are constantly being oppressed by the gender norms of our
society, such as dress standards. Most people want to fit in so they conform to
society’s standards, and those who don’t face the consequences-weather they be
as mild as a glare or as sever as being burned at the stake.
All
societies divide labor in some way. In the history of western society, men have
typically been the breadwinners and women the housewives. In modern society, it
is typical for both men and women to be breadwinners. Women in the United
States workforce earn on average only 74% of what men make though, and often
still are required to do the same amount of household labor (Light). In
non-western societies women usually also work and do the household duties, but
often make no or little money for their work. Without money they are reliant on
the men in their lives for money and their daily needs. This makes them more
susceptible to domestic violence and other hardships, because they are forced
to comply with their husband to get the money they need to survive.
In American
society, sex, sex categories, and gender are often very delicate topics. People
strive to be masculine or feminine, often going above and beyond the necessary
requirements to fit into a sex category. Men beef up at the gym, and try to act
tough and manly. Women try to get as slim as possible and spend a significant
amount of time on their appearance. The article explains that doing gender is
unavoidable, because of the “social consequences of sex-category membership:
the allocation of power and resources not only in the domestic, economic, and
political domains but also in the broad arena of interpersonal relations”. Because
there are only two accepted sex categories in the United States, male and
female, people that do not fit perfectly into one of these categories tend to
make others feel uncomfortable. The article explains that this is the primary
reason for the oppression of homosexual and transsexual people.
In my
opinion, we take gender too seriously. The people of the United States are
obsessed with gender categories. Everything we do, we do in a gendered way;
“doing gender is unavoidable”. Our society’s gender norms cause much insecurity
for people in their attempt to fit into a gender category, and they also cause
people to feel uncomfortable when others do not properly fit into a gender
category. The book explains that social movements are the best way to get
societies to question existing norms and give social support to people who seek
alternative lifestyles. Gender is constantly changing, but will always be a huge
part of the way the world functions.
