Critical Response Journal #2

Gender is what it means to be a man or woman in today's society. The textbook defines gender as a social characteristic of individuals in our society that is only sometimes consistent with biological sex. Society has created behaviors and attitudes that reflect whether a person is perceived as feminine and masculine based on "norms." The difference between sex and gender is that sex is a biological aspect of determining whether some one is male or female, where gender deals with how society perceives them as male or female. Some one could be biologically male or female, but could be put in to the opposite category based upon their behavior, the clothes they wear and their sexual orientation. A good example of this a flamboyantly gay male who has a high pitched voice, has good taste in fashion and has feminine mannerisms. This gay man is technically male, but to many people in society they have a hard time considering him a man solely based on his "feminine" characteristics. Using this example you can see how closely gender and sexuality go hand-in-hand. Homosexuals are divided in to two genders, masculine or feminine, whether they are gay or lesbian. I say that because even in a homosexual relationship one of the partners is still considered the masculine person in the relationship and the other the feminine person, no matter whether it is a gay or a lesbian partnership. In a heterosexuals relationship, on the other hand, the male is the masculine figure while the female is the feminine figure. In the end the person's sexuality leads society to pass a gender assignment on them whether that gender assignment fits their biological sex assignment.

I've basically explained the aspects of how gender is socially constructed by discussing how society passes judgment on a person based on their behaviors and mannerisms. These expectations of how a male or female should act are taught at an early age and if you don't display these mannerisms you are considered not "normal" and automatically categorized in to the opposite gender. Besides the social construction framework of gender there are other frameworks dealing with how gender is defined. Two other frameworks of gender that are defined in the text are biological and sociobiology/ evolutionary. The biological framework of gender mainly focuses on the role of hormones in the body. These theorists believe that the levels of testosterone/ estrogen in a person can lead to why a person is said to be one gender or the other. For example a biological female may have high levels of testosterone in her body which could cause the female to behave in a more masculine mannerism and the opposite goes for a biological male who may have higher levels of estrogen causing the male to behave in a more feminine mannerism.

The other framework of gender, the sociobiology/ evolutionary displays why a large part of society are heterosexuals. This theory, as defined in the textbook, says that people innately work to spread their genetic material to further their species. This theory correlates to why men try to be seen as a member of the masculine gender and why women try to be seen as a member of the feminine gender to attract members of the opposite sex to reproduce and further spread their genes.

In "Gender in the Transitional World" science and technology were discussed regarding sex and gender. The author discusses that sex and gender are constructs of science. Science mainly focuses on the differences between the sexes which further pushes men to believe that they are superior, because women are different than they are. Science is a very biased subject with men mainly leading the fore front, so it is very easy for them to make biased opinions about how men are better than women. The thing about science is that it is all about theories. Men can easily come up with some random off the wall theory about how they are smarter or some other BS and unless some one takes the time to disprove it people are going to naturally believe it. Technology, on the other hand, basically makes it much easier for people to fit into their gender roles. For example, technology allows people to change their gender and allows people to have better chances at successfully reproducing. Gays or lesbians can go and get a sex change so that they can feel more comfortable in their own skin and finally feel like they fit in to their "gender." Then the whole allowing for people to better reproduce falls under the "normal" gender role that society sees fit for a man and a woman. We discuss science and technology because they hit both sides of the gender biases, one creating gender bias and the other trying to make it easier for some one to fit in to these expectations that are placed upon us by today's society.