Race has been defined as the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. This has produced the view that Euro-Americans’ social, cultural, and economic advantaged position must be maintained at the expense of others as the normal life. The influential power of race, gender and class are explained and illustrated through the collection of essays. The dynamics of power are divided based on different social classifications. Concrete Responses The essays included present a compelling but biased study within the context of class, race and gender.
Feminist theory is one of the major contemporary sociological theories, which analyzes the status of women and men in society with the purpose of using that knowledge to better women's lives. Feminist theorists have also started to question the differences between women, including how race, class, ethnicity, and age intersect with gender. Feminist theory is most concerned with giving a voice to women and highlighting the various ways women have contributed to society. There are four main types of feminist theory that attempt to explain the societal differences between men and women: Gender Differences: The gender difference perspective examines how women's location in, and experience of, social situations differ from men's. For example, cultural feminists look to the different values associated with womanhood and femininity as a reason why men and women experience the social world differently.
Are gender and sex the same thing? Explain why or why not? According to "Eldis" (2013), “'Gender' refers to the socially constructed roles of and relations between men and women. , while 'Sex' refers to biological characteristics which define humans as female or male.” (1) Gender and sex are similar but they are not the same thing. I say this because a person can have the sexual characteristics of a man but still have the gender of a woman e.g.
The gender system is deeply entwined with social hierarchy and leadership because gender stereotypes contain status beliefs that associate greater status worthiness and competence with men than women. This review uses expectation states theory to describe how gender status beliefs create a network of constraining expectations and interpersonal reactions that is a major cause of the “glass ceiling.” In mixed-sex or gender-relevant contexts, gender status beliefs shape men’s and women’s assertiveness, the attention and evaluation their performances receive, ability attributed to them on the basis of performance, the influence they achieve, and the likelihood that they emerge as leaders. Gender status beliefs also create legitimacy reactions that penalize assertive women leaders for violating the expected status order and reduce their ability to gain complaince with directives. More than a trait of individuals, gender is an institutionalized system of social practices for constituting males and females as different in socially significant ways and organizing inequality in terms of those differences (Ridgeway & SmithLovin, 1999). Widely shared gender stereotypes are in effect the “genetic code” of the gender system, since they constitute the cultural rules or schemas by which people perceive and enact gender difference and inequality.
In order to build background knowledge to audiences, Michael Cramphorn first introduce how the gender different in psychological aspect. Michael highly supported Simon Baron-Cohen’s idea, which is about “Gender Different in brain” (Cramphron 148). He is a psychopathologist of University of Cambridge, and he indicated that different structure of brain between male and female result in primarily different personality and reaction of life. Even though Michael is not professional in this field, his objective and informative tone is persuasive for our readers to understand and believe the gender difference has existed when we at birth. For example, Michael indicated that “Gender difference caused by chromosome.
Robert Stoller, an American psychoanalyst argued in his study of ‘sexual identity’ that “Gender is a term that has psychological or cultural rather than biological connotations. If the proper terms for sex are ‘male’ and ‘female’, the corresponding terms for gender are ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’; these latter might be quite independent of (biological) sex”. (Furze. B, 2008, p. 9). Hence, the socialisation of women placing them into traditionally “feminine” roles assists in the perception of being the one that “cooks and cleans” whereas with men it is the complete opposite, undertaking the roles of “breadwinner and protector”.
“Gender is a term that has psychological and cultural connotations. Gender is the amount of masculinity and femininity found in a person, and, obviously, while there are mixtures of both in many humans. The normal male has a preponderance of masculinity and the normal female a preponderance of femininity.” (Stoller, 1968, pp 9-10) Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women. It is a constructed category that is culturally defined as masculine and feminine. When it comes to gender, there is no one single masculine or feminine identity.
Therefore, this paper will analyze further the lyric of Beyonce’s song “If I Were a Boy” which responds to the gender issue in United States. This song is about the feeling of a girl when she wants to be a boy. The lyric is closely related to the gender issue because there are many phrases or sentence which represent the gender role of man. As Beate Krais (2006) stated that ‘the construct of the social role is, as is apparent in the use of the term “actor”, a specifically sociological variant of the paradigm of rules and norms as the mechanisms that transform individual action into social action” (Krais: 2006, p. 125). It indicates that the role of individual in social life is based on the social paradigm which constructs the action in society.
Lea Cherbaka February 17, 2010 Reaction Paper – The Social Construction of Gender “I am arguing that bodies differ in many ways physiologically, but they are completely transformed by social practices to fit into the salient categories of a society, the most pervasive of which are “female” and “male” and “women” and “men (Lorber 1990, 10).” The first thing that comes to people’s minds when they think of “the social construction of gender” is the characteristic that is normally associated with men and women. For example, men are strong and women are sensitive. In her article, Judith Lorber discusses the inequality between the genders and how society is the factor that has created such a divide between males and females. When reading this article I thought that Lorber provided a lot of examples for her argument, which allowed me to relate to many of them. For example, one of the main points she touched upon was the male dominance in sports.
What is Gender ? Gender means those characteristics which defines or explains if someone is masculine or feminine according to their behavioral differences, for example how they dress or act towards others, the kinds of work they do and their status in society. Gender refers to the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men. Some critics argue that gender roles in modern society are based on women being inferior to men. I agree because of a countless observation at social arenas, such as workplace, the average household, educational institution, and even in our nation’s government.