The readings for this week brought up some interesting
points and had some similarities with each other. In Gender Trouble there is mention about female and male sexes.
“Gender is the linguistic index of the political opposition between the sexes.
Gender is used here in the singular because indeed there are not two genders.
There is only one: the feminine, the ‘masculine’ not being a gender. For the
masculine in not the masculine, but the general” (Butler, 2006) .
This proves
how society has always felt that we should all be in certain categories during
our lives, and if we are not in the “right” category then we are considered an
other. There was also always the theory that the male gender is the original
and only real gender. That women are just for male pleasure and making babies.
Later the
text reads, “Is there ‘a’ gender which persons are said to have, or is it an
essential attribute that a person is said to be, as implied in the question,
‘What gender are you?’ When feminist theorists claim that gender is the
cultural interpretation of sex or that gender is culturally constructed, what
is the manner or mechanism of this construction? If gender is constructed,
could it be constructed differently, or does its constructedness imply some
form of social determinism, foreclosing the possibility of agency and
transformation? Does ‘construction’ suggest that certain laws generate gender
differences along universal axes of sexual difference? How and where does the
construction of gender take place? What sense can we make of a construction
that cannot assume a human constructor prior to that construction?” (Butler,
2006).
People have
their gender constructed before they are even born. The first question usually
asked when a woman is pregnant is wondering if the baby is boy or a girl. When
the parents find out the gender, then they typically will start to decorate the
nursery and buy items associated with that gender, pink for a girl or blue for
a boy. What if we just stopped doing that? What if we didn’t buy “gender
specific” toys for our children and let them decide what they wanted to like? A
lot of parents will stop a boy from playing with Barbie dolls because they are
supposedly for girls, or they will tell girls that toy cars are for boys. We
should just let them decide what they are interested in rather than convincing
them otherwise to play with or like a certain activity just because it goes
along with their gender.
Intentional Masculinities mentions
values regarding masculinity, “I try not to associate values with gender, I
think that’s where this starts to become trouble. To me, ‘masculinity’ isn’t
about values, it’s about performances. Having said that, I do think that we
need to be very critical and reflective about what kinds of values underpin
those performances, whether those are masculine, feminine, or something else
entirely” (Shadid, 2009) . This statement connects with
Butler when mentioning how we view different genders in a specific way, and
that we usually think those genders have to fit into a certain category to be
considered “normal.” Valuing performance is very important because there are
some men that go above and beyond to act extremely masculine in order to come
off as powerful or in control. A lot of times these acts end up being violent
or offensive to other people around them.
Works
Cited
Butler, J. (2006). Gender Trouble. New York,
NY: Routledge Classics.
Shadid, B. (2009). On The Road To Healing: An Anthology
for Men Ending Sexism. Seattle, WA: Dual Power Press.
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