Gender

Gender is the learned social, psychological, and cultural traits that are associated with one gender or the other (Bond, 2011). Contrary to popular belief, gender is not the same as one’s sex, because sex refers to the biological categorization of sex, rather than the mental aspects. Gender has been different throughout history, and as mentioned it is learned and a product of how someone is raised, and it is typically self identified. Roles of different Genders are different depending on the culture, and surroundings of the person being raised or taught what men and women are typically supposed to do. Since the 1960s and 1970s there has been a movement toward more androgenized society, although it has not been realized. It has been proven that people are more successful if they are taught values that are associated with masculinity or androgyny. ** Gender Roles ** Gender Roles are taught to children, who eventually teach their children, certain roles that someone should play as a “Man” or a “Woman.” The roles that each play vary from culture to culture, and really comes down to the preference of the parents, and what they want to teach their children. There are certain actions, and ways of thinking about things that are assigned to each gender, and it a culture may be intolerable of differences to the typical gender roles, although others are more open to it. An example of one of these atypical gender roles are that of gay men, and participating in drag contests (Hillman, 2011). This is an example of men fulfilling female gender roles, so while their sex is still male, their gender is typical of a woman. In Western society men are traditionally taught to be independent, resilient, and powerful, whereas women are taught to be polite and quiet. Gender stereotypes are the factor that makes gender roles happen in society, and those are learned through parents, peers, teachers, and forms of Media (Witt, 1997). The most important factor in determining the gender of a child is their parents, and what they do. How someone decorates their child’s room is an action that reinforces what their child is learning, such as putting a doll house in a girl’s room, or decorating their son’s room with images of cars and super heroes. What the other factors do is mostly reinforce what the parents teach their children. There are benefits to breaking free of gender stereotypes, because in keeping with these stereotypes, talents and goals of the children may be overlooked. For example, with typical gender roles, if a girl is more motivated, and wants to become an Engineer later in life, their parents may discourage them and say that she should maybe do something else instead, whereas if they did not follow those traditional gender roles they would encourage her, and help foster the skills that she would need to further advance her ambitions toward that career choice. ** History ** For a long period of time gender and sex were considered essentially the same thing, which included both physical and cultural characteristics and roles that males and females typically assumed. Generally perceived as a result of the feminist movement, there became an increased need for a separation of the common roles of a sex, and the physical characteristics, thus leading to the use of the terms gender and sex. Part of the reason that this movement happened was a rise of women in different professions, and being able to see the inherent sexism that was going on at the time (Ditz, 2004). Soon afterward scholars started revisiting history books, and started to try to have a more balanced and realistic view of history, including both male and female roles. This change in ideology is also a response to the previously mentioned gender roles, because the values taught to women are very inhibiting to personal success in the business world when dealing with men who were typically taught different values. This set the groundwork for the Feminist movement, and other social movements around the time, that fought against these typical roles. ** Modern Gender Reconstruction ** Since women have entered the work force, it has been concluded that American society’s thoughts about gender roles have started to become less pronounced, and there is more room for changing these typical roles (Carter, 2009). Also according to Carter, there are more people who are likely to want to have a woman president, and think that men and women have more interchangeable places in society than ever before in American history. Some scholars suggest that this change also has burdens attached to it. It is suggested that in modern American culture Men are supposed to take on some roles of women, and vice versa, while keeping their traditional gender roles (Tragos, 2009). The author of this study suggests that this is making it more difficult for both genders, while others argue that gender identity should be done away with all together (Rasmussen, 2008). It could be argued that since each gender is taking on roles of the other, it could be making for a more level playing field for everyone, although there is evidence to say that the masculine aspects of society are still in place, and still are very inhibiting for women. There are still some tensions in society, especially to do with people who take on gender roles that are completely opposite of what their typical gender roles, as mentioned with the Drag Show example. With this there are also practices such as Gender Silence that are gaining more ground (Davidson, 2009). What this includes is not fulfilling the typical gender role of your society, but not being completely up front about this to everyone, so the idea that a specific person could be fulfilling their typical role, while actually not. Currently Gender in the western world is at a crossroad, and is transitioning between gender roles, and starting to stray away from the previous concrete roles, and it gives room for more experimentation. Another important issue with gender is what to do in cases of intersexuality (Eder, 2010). In the past it was common to assign a child a gender role if they were born intersexual, but more recently research has said that it is more beneficial to let the child decide themselves what to do. In the past they also tended to surgically alter the child so their gender and sex matched.
 * Gender **

**__ Works Cited __** Bond, B. (2011, February 21). //Lecture on Sex and Gender.// Urbana, IL: University of Illinois. Carter, J. S., Corra, M., Carter, S. K. (2009). The Interaction of Race and Gender: Changing Gender-Role Attitudes, 1974-2006. //Social Science// //Quarterly,// 90(1), 196-211. Davidson, S. M. (2009). Mouths Wide Shut: Gender-Quiet Teenage Males on Gender-Bending, Gender-Passing and Masculinities. //International Review// //of Education,// 55, 615-631. Ditz, T. L. (2004). The New Men’s History and the Peculiar Absence of Gendered Power: Some Remedies from Early American Gender History. //Gender & History,// 16(1), 1-35. Eder, S. (2010). The Volatility of Sex: Intersexuality, Gender and Clinical Practice in the 1950s. //Gender & History,// 22(3), 692-707. Hillman, B. L. (2011). “The Most Profoundly Revolutionary Act a Homosexual Can Engage in”: Drag and the Politics of Gender Presentation in the San Francisco Gay Liberation Movement, 1964-1972. //Journal of the History of Sexuality,// 20(1), 153-181. Rasmussen, M. L. (2009). Beyond Gender Identity? //Gender and Education,// 21(4), 431-447. Tragos, P. (2009) Monster Masculinity: Honey, I’ll Be In The Garage Reasserting My Manhood. //The Journal of Popular Culture,// 42(3), 541-553. Witt, S. D. (1997). Parental Influence on Children’s Socialization to Gender Roles. //Adolscence.//