Monday, December 1, 2014

Sex and Gender Theories by Karen Arias

Sex and gender have always been of great importance to us. We want to know the sex of our unborn child. We want to know their gender. But we end up confusing the meaning of one's sexuality and one's gender. This could stem off from gender performativity as well. People often times get confused with their meanings which leads to theories of how gender and sexuality of a person came to be. Is a person straight, gay, both, or neither. Is a girl supposed to be doing what every girl should be doing, or can she do what boys do. Can a boy perform in a feminine manner in the world? Sex and gender are different things, but over time we have taught ourselves that they have to intertwine.

 For example sexuality by definition could be one's sexual interests or preferred sexual orientation. "Sex refers to biological differences between males and females. For example, chromosomes (female XX, male XY), reproductive organs (ovaries, testes), hormones (oestrogen, testosterone)." (Saul McLead, Simplypsychology.org).  However, gender is different, because it is what society expects from the certain sex that you are. As it is said that gender is performative. If you are born female you have to do what every female is expected to do, and the same goes for those born as males.  Gender is a social construct. As I mentioned it is what society thinks is normal and suitable to go along with your sex. 


Is the distinction of gender and sex important? 

Judith Butler has stated that "biological sex" and "social gender" are both constructed within a society. That there is no difference between them. "When the doctor calls a newly born infant a girl or a boy, s/he is not making a descriptive claim, but a normative one... In effect, the doctor's utterance makes infants into girls or boys. We, then, engage in activities that make it seem as if sexes naturally come in two and that being female or male is an objective feature of the world, rather than being a consequence of certain constitutive acts (that is, rather than being performative). And this is what Butler means in saying that physical bodies never exist outside cultural and social meanings, and that sex is as socially constructed as gender. She does not deny that physical bodies exist. But, she takes our understanding of this existence to be a product of social conditioning: social conditioning makes the existence of physical bodies intelligible to us by discursively constructing sexed bodies through certain constitutive acts." (Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender). We can see here that basically sex is gender. That the distinction of sex and gender hold a way of dualistic thinking. Yes, it is quite a controversial topic given the fact that most people will say that they were born this way or that its purely natural, whereas others would say that it is just another socially constructed way of thinking. 



Throughout time there have been many ways to think of gender and sexuality. Whether or not they are different or are truly intertwined. Some people believe sex is biological and gender is socially constructed. Others believe that both socially constructed. Many theories have been made. With these theories came the idea how a woman and man should act. How the mind of a woman differs from that of a man. Other people tend to analyze why some theories work and others don't. There are may theories people tend to believe, analyze, and make. We live in a society where people will go back and forth with this argument. And I guess there is no true answer, because maybe we will believe one thing and not the other and maybe we will change our minds, given that there are many more other theories people claim are true. In my opinion we all are just human and we can be whoever we want to be, act the way we want to act, and just be ourselves and however we feel comfortable. 

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