The conversations surrounding sex, sexuality, gender, and even feminism have grown increasingly complex in recent times. One can begin by analyzing the ideas surrounding sex and gender. Now more than ever, people are beginning to realize and acknowledge that sex and gender are not the same things. These two concepts are often confused, and the article Sex and Gender 101 seeks to provide a basic understanding of the differences between the two and the changes we are seeing in today’s society surrounding both.

The article begins by defining sex. Sex is the biological makeup of an individual and is directly defined as “ the anatomy and physiology. This includes sex chromosomes, sex hormones, sex organs, and external genitalia.’ (Myers, 2016). Myers then discusses sex in detail from differences in sex and even special conditions where a person may be intersex or have male and female reproductive anatomy. Myers ultimately highlights the many differences across people in terms of biology; At the same time, sex doesn’t change or is easily altered. Everyone has a unique makeup, and no two people are exactly alike.

The article then discusses gender, defined as “the social and cultural roles that males and females are expected to subscribe to based on their biological sex. Gender can be broken down into three main categories: gender assignment, gender identity, and gender expression.” (Myers, 2016). While it is no secret that conversations concerning sex are becoming increasingly extensive, especially amongst this new generation, Gender and gender roles have been long debated up until; this very day. The critical difference between the two is that “Biological sex is universal and static. Gender is a cultural construct that shifts between societies and across time” (Myers, 2016). When one looks at the main concepts of gender, which are gender assignment, gender identity, and gender expression, one can notice that all these behaviors are learned based on societal expectations. Gender categories limit simultaneously; this can first be seen in gender assignment, where our sex, male or female, determines the gender we will take on. As individuals, we have no say; our gender is what we are born into. As we grow, we are socialized, carrying out the specific attributes of the gender we closely identify with based on previous association.

 As discussed in the article “ In America, boys are taught and expected to be tough, risk-taking, wild, athletic, strong, aggressive, rugged, handsome, not emotional, messy, loud, heterosexual studs, uninterested in domestic chores and care-taking, unromantic, interested in sports, cars, guns and climbing the corporate ladder, and have an insatiable interest in superheroes and the color blue. On the contrary, girls are taught and expected to be soft, submissive, cautious, delicate, graceful, prim, pretty, weak, passive, emotional, tidy, quiet, heterosexual prudes, interested in domestic chores and care-taking, romantic, disinterested in sports and cars with zero career aspirations and have an insatiable interest in princesses and the color pink.” (Myers, 2016).

 Eventually, these socializations lead to the development of gender identity, which is how an individual sees, but because gender is social, it does not always fit the person. Not every woman is highly feminine is neither is every man. These conflicts in gender ultimately expose how restrictive genders can be and how they create barriers and prohibit individuals from truly living the life they feel best suits them. We see gender identity and gender roles conflict in various concepts such as feminism, which is discussed extensively in the publication Feminism Is For Everybody, which discusses the long history of feminism and feminist and its roles in society and politics but ultimately what this article presents is the feminism is for everybody. It’s rooted in true equality for women and creating a space where all people can exist as themselves. Women, unfortunately, have been hit the hardest throughout history with gender expectations and being held to unfair standards, unlike their male counterparts. Feminism serves to signify that women are just as capable in all sectors as their male counterparts and that gender role ultimately brings about more societal damage than good.

I don’t believe gender roles are inherently wrong, but they should be closely monitored as times change. Gener roles can be restrictive and cause issues in society because they limit our abilities to think beyond whether someone identifies as a ma or woman and what that entails. Overall I believe that gender is what we make it ad if society continues to seek to change the narratives in the right way. Change can flow seamlessly with little conflict surrounding the ideals and people’s personal beliefs and solutions.

Response 1

Bobbie Ann Williams 

Upon reading both articles I’ve learnt a lot of interesting information that I now can partake in conversations of such. In sex & gender 101 began to understand that gender and gender identity is never a set in stone. i also touched bases with different pronouns that’s used or made for a specific individual. Gender or gender orientation define how how you feel an how you identify or refer yourself not how you are seen. And there’s plenty of pronouns that can be used to address such person(she, he are use as neutral pronouns such as “Z” or “they, they, and them)Another topic that was touched which I was really impressed about is that the spoke on race ,sex, sexual orientation etc.

In both readings about the topics sex, an gender/ gender orientation has something in common and that is not being treated equally,for example a guy is labeled as a male because of his outter appearance which are male genitals etc but for that individual might not consider themselves as male. They might consider themselves has females an would like to play that part or even define themselves as. Who am I to Judge anyone ? I would rather an also envoy other to understand an get the knowledge instead of bashing an not knowing. These topics need more light than we might think and with these articles/ readings are the first step of putting this knowledge out in the world.

As I was reading Gender 101 it tells us being women it is hard for us just because we are born one does not mean that we wanted to be one. In the reading it talks about how boys get to go to school, and girls doesn’t get to go to school. The only options were given to us is doing chores at home and no education at all because they don’t think it is very important to us since they have the privilege and we do not, so we don’t get to choose. And so even if we do earn more college degree, we still can’t get an education like men does since they don’t value women’s education. Not only that I feel like women also have a lot of things to do not only stay home doing chores or taking care of their men. I felt like we can have our own jobs and opportunity because we also worked hard for the things we want. The reason why we still fight for freedom because we want to also have an education and have a job and get paid equal hours as men. My Mom said that our brother doesn’t have to do chores because he is a boy but to me that doesn’t mean that he should not be doing anything just because of how gender plays a role. Many of the time I had to explained reason to her is that the chores I do he could also do or help out because it wasn’t fair that my sister and I have to do everything. I feel like if she makes it fair then no one would be mad. In Snapshot one I like how it shows a man doing chores while the women are on sofa reading books well when a men help out doing chores then women wouldn’t have to do so much of thing’s they can also choose what to do. This also tells us that working together makes things easier for one another.

Feminism was and currently is a movement established to end sexism, and achieve social economic and political equality among the sexes. It’s a common misconception that feminism is rooted in misandry, or is anti-men by nature and that all actions are motivated by a hatred for men rather than a hatred for the oppression that benefits men systemically and endangers AFAB people. Bell Hooks in Feminism is for Everybody, explains the growth of feminism and its branches over time, it’s impacts on society as well as the blocks that halt progression. In a society heavily influenced by Chrisitianity, it dictates the population’s social perspective on women’s positions in society in relation to men. However, although feminism has an open ended definition which diminishes the clarity surrounding the purpose of the movement, two types of feminism emerged in this reading. One being ‘Reformist feminism’ and ‘Revolutionary feminism’. Revolutionary being the kind that seeks to abolish sexism and the patriarchy, and reformist reflecting male envy or women constantly seeking the position of men in society. Gender equality and nothing more. Reformist feminism was more easily accepted and did provide progressive change within the workforce but not without having some if not more benefits for white supremacy. “These discussions did not trivialize the feminist insistence that “sisterhood is powerful,” they simply emphasized that we could only become sisters in struggle by confronting the ways women – through sex, class, and race – dominated and exploited other women, and created a political plat- form that would address these differences.” (Hooks 3). 

Shavoya Easy mentioned how gender roles impact our life decisions and when we deviate from them we are reprimanded or looked down upon. An experience I had with this was my experience with P.E throughout my entire 6-12th grade years. I wasn’t good at sports but I had an interest in them, however it was quickly obliterated because of how little patience P.E instructors had for young girls in comparison to the boys. We were expected to fail, to fall behind, and because of this kind of sexism, many girls had accepted this role that was given to us unfairly and decided to never participate at all and sometimes frown down upon those that did, but I believe this was due to stereotype threat as well. They were socialized to believe they were incapable of playing sports because of how much our instructors enforced gener roles, even with their behaviors. It wasn’t always verbal sexism but chuckles or eye rolls whenever a girl was picked for a team or whenever she held the ball, or was too afraid to move on the field because of the intense shouting. I specifically remember my teacher during the fitnessgram announcing that push ups were next, and that the girls in the class would go first. Right after he had said “And that won’t take long” not long after he laughed, and the rest of us did nothing but look at each other in collective anger towards what he just implied. Misconceptions about feminism being anti-male arise because challenging gender roles make those who have male privilege (and people who benefit from these roles) feel as though they themselves are being challenged, which brings out the unnecessary animosity towards feminism and feminists.

Response to Av Thomp’s Snapshot

I definitely agree with your snapshot showing that women rights are human rights. Because women wanted to have their voices heard to be believed in by other people. They constantly struggle everyday to get the same respect like men in the workforce and even in general. Another thing I also wanted to point out is that a group of women who stand together in public areas deserve to have second chances and want to do more than just being ignored by the public. Even so, the fight for feminist rights to be legalized is still a growing issue in the world we live in. Everybody has different opinions about how do people on feminism and how they feel about how its culture and society, it is hard to accept how it works. But hopefully in the future when once that women’s voices of human rights are accepted, it should be legalized that both genders should have the same mutual respect towards each other inside at the workforce.

Jenny Petit-frere

Response to Meiqi chen

I agree with what you said. For a long time women would be like a maid in the house doing everything. While the men would go to work and bring the money home. To bring this further, when we look back women did not have many right at all. For example women were not allowed to work while carrying a baby, Vote, sue for sexual harassment, get fired for being pregnant, and many more.

First of all I want to say I like the picture you picked for this first snapshot, also the color in the background is letting me know that it’s like a girly room. I see that there’s three people in the picture , a young girl, a woman and a man. Starting off with the men he is wearing a waist apron, has a vacuum in his hands and he is lifting the green couch with one hand. The woman in the picture has a book and a drink on her hand while wearing a dress. She is also just sitting on the couch. Lastly, the little girl in the picture is wearing a pink dress while watching T.V.
I can infer that the man is doing all the cleaning while the woman is just sitting. In my opinion I think that all three of them should be helping out each other as a team and not just one person cleaning. Also the woman in the picture is smiling at the men which probably means she is happy that the men are cleaning. It could also be that she is happy because she gets to rest for once. From what I heard back then is that men were embarrassed if they were seen by other people doing what women were supposed to be doing like cleaning or cooking. In my opinion I think that both genders should be able to learn the same things especially at a decent age. Going back to the picture we can see that the little girl is watching t.v, She could also learn and help out with the chores in the households and it’s actually not a bad thing that they learn how to do that it’s more of a helpful thing for themselves. Growing up my mother would show me how to do certain things like washing dishes, laundry, and mopping which are now useful to me in my present life. I wouldn’t know how to do those things without her help. I don’t really agree that men should only go to work and women stay in the household, because both should have the rights to work and could be in charge of the household together. Overall I think that both genders should be treated equally.

CELINA WEVER was right. Just like she said, we girls can’t go out at night, but boys can. Just because in the eyes of the bad guys, we girls are fragile and can easily get and hurt. In the old society, women were supposed to be married to each other and teach children, but men could go to work. If we show our faces, we will be ridiculed like the emperor’s new clothes. But as the times are slowly changing, we women have done a lot of things that their men have not done, or even can’t. Such as childbirth, breastfeeding, etc. What’s more, the bad guys we mentioned earlier think that women are easy to succeed, but they are often unsatisfactory. There are many reports that some bad guys are knocked down by women when they want to rob or sexually assault women.

Keona Malcolm

8/30/21

Intro GWS

Response to  Krysten Mitchell Harris Post 

Gender is a really complex topic to talk about because not everyone shares the same point of view when it comes to Gender identity, Sexual orientation, Gender expression. Especially since people’s perception on gender can be heavily influenced by religion, culture, and experience. 

I feel like I relate to Krysten’s snapshot a lot because also being a black woman , I have experienced hypermasculinization a lot growing up. I have alway been questioned about my gender for the way I dressed, and looked until recent years because the way I dress and my overall appearance has changed. I believe people have attached different characteristics to Femininity and masculinity for decades and centuries now that it has become so normalized and widely accepted that it is hard for people to change the way people view gender and sexuality. 

“In America, boys are taught and expected to be tough, risk-taking, rowdy, athletic, strong, aggressive, rugged, handsome, not emotional, messy, loud, heterosexual studs, uninterested in domestic chores and care-taking, unromantic, interested in sports, cars, guns and climbing the corporate ladder, and apparently have an insatiable interest in superheroes and the color blue.

On the contrary, girls are taught and expected to be soft, submissive, cautious, delicate, graceful, prissy, pretty, weak, passive, emotional, tidy, quiet, heterosexual prudes, interested in domestic chores and care-taking, romantic, disinterested in sports and cars with zero career aspirations and apparently have an insatiable interest in princesses and the color pink.”https://www.raisingzoomer.com/article/2016/1/6/sex-and-gender-101

These are some examples of harmful gender stereotypes that have been taught and are constantly pushed by society which creates inequality between both genders. I believe by teaching the future generation about gender equality we can eliminate gender stereotypes, gender inequality etc…

One example of gender stereotypes about women is that women should cook, clean, stay home and take care of children. There are over 145,115 chefs currently employed in the United States. 25.8% of all chefs are women, while only 70.3% are men. The average age of an employed chef is 39 years old. Society pushes the idea that women should cook but 70 percent of chefs in America are men. When women do their job but when men do it, it’s a career. Not to mention intersectionality so regardless if you are a woman or a man your race can affect how you are treated.The most common ethnicity among chefs is White, which makes up 57.3% of all chefs. Comparatively, there are 17.4% of the Hispanic or Latino ethnicity and 11.0% of the Asian ethnicity.White, 57.3% and 15% of all chefs are LGBT.

• Hispanic or Latino, 17.5%
• Asian, 11.0%
• Black or African American, 10.9%
• Unknown, 2.5%
• American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.8%

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the pay gap between women and men. In 2021, women earned 93% of what men earned. Even if women and men work the same job, men still get paid more even if they do less work in that field.