Question 1: How do systems of privilege and oppression function in our society? How do we combat these systems? 

   Whether intentional or not, privilege and oppression can be observed in nearly all facets of society today as it was in the past. Systems of privilege and oppression function according to unequal power and benefits to groups or members based on perceived social constraints while limiting the same to other members. Privilege is an advantage given to people because of their social group or race. These privileges are sometimes unearned and exclusive to them. In our society, the system of privilege focuses on identification and dominance. Privilege allows members to enjoy some favor or preferential treatment while denying the same to other members. When we look at the system of white privilege, it is supposed to be white-dominated, and only white people are meant to occupy positions of power no one else. Been a white open different opportunity for them which are sometimes not earned but are just given to them because they are white. This can be related to our reading “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh which she said, “I have come to see privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day.” Been white according to Peggy McIntosh set one aside for different opportunities and protection. On the other hand, oppression is exerting discriminative and often an unjust force on people through a combination of systemic power and prejudice. It is the union of prejudice that creates a system that discriminates against other groups and benefits another group. This system of oppression is mostly seen within people of color and people who identify with different sexualities. Been black or a woman opens one to the risk of being oppressed. Frye’s article “Oppression” explains diverse ways women are being oppressed in society, she said “If a woman is heterosexually active, she is open to different condemnation from people and sometimes can be called different names like a “Whore, loose or unprincipled.” A lot of women are always oppressed no matter the choice they make or choose whether right or wrong. 

  The only way society can combat and fight such systems is by speaking up when oppression is observed. Sharing resources and amplifying the voices of the marginalized while offering them support can help eradicate oppressive systems. Also, coming together and accepting one another no matter our race, gender, or color we are all one and we ought to have the same opportunities as others. 

Question 2: What is the concept of intersectionality and why is it important in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies? 

   Intersectionality refers to a critical framework for gaining insight regarding how various elements of an individual’s social and political identities integrate to generate various aspects of discrimination and privilege. According to Kimberle Crenshaw, the concept of intersectionality “identifies a mode of analysis integral to women, gender, and sexuality studies. Within an intersectional framework, race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and other aspects of identity are considered mutually constitutive.” Intersectionality is a new concept catching up within our social setup that tries to show the commonalities in a different kind of oppression. The concept aims to help society combat oppression by demonstrating that all oppressive acts based on race, gender, or other are linked in one way or another. Discrimination against women occurs in nearly all societies globally. Frye’s article “Oppression” talks more about this too which said, “Being a woman is a major factor of not having a better job, being a woman selects one as a likely victim of sexual assault or harassment; it is being a woman that reduces the power of anger to proof of insanity. If a woman has little or no economic or political power or achieves little of what she wants to achieve, a major causal factor in this is that she is a woman. For any woman of any race or economic class, being a woman is significantly attached to whatever disadvantages and deprivations she suffers, be they great or small”. Intersectionality is important because it gives permission to the fight for gender equality to become inclusive. It is also important in women’s gender & sexuality studies because it helps us identify and understand the complexity of prejudices people of color & women face in society. It explains the fact that people are often disadvantaged by multiple ways of oppression which includes their races, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, etc.  

   Being able to understand intersectionality is important in order to fight the prejudices people face daily. The idea of gender and the way a person’s gender is explained by others always have an influence on the idea of race and how race is interpreted. So, the idea of black and white most often impacts gender experience and there is no gender experience that is outside of race. Our experience of gender is often constructed by our age, sexuality, class, and our ability; in the same way, our experience of race is also influenced by gender, age, class, sexuality, and ability. Through intersectionality, oppressive practices against women and other marginalized groups will get the platform to be addressed through speaking up and initiating action to dismantle them. 

Question 3: Why is it important to recognize patriarchy as a system and not an individual identity? 

   Patriarchal systems allow male dominance over females by giving them primary powers in decision making, leadership, property ownership, and other social privileges. Patriarchy is a socially constructed system that affects both men and women in many ways although people see it as male domination over women and because of that should not have any effect on men rather it should give them more power and authority over women. This is wrong thinking because patriarchy is not an individual thing rather it is a system, it is something been given to people by society, and no matter how people try to run away from it, they still come back to it because that is how the system has made it and that can never be changed unless the people who made it change. It has been forced on people and they have no choice but to go with it. In our reading on “Patriarchy, the System” Allan Johnson also explains the concepts of patriarchy and said, “We are involved in patriarchy and its consequences because we occupy social positions in it which is all it takes. Because patriarchy is by definition a system of inequality organized around culturally created gender categories, we cannot avoid being involved in it. All men and all women are therefore involved in this oppressive system and none of us can control whether we participate or not.”  

  Patriarchy is more important and recognized as a system than an individual because traces of patriarchal practice can be observed in nearly all facets of society. Patriarchy is not just done by men it is given to people by society, and they have no choice but to go on with it and if we are unable to change those who made it, they will continue to give it. Addressing patriarchy as a system will allow society to recognize the existence of oppressive practices that are subtle or conspicuous and encourage people to speak up against them. Only through shedding light and talking of patriarchy as a system and not individual identity can we initiate the changes we all wish to see in society. 

Question 4: How is gender constructed and learned in our society? How do we perform gender? 

  Gender in society is constructed by categorizing people through assumed characteristics and physical features seen as either male or female. This includes their behaviors, norms, and roles that are being given to women, men, boys, or girls as well as the relationship between each other. Gender is constructed by social expectations and our gender performance in society. Gender is also constructed based on the sex people are born with. If a baby is born with a female/girl reproductive organ, then your gender is female and if the baby is born with a male reproductive organ, then that automatically makes the baby male/boy. This is what society believes and this is what they also teach us to believe because that is the only gender approved and recognized in our society. Whatever gender we are born with society expects us to act according to it. People are taught to behave and do things according to their gender and are not expected to act otherwise. According to “Sex & Gender 101-Raising Zoomer, our society teaches and expects “boys to be tough, strong, risk-taker, and aggressive while girls are taught and expected to be soft, submissive, weak, delicate, and interested in domestic chores.” Also, society teaches people that as women we are expected to be under men and see them as the head and must always be obeyed. We also see gender at work in our education system and workplace. A lot of women are really struggling in other to fit in into the society or workplace where men are seen as the head. Sometimes we see women who work much more hours than men but their still get paid little while the men get paid higher because of the belief that a woman’s work should be at home taking care of the children, cooking, cleaning, and so on. When it comes to education women are always the best, they come out with good results than most men but when it comes to giving out jobs men are more favored than women sometimes even if they have better qualifications than men. Our society constructs gender in such a way that it is exceedingly difficult for women to belong or hold important positions in the country.  

In many ways, we perform our gender without even knowing that we are. Gender is performed by exhibiting certain behaviors deemed masculine or feminine. We perform this gender by the way we sit, the way we dress, what we drink, what we like to do, and what we listen to and watch. Also, the way we act, walk, or talk gives people an idea of what gender we belong to and act upon. Clothing is also another way gender practices; for instance, wearing dresses is seen as a female identity. Roles in society are also subjective to classification as either manly or womanly, with some seen as a man’s job and others as women. All these practices help perform gender within society.  

Question 5: What is the difference between sex and gender? How are sex and gender conflated (converged and confused) within our culture? 

   Sex is a label given to someone after birth based on the reproductive system/organ they are born with and this label is divided by society into two groups, “Male & Female.” Sex is also the physical or biological feature present in humans and animals. Features such as chromosomes, hormonal level, and gene expression are some of the identities which help differentiate people as belonging to one sex and not the other. Gender goes way beyond one’s reproductive organs rather it’s about a person’s understanding of their roles in society, and their experience of themselves. Gender is a social construct that is shaped in a way in which men & women are expected to act based on their sex. Gender is a societal understanding and classification of people based on activities and other behaviors as either masculine or feminine. It influences how people see themselves and others, how they act & interact with one another, and how power & resources are distributed in society. Some examples of these gender & sex responsibilities can be related to the reading on “Sex & Gender 101-Raising Zoomer which tells us that “If a baby appears to be biologically female, they are assigned a feminine gender and if a baby appears to be biologically male, they are assigned a masculine gender and then allowed to socialize according to the gender roles of the culture they were born into.” Also, immediately after a baby is delivered, they are outfitted with their colors (a blue T-shirt for a boy or pink headband for a girl) so there can be no confusion in identifying the sex and gender of the child. Assigning colors to babies enforces a rule that they are meant to grow into it. If you are a girl, you must wear pink and if you are a boy, you must like blue and cannot use anything belonging to a girl like toys. We can relate this to our weekly reading on “Beyond the gender binary by Alok Vaid-Menon which said, “Babies are born and divided into one of two categories. These categories of boy or girl affect how we treat the baby when they cry, what clothes we dress the baby, what toys we allow the baby to play with, and so on” (pp.29). She also talked about how before a baby is born, well-wishes and family often ask, “is it a boy or a girl” (pp.29) because babies become more important when their gender is known and knowing if the baby is a boy/girl is also part of the culture. 

  Sex and gender are often conflated in our cultures and can manifest in certain ways, such as mode of dressing, names, and roles. For instance, dressing in certain ways or certain clothes are connotations associated with either masculinity or femininity. When one is born, they are expected to act based on their sex and gender roles been given to them by their society or culture because traditionally one can only belong to two genders either a boy or a girl, and anything out of that is not recognized as gender or sex. In a traditional culture, people are expected to exhibit a certain personality or behavior based on their sex or gender and if they do not, they are punished or pressured. 

Question 6: What is a double bind? How do double-binds function within our society? 

   Double binds are situations mostly experienced by oppressed people. And according to our weekly reading on “Oppression,” Frye discusses the idea of the double bind and referred to it as the “Situations in which options are reduced to a very few and all of them expose one to penalty, censure or deprivation.” Frye uses this double bind to apply to the gender and dilemma women face today. A double bind is also a confrontation of two activities or choices with neither having a desirable outcome nor result. They are of conflicting choices and dilemmas that people face, and neither is of a lesser evil. Double binds manifest in situations that choosing one over the other will cause a failure of the other. It is a situation that demands one to make a choice, and whichever choice, a person will still lose out on the other. A double bind in society involves people making compromising decisions with their choices, such as a woman who stays in an abusive relationship to make her children happy or for financial reasons. Also, in our society today, double-bind functions and can be seen in the way women are treated and oppressed in society, unlike men.  

   We live in a society where it is neither acceptable for a woman to be sexually active or for them to be sexually inactive and still get called different names. Whether they get married to young or old men, women still get oppressed for no reason. Women are caged and meant to follow every instruction of men if they like it or not and they had no choice to either respond to or to resist. In our society “Women experience double bind not only on a small scale but also at a larger level where choosing an option that is not accepted by the society could lead to fatal consequences.”