Gender binary refers to as classification of gender as two opposites and nothing more or less. Society usually differentiates two genders as male and female.
The biological sex is assigned identity and they are expected to play the role based on it. There are several explicit and implicit laws, rewards, and punishments that are certain if a person follows those defined rules or not. There are policies which encourage the gender-specific roles and identity expressions, whereas others that discourage a person from following the role or expressions of the so-called opposite gender-specific roles.
It determines how a person should think, act, and feel based on his/her biological makeup. Therefore, it invades all aspects of an individual’s life. As they are based on age-old setting, tradition and so on therefore, they have institutionalized over the span of time. Parents play the most important role in influencing these socializations based on gender, especially in the early years by rewarding gender-appropriate behavior and punishing gender inappropriate behaviors. For example, it states “Sociologist Karen Martin studied what parents say to their children about sexuality and reproduction, and found that with children as young as three and five years old, parents routinely assumed their children were heterosexual, told them they would get (heterosexually) married, and interpreted cross-gender interactions between children as “signs” of heterosexuality (Martin 2009). This kind of socialization is an additional element of normative sexuality—the idea of compulsory monogamy, where exclusive romantic and sexual relationships and marriage are expected and valued over other kinds of relationships” (Willey 2016). Therefore, heteronormativity surrounds us at a very young age, teaching us that there are only two genders and that we are or should desire and partner with one person of the opposite gender, who we will marry.”
The constraints are faced both, by males and females due to genderism. Genderism isn’t natural but is forced categorization or labeling which starts at an early stage and gets naturalized nature.
But how can we acknowledge and focus on the challenges that men face in our gender binary system without discrediting the challenges that women, transgender people, non-binary people, and gender non-conforming people face?
Gender dictates our dress, private as well as public behavior. However, children who express gender in ways that are perceived to be outside of these social norms often have a very different experience, boys seen as feminine (at any age) face a variety of challenges. Pressures to conform at home, mistreatment by peers in school, and condemnation by the broader society are just some of the difficulties facing a child whose expression does not fall into line with the binary gender system. Masculinity is the qualities associated with being male. It includes strength aggression power. Any deviation from it often results in antagonistic attitudes, prejudice, and mistreatment in public areas or the workplace. Men are expected to show restrained emotional reactions related to fear or sadness. Men who are emotionally expressive are often ridiculed. Moreover, rigid adherence to the norms of masculinity which include “dominance, violence, anti-femininity, emotional control, and self-reliance”, sometimes result in undesirable outcomes like negative emotionality, including depression, aggression and hostility, and poorer overall psychological well-being.
“The social world is complex, and rather than reducing human difference to simple binaries, we must embrace the world as it is and acknowledge the complexity” (Kang 64). The rise in individualistic societies gave rise to individual identity thus bringing in more gender identities such as LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transsexual). These people are otherwise called genderqueer, agender, and bigender. Society at large had trouble initially in understanding and accepting these differences but today, in most of developed countries which are mostly individualistic societies have even legalized the LGBT genders along with the male and female genders. Other countries that are collective in nature and that which are controlled by religion condemn it by saying it is unnatural. Gender labels are, however, needed to have a respectful place for every individual in the society.
Good work. Some of the terms get a little confused at the end of your post, but we will have a reading about identity terms soon that will help you sort through all of that.