This article, “Gender Stories” by “Dan P. McAdams, Ruthellen, Josselson, & Amia Lieblich, Identity and Story” disputes how gender is a type of characteristics related to and set apart between masculinity and femininity in the beginning our life by society. Depending on the time frame, culture and some people these attributes may include biological sex (like male, female, hermaphrodite, female pseudohermaphrodites and male pseudohermaphrodites), sex-based social structures or gender roles, or gender identity.
Because the article is a little bit confusing for the first couple paragraphs the authors starts by reviewing the conceptualizations of gender for us which are first of all, gender as equivalent to sex which is the physiological aspects a person has that make him or her different from the opposite sex. Biologically speaking there are 2 genders females and males/ feminine and masculine because of our structure anatomy, woman can give birth and man is stronger and more competitive than woman. The second one is gender as separate from sex where society influence your femininity and masculinity and sexuality as well but not biologically determine your sexuality. And the last one is gender as the assignment of meaning to bodies is a way of life, everyday we wake up and put ourselves in different appearances and faces, if we are going to jogging or working out we put act like tough like a man all of us, when we are going to a date we act like we are sweetest person on earth by calling femininity side man or woman. Or are just attracted but the same sex but still identify as man or a woman.
Another influence is identity how a person feels inside and outside who she or he knows him or he self to be when it comes to his or her gender. Even though in our society the genders that are most recognized are male and female there are more than 2 genders in society, gender isn’t about someone’s anatomy, it is about who they identified her himself as male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender etc.…
The authors talk about binary gender is a concept or belief in some countries or culture that there are only two genders and that one’s biological or birth gender will align with traditional social constructs of masculine and feminine identity, expression, and sexuality.
Like in my culture and my country Haiti we have only binary gender maybe because 80 % has no education and information in gender identity, communication and tolerance because we are a 3rd world country. Gowning up I never knew such other gender exists, I always embraced my femininity side without even acknowledged my masculinity side because being a girl or woman is glorified and considered as bless because men value, adore and take care of you physically and mentally like it is an obligation or a law. But when I come in United states it was the total opposite, men over here don’t even about women needs or feelings. I don’t know if it is a bad things or not but I do know in here everybody is equal and because of this equality people can find themselves and identify their inner gender or maybe get lost in their true identity.
The reading is from Gender Stories: Negotiating Identity in a Binary World, a book by Karen Foss and Mary E. Domenico. I also would suggest that MOST western cultures work in a gender binary. We are only recently seeing the wider acceptance of a deeper understanding of gender. In the US, gender is usually talked about in binary terms, too. Even though we will avoid that as much as possible in this course 🙂