Category: Reading Journal

In the reading we learned about feminist philosophy of language. One of the topics was false gender neutrality which I agree with. They tried to make “he” and “man” neutral but it isn’t. Janice and Adele both showed that when using he and man in sentences needed she and woman. I think that a gender neutral term that would be appropriate to refer to both men and women is “a person” or “people”.

Another topic that was read about in the text is Maleness as norm. Like I had said before in  the U.S we do have gender specific occupations in the title. For example, we say garbage man not garbage women or mailman. But then there are titles that do have like a waiter and a waitress. This is probably the most common one used. One reason people don’t like gender specific occupations by the title is that the use of these terms seems “premised on the idea that maleness is the norm, and that women filling these jobs are somehow deviant versions.” But this is also a key objection to the use of ‘he’ and ‘man’ instead of ‘she” or “woman”. 

In this reading, we learn about the feminist approach to the language and psychology of the language. Feminist researchers have shown how language has intentionally or unintentionally created a barrier between the understanding of gender neutrality and made women invisible in this process. This topic was very interesting to me as while reading it, I was comparing it to my own mother language. Especially sex-marking was something I noticed is there even in my mother language. We usually don’t use it as a pronoun but end our sentences with certain words denoted for the specific gender like “cha” for male and “che” for females. But the modern language, like the one we talk back home, only includes “cha” for all gender which I guess shows maleness as a norm but we can also see as a revolution of neutral-gender. Because then we do not need to know the sex of an individual to refer to them.
Using man as a reference to humans has surely made women invisible but it also has highlighted the work women do. Instead of calling a woman just a doctor even in my country, we call them “Doctornee”. The “new” is added at the end because she is a female doctor. We can also take the example of teachers. Most of the school even now in our country calls female teacher miss instead of a professor or teacher. All the highlights in the language of what women do show how language has been dominated by males, whichever language you talk about.
Generic claims are very common everywhere we go, especially regarding femininity and masculinity. Courage and strength are always associated with masculinity and emotions and families are associated with femininity. It is okay for a father not to be close with his children but it’s not okay for a mother to have a distant relationship with her children. As suggested in the reading women take a normative concept, an ideal standard. When I decided to come to the USA I had many people questioning me and telling me, being a girl going away from your family will you be okay? I was kept in the ideal standard of what a girl should be doing, living with their parents and after a while getting married. As I see, generic claims are the stereotypical definition of gender difference. And it states a hypothetical sense in people of what they should be doing.

While reading the article, we learned about the ideas of gender and sex. Researchers use the theories to refine where the different perspectives on sexual orientation derive from. The three theories are biological, psychological, and critical/cultural; the first theory being biological involves the distinction between both men and women are direct inherent and hormonal differences. The society we reside in has specific expectations that are put in place when regarding how genders should act or ultimately behave, who decided what expectations that were put in place should be considered the “standard” of our society and be deemed normal. Everyone should be allowed to freely express themselves and explore their own identity, at the end of the day it is their own self that they are getting to know in life and that should not be anyone else’s concern but that person.

I found myself questioning a number of things and mainly why we focus so much of our attention on other opinions regarding gender and who we want to be; as well as the psychological perspective of how gender is viewed. The psychological perspective which is a crucial point is that gender identity is not actually set at birth and is developed through youth. Gender will always be under pressure due to the constant expectations that society has on them and of course, the expectations that society wants us to meet can not always happen because you don’t choose gender but are who the person is and wants to be and what they truly feel like.

As anthropoids, we need to become more aware of how our own arbitration, impacts other identities. Outer influences of a bystander should not define the person(s) persona but, from within that person.

Throughout my years of living, I thought that gender and sex were synonyms. I realize now through our first chapter “Gender Stories” that sex and gender differentiate; we determine whether someone in our society is male or female via sex but, as we cultivate, adapt to our environment, changes that involve behavior, and the change in our needs, etc. this is what shapes our gender.

We ultimately perceive gender as a man or woman; while reading I see that gender is a rabbit hole that never ends because of everyone else’s opinions and point of view. As society focuses more on gender and sex, we understand well that identifying as a woman or a man is all right, determined by how you view yourself. Self-identity, is an important aspect of our lives, rather than worrying about how other people and society view you.   Additionally, in various cultures, the way kids dress relates to their gender. For example, boys should dress like men and wear hats or colors that you would stereotype with like dark neutral colors or famously blue, etc. Girls of course associate with pink however, these are standards of deemed right by society, and that in turn delivers how we communicate.

In actuality though, this does not determine or define who you are as a person and how you view yourself whether it involves your gender or not. As we continue to learn and understand gender and communication, we can better progress on the topic of human sexuality.

In this perusing, we find out about the speculations of sexual orientation and sex. Analysts utilize these theories to clarify where the different perspective on sexual orientation originates from. For example, we can perceive gender and sex through the lenses of these three theories, biological, psychological, and critical/ cultural. These theories have a tremendous impact on the way we identify our self’s, especially when we try to justify our features. For example, when you see yourself through the lens of the biological theory, we tend to say, “ I was born with whatever biological features, and it’s unchangeable.”
Furthermore, the psychological theory and the Critical/ cultural theory go hand in hand. Psychological theory focus on the internal development triggered by early childhood experience. Critical/ culture is how gender is viewed in different cultures. For example, the ideas of women being home caretakers and men being the provider invite simplistic comparisons that rely on stereotypes to define how women should be perceived in society. These theories emphasize that by the way we communicate, we can construct norms that physiologically can impact the way we see sex and gender and even the way we identify ourselves. Also, we attached to our cultural identity and later on enforced by how we communicate in society. We as humans need to be more aware of how human intercession can impact selves identity and norms. The outer influence of an individual should define no body’s character, but from within. Society has created a lot of stereotypes. No girl or boy should be growing up thinking that boys are not week, and that women are week—all for a better world.

In this reading we learn about the theories of gender and sex. Researchers use these theories to explain where gender  comes from. Three theories are biological, psychological and critical/ cultural. The biological theory states that the distinction between men and women are due to inherent and hormonal differences.” This approach tends to be debatable because it leaves little room for sexual expression and gender because it claims both are dependent on biological makeup. The psychological theory of gender  revolves around the question of whether gender is natural or whether gender is a social constructed category. For example, boys and girls learn to be boys and girls. Because girls are like their mothers biologically they see themselves as connected to her. Because boys are biologically different or separate from their mother, they construct their gender identity in contrast to their mother. According to the cultural theory, children adjust their behavior to match  with the gender norms of their culture from the earliest stages of social development. For example, if a child lives in a very traditional culture they might believe that a woman’s role is to care for and raise children, while a man’s role is in work and industry. Through these observations, children form roles related to what men and women can and cannot do. 

Reading these articles made me again question who decided what was normal? who decided the standard to which we measure “normal” against was a “strong, white, upper-class, rich man?” Why does that make them normal? And those who don’t measure up why are anything but “normal.” People are unnecessarily complicated. People should be allowed to express themselves how they see fit without having someone else tell them they are wrong. People come in different shapes and sizes, different hair color, eye color, and so on and so forth, but we are all people. Not one person, class, race, etc. should be superior over another and it is silly for one group of people to think they are superior. We should all be getting to know about one another so that we can all better co-exist with one another. Like the article states, we need to familiarize ourselves with past transgressions, understand them and then make change so that we move forward in a way that rights a wrong. We shouldn’t dislike others for what they look like or how they dress, speak, eat, traditions and so on and so forth. And I believe this all starts at home and then reinforced in schools beginning with teaching acceptance and respect. Acceptance/respect regardless if you don’t understand. Acceptance/respect regardless if it’s not “normal.” to you. Acceptance/respect regardless if you don’t like/agree. The world is changing and so are we and therefore what was considered “normal” 100, 50 even 10 years ago is not “normal” now. And again, normal can mean so many different things to so many different people. My normal won’t be the same to others. Some may not even agree with how I was raised nor in turn how I raise my sons. But as long as we don’t offend others and impose on others we are entitled to our opinions.

Theories of gender and sex refers to the sex of female and male and how gender is studied. We live in a society were certain expectations have been placed regarding how a women and men should behave and act.

After reading, I question so many things and mainly why we pay so much mind into people’s opinion regarding gender and who we want to be. Now seeing how much people judge different opinions and how much critical things they have to say it is hard not to ignore and be affected by their comments/opinions. Gender can be viewed through different perspectives but the one that caught my attention in this reading which is very important is the psychological perspective because it is said that gender identity is not naturally set at birth  but instead developed through childhood. There are of course different approaches as to how this happens. One being social learning meaning that behavior is mimicked while cognitive development referring to how children adopt gender identification and then perform certain behaviors. To certain extend I agree with this but I also believe that gender identification happens because their body is not the one that they truly are, like it is sometimes said they are born in the wrong body but they truly know who they really are. The example given of a boy deciding not to play with dolls because they know better a way how society sets expectations on genders. A boy playing with dolls is seen as wrong but this action does not necessarily mean that a boy will change their gender.

“Ten responses to phrase ‘man up” is a very beautiful video with a great and powerful message. This being that genders are always in pressure since society sets expectations for genders like I mentioned before, but these expectations cant always be met since genders aren’t chosen, instead they are who we want to be and who we truly feel like.

As stated in chapter 2 it states three theories that are subdivided into the parts for better understanding:
Biological theories: Chromosomes and Brain Development, Psychological theories: Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic feminism: Cognitive Development and Social learning, Critical/Cultural theories: Shared assumptions, Multiracial and global feminists, and queer theory.
Biological theories state that gender is determined by two biological factors: hormones and chromosomes which lead to brain development and create gendered behavior. In psychological theories states the development of human thoughts, emotions, and behavior similarly critical/cultural theories states the reflective assessment and critique of society and culture to reveal and challenge power structures. Despite the major influence and co-relation of all these theories in our life, here I would like to talk about psychological theories more in detail relating to the other two theories. I feel like whatever we do is based on our emotions and our emotions are again affected by the activities that we perform in day to day life. Let us take a basic example. If I do not have enough sleep in the night or have bad dreams, we are going to have cranky morning developing anger or stressful morning. As a human, we develop a different kind of emotions like love, anger, fear, shame, excitement, embarrassment, and so on (social learning). Then it also talks about cognitive development which basically includes how we develop our skills and knowledge to understand what’s going around us which is includes the part of brain development and cognitive development again somehow affected by our social values and norms.
Let’s take a child born in East Asia (example Myself) and a child born here in the United States (example my first cousin). Though we are related by blood due to the differences where we were born, grew up, surrounded by people with totally different social and cultural values, we have totally different perspective. A very common example, while living my life back I develop the very strong emotions of fear. And it’s very common in Asian society. And I am not talking here about the fear that rises due to insecurity but due to physical punishment. Because when we make any kind of mistake either it’s in-home or school, we used to get the physical punishment, so the development of fears is in every single child, in the society where I grew up and so did I. But my cousin grew up in the environment, where she didn’t have to worry about physical punishment, but she did develop the fear in different ways. My aunt used to detent her from going to the swimming class (which she loves the most) if she happens to make a mistake knowingly. Personally, I believe she developed healthier emotions than mine (Just relating with the fear)

SOURCES
Cherry, Kendra. “How Theories Are Used in Psychology.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 3 Feb. 2020, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-theory-2795970#:~:text=In psychology, theories are used, make predictions about future behaviors
“Critical Theory.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 June 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory#:~:text=Critical theory is reflective, by individual and psychological factors.