Reading the prompt for the first time—I’m not going to lie—I thought there was a pretty obvious answer: gender is just another term for sex. Male or female. Wow, that’s an embarrassing confession. Embarrassing because it makes me realize that I’ve never truly thought about what “gender” means. Gender must mean so much more than just the presence of certain anatomical features—after all, why is it that inanimate objects such as ships are named for females? Certain spanish words considered male? Colors like pink reserved for girls? All of these societal occurrences point to the idea that gender is actually determined by a number of characters. Maybe these characters are the inclinations that we are all born with, maybe they’re shaped by anatomy and public expectations, or maybe they’re assumed for personal reasons.
I have always found it fascinating that certain individuals experience the feeling that they were “born in the wrong body.” These are people who recognize that they identify with the inclinations of the gender opposite of their own—whether it’s a young boy who knows that he wants to wear dresses and not pants or an adult who opts to undergo a sex-change surgery. While not all cases are as extreme as the latter—and may only occur within an individuals thoughts—they happen all the time. Society has adopted a certain socially acceptable “female” way of life and its complementary “male” way of life—expecting all females to do and love certain things and males, for the most part, to do and love the opposite. However, I believe it is our undiscriminating inclinations towards these different things that determine our gender. Inclinations associated with the opposite sex do not make anyone less male or female. I believe that while anatomy may determine the way in which society expects us to act and react to every thing and situation, gender is the total sum of the ways in which we actually do.
For example, I’m anatomically female and would consider my gender to be female overall since my way of life—for the most part—coincides with the expectations society possesses for me. I believe that sex is a discrete variable, you’re either male or female, while gender lies on more of a continuum. So even though I may hate chick flicks and love horror movies—something that may put me in opposition to my traditional gender role, I’m still on the “female” side of the spectrum.
The key word here, as you suggest, is "continuum." For someone who just started thinking about the distinctions between sex and gender, you have a pretty nuanced definition of the latter. I wonder if sex could be put on a continuum as well, though, and if so, what that continuum would look like.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that society has adopted characteristics that are socially accepted as "female" and "male". Do you think society offers opportunities for those characteristics to change? I think that these socially accepted characteristics are so historically ingrained in our culture that it will take generations of individuals to uproot the foundations of gender education. Your thoughts on a gender "continuum" is very interesting when you talk about individuals who believe they were "born in the wrong body". Do you think society will ever come up with a "category" that will accommodate those who have a certain sex and a contrasting gender identity?
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