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Araceli Perez
Professor Ditch
English 113A
28 September 2014
Gender Discrimination
Gender construction is something that most people dont really understand until they start
to really look into it, they cant see how it plays this massive role in our society especially now
that it feel like everyone is trying to watch and categorize you. These readings that we have been
doing have really made me look at things in a different perspective. Society groups people in
many different ways just like it gives certain privileges to only some groups. Some people think
that gender discrimination doesnt happen anymore because we dont see it as much as we used
to but it happens all the time. It can happen at work, school, when you play sports, even when
your just out doing something with your friends or family members. What a person does cant
just be based on their gender even though it plays a huge role in our society. Rethinking
Womens Biology by Ruth Hubbard and Night to His Day: The Social Construct of Gender
by Judith Lorber both discuss gender discrimination and holds the view that it is hurting our
society in multiple ways including separation and looking at things both men and women do
differently. There were a couple of times in my life were I have personally experienced gender
discrimination.

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Most people dont understand the difference between sex and gender, they often confuse
it for the same thing but in reality it is not the same. Sex refers to whether you are a man or a
woman biologically while gender refers to the characteristics that society and cultural define as
feminine or masculine. Growing up I had more masculine traits then I had feminine, you can say
I had more masculine traits for the reason being that I grew up around men most of my life but as
I grew I became more feminine. A person can have both masculine and feminine traits. Just
because a person was born either a man or a woman doesnt make them one. What a person
chooses their gender to be makes them a man or a woman, they decided not society, and not their
sex, people have the power to decide their own gender.
In Rethinking Womens Biology by Ruth Hubbard she talks about how womens
biology is a social construct, how we dont know if any biological differences between men and
women exist, and how women are discriminated because of their gender. But when it comes to
carrying loads, playing baseball, and wrestling, and other contact sports, all of which strengthen
the arms and upper body, girls are expected to participate less than boys are. (49). Hubbard
makes an excellent point here were in other words she is stating that men are encouraged to
participated in more sports then women are, which is true. The world has seen women as fragile
beings from the beginning of time but a lot of things have changed, people tend no longer
discriminate other based on their gender but they still do. The fact that women arent
encouraged to play sports because it is not the gender role that women usually attend to do is a
great example of how society still needs to work on gender discrimination.

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Growing up for me sports was a huge part of my life, it is something I have always
known and loved. So naturally playing sports was something that I enjoyed to do. I have been
playing baseball for as long as I can remember, about a year ago I was at a game and someone
told me that I shouldnt be playing baseball because women shouldnt play that sport. I was
pretty sure that I was just as good as the other men in my team and it really upset me that
someone would call me out just because of my gender. Looking back know I can see and
understand that at the time I was playing a role in society that most girls dont play. Instead of
being out on the bleachers cheering on the players I was out playing with the team. Yes, it hurt
that society still has this concept of seeing women in a certain way but I was not going to give up
something that I loved doing just because someone didnt think I belonged out there because of
my gender.
The way society view certain aspects of our life makes gender discrimination. Our
society still believes that our sexuality defines who we are but society is wrong, what defines a
person is their gender and women as well as men are being discriminated all the time. In Night
to His Day: The Social Construct of Gender by Judith Lorber she talks about how children are
expected to play a certain role in our society, they are categorized and expectations are put up
based on their gender even before the childs birth, both genders are looked at and treated
differently since the very beginning. In the social construct of gender, it does not matter what
men and women actually do; it does not even matter if they do exactly the same thing. The social
institution of gender insists only that what they do is perceived as different. (26) Why does it
make a difference if it is looked at differently? Men and women do the same thing every day
either it is at home at work or just being out on a regular basis. Why does it make a difference if

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women and men do the exact same thing at work but just because a man is doing the same thing
a woman is doing they change the job tittle for the mans job, it is not fair to both genders. Men
and women are still viewed differently in many aspects of life and work is just one of them.
A couple of months ago I was working for this company in Burbank, the job was what
you can say a role that most women took on as jobs, I was a receptionist. The day I first applied
for that job I remember how there were three other females and a handful of men applying for
the same position I was. One day while I went to make some photo copies I overheard one of my
co-workers talking to my supervisor. They were discussing how the company had just hired two
new female receptionists, I and a co-worker of mine, and how they didnt hire the men because
they didnt play the role of secretarys only women could fill that role. Yes, it is true that women
tend to play that role but men can play that role as well and the men should have gotten an equal
opportunity to get the job. Who knows if one of the men could have been better fit for the job but
just because they were male and didnt fit the profile they didnt get the job. In my personal
opinion I thought that both men and women were being discriminated against because the men
werent given an equal opportunity and the women were hired because of a role that women have
been doing for centuries.
Our society isnt perfect but it can and will continue to grow throughout time and gender
discrimination is just one of the things it has to grow on. In the two articles I discussed, they both
show their own way of how gender discrimination affects and hurts our society. It discusses how
society doesnt agree that women should play the same sports as men therefore they are less
encouraged to play sports, how our gender defines who we are as a person, and how we are

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discriminated based on doing the same tasks. As I mentioned before society has to grow and one
thing that I personally hope it grows on is gender discrimination.

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Work Cited
Lorber, Judith. Night to His Day: The Social Construct of Gender.
Hubbard, Ruth. Rethinking Womens Biology.