Pastrano, 1

Marco A Pastrano
Professor Jon Beadle
English 115
3 October 2016

Understanding Gender

What is Gender? How do we know which gender we pertain to? What makes you or
qualifies you to belong to a certain gender? Is he/she male or female? Today, sociologist and
experts on the field of gender have done reasearch, and found out quite substantial interesting
evidence to challenge and impeach the established rules that society has placed on us regarding
gender and introduced us to the a new concept that argues that a person is not born with a gender,
but rather society builds every persons gender by placing certain rules and expectations for each
gender. In our society, we are facing a new generation of ideas, some of this ideas regard gender
and gender norms, which are often considered as unnatural, eye-opening, dangerous and
untraditional. This new wave of ideas, has caused arguments and divisions among our society,
but one thing is certain, we must strive for tolerance and change of the obsolete.
When we think about gender, we tend to think that we know everything that there is to
know about gender, but in reality it is not that simple. We assume that there are only two
genders, male or female and that you have to choose one and you can not be both. But, what is
it that makes you a man or a woman? Well, the fact that it is proven that a man or a woman can

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perform behaviours that pertain to their correspondent counterparts show that gender is a
fluctuating concept. Today, on the subway, I saw a well-dressed man with a year-old child in a
stroller. Yesterday, on a bus, I saw a man with a tiny baby in a carrier on his chest. Seeing men
taking care of small children in public is increasingly common But both men were quite
obviously stared at As they started to leave the train, the father put a Yankee baseball cap on
the childs head. Ah, a boy I thought. Then I noticed the gleam of tiny earrings in the childs
ears, and as they got off, I saw the little flowered sneakers and lace-trimmed socks. Not a boy
after all. Gender done. (Lorber, 20). In here, we can appreciate how the author presents us with
a glimpse of reality as she is traveling on the subway. Reality was exposed, and the reader
became aware that when a gender norm was being breached, society stared and disapproved.
Also, we are introduced to the concept of labels or indicators in order to know which gender a
person- or a baby in this case- belongs to. The need that society has to put labels on things can
be detrimental to the progression of our society because labels can cause a subconscious effect
on our mind to prejudice on other things like ideas, ethnic groups, countries, races etc.
Gender and society are two terms that go together hand by hand. During recent research
we found out that one is not born with a gender, but rather society construct a persons gender by
its established norms that rely on the persons sex. Thus, society has established a process that
works by teaching, learning, emulation and enforcement of the concept of gender, this process
was named Gender Construction. Most parents create a gendered world for their newborn by
naming, birth announcements, and dress. Children relationships with same-gendered and
different-gendered caretakers structure their self-identifications and personalities. Through
cognitive development, children extract and apply to their own actions the appropriate behavior

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for those who belong in their own gender ( Lorber, 25) . We can see how the author explains
in detail how this theory of gender construction works. Nevertheless if we analyze the steps of
this process we start to see that every step must be consequent of its previous one, for example
teaching and learning, learning and emulating, emulation and enforcement and enforcement with
teaching. Therefore we conclude that the process is highly effective, but the content that we are
teaching is mistaken.
In order to figure out the right things to teach, we must first try to find some level of
definition between sex and gender and masculinity and femininity. Sex is either of the two main
categories (male and female) into which humans are divided based off on their reproductive
systems. Gender, however, it's the state of being either male or female within society. But what
makes something masculine or feminine? Is it the color? The performance of the action? Lets
take a look at clothing for example, womens clothing is mostly made up of pinks, pastels and
wavy cuts that accentuate a womans physical features. On the other hand, mens clothing is
often characterized by having such colors as blues, blacks, greys, browns and olives and has cuts
that accentuate a mans square look. This division similarities that characterize and specify each
clothing for a particular gender tells us about each gender. We assume that women tend to be
more sensitive, more sentimental, wavy and more full of color. While men are more serious,
square, straight-forward and practical.
Toys also tell us a lot about gender roles and society, when we look at boy toys they tend
to promote physical and rough actions, such as super heroes, action figures, cars, etc. While girl
toys are distinguishable by promoting a more sensitive action, such as baby dolls, barbies,
kitchen sets, tea sets, make-up dolls, etc. What this reveals is that according to society

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something is masculine when it's rough, physical, simple, and straightforward and something is
feminine when it inspires sentimentalism, caregiving, sweetness, and gentleness.
Now the point is to raise our future generation without this premade assumptions and
expectations that society has placed on each gender, one of the ways can be to promote gender
nonconformity Hes not playing with dolls. Those are action figures. ( Goodwin, 89). When
parents were exposed to the concept of gender nonconformity researchers found some very
interesting responses that exposed our societys fears and prejudices. I would ask him What
do you want for your birthday?... and he kept saying Barbie So we compromised, we got him
a NASCAR Barbie (Kane, 94) The mistaken assumption that the parent has on the fact that
because its a NASCAR barbie make it less feminine, it's just mind boggling because that
assumption is based on very weak prejudices; its like saying professional car racing its only
for men, this just supports the frequent sentiment of the devaluation of femininity. Another
recurrent theme that I have encountered in my readings as well as in my own personal life is the
fear from the parents when their sons do something that is considered from the other gender
because of a latent fear that their sons might be or be perceived as homosexual.
As I entered my teenage years, I decided to let my hair grow, it got pretty long, until one
day I showed it to my great grandparents, they were quite disappointed (especially my great
grandfather), but I understood that as much as I argued I wouldnt persuade them. So I decided to
be tolerant and cut it. Reading these articles has made me look into something that like the
majority of the population thought had it figured it out, and ultimately didnt understand the new
ideas that the coming generation brought along with them. All this new research made me
understand how the established gender rules promoted a devaluation of femininity when in many

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cases doing something like a woman meant to be weak. Ultimately, we must strive to break this
stereotypes, labels and prejudices in order to achieve a more tolerant society.

Works Cited Page

- Lorber, Judith. Night to His Day : The Social Construction of Gender. Composing Gender,
edited by Rachel Groner and John F OHara ,14th Edition, Bedford Spotlight Reader, 2014, pp
19-30.
- Goodwin, Jennifer. Even Nine-Month-Olds Choose Gender-Specific Toys. Composing
Gender, Edited by Rachel Groner and John F OHara, 14th Edition, Bedford Spotlight Reader,
2014, pp 88-90.
-Kane, Emily W. No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That : Parents Responses to
Childrens Gender Nonconformity. Composing Gender, Edited by Rachel Groner and John F
OHara , 14th Edition, Bedford Spotlight Reader, 2014, pp 91-97.