Gender Biologically Determined Essay

Drawing upon ethnographic examples from 2-3 societies. Gender being ‘biologically determined’ means that whether gender is inherited or passed down by genetics. If a person is a man or woman, (which is usually called ‘The Sex’), that is biologically determined because they inherit the chromosomes to be born a man, or to be born as a woman. In the early 1970’s sex was described by â€Å"biology as: anatomy, hormones, and physiology† (West and Zimmerman 1987). Apart from gender being a biological factor, there are other things which are not biologically determined; â€Å"Gender was an achieved status, which was constructed through psychological, cultural and social means† (West and Zimmerman1987). Hence the answer to the question â€Å"is gender biologically determined?†Is no, Gender is a socially constructed phenomenon. Gender refers to a set of roles people perform in their communities, which are their values and attitudes that people have toward man and woman (Bonvillain 2006). In this essay, the topics which would be discussed to support this argument are Gender Identity with examples of how men and women are expected to act, walk, talk and dress in a certain manner which is suitable in their society, Gender and Sexuality with the examples of culturally in-built norms of sexual behaviour, along with existing issues surrounding sexuality, and finally Gender and Status with an example of male dominance in Traditional Chinese society. Gender identity is defined in terms of how people (i.e. men and women) are supposed to behave in the social category. Their attitudes and the way the dress, talk and carry themselves in the public are encoded â€Å"in a set of cultural assumptions† which are based on the culture’s values and roles and people are expected to learn these as they are a part of that society (Bonvillain 2006). Each culture has certain ‘norms’ for gender and these ‘norms’ vary from culture to culture, most of these norms have a universal common pattern and people seem to dwell on these social constructs as they make a living based on these ideologies. â€Å"Cultural constructs are models of behaviour and attitudes that a particular culture transmits to its members. These constructs are shared beliefs and values that become taken for granted guiding principles† (Bonvillain 2006). There are so many ways that these socially constructed behaviours are exhibited in different communities, the messages about how each man and woman should act depends upon several factors such as language and religious beliefs. Men and Women were distinguished based on their clothing, what they were allowed to wear as a man and woman, hence publically signalling their genders, men wore pants and had other bodily arts such as tattoos while woman adorned dresses, jewellery and make up. This made up the very basic structure of Gender Identity. Apart from, the basic examples of gender identity, there are several other cases where women and men have unequal identities, one such case is the, Identity inequality of men and woman in family farms. In today’s world, Gender revolves around being the fact that women are less recognised than men, and are subjected to work which are in the shadows of confinement. That being the generalised factor, the study of the ‘European family farm’ only made this issue recognizable to the world. Farms were considered to be the dominant agricultural production in the capitalist countries (Brandth 2002). The study used theories of gender role and identity, explaini ng the issue in the form of discourses. In the 1990’s questions were being raised towards identity of women and men in the rural farms, these questions eventually shifted towards feminism (Brandth 2002). â€Å"Discourses are forms of power. They constitute minds, bodies, identities of individuals as parts of wider networks of power relations† (Brandth 2002). It was used in the context of giving out a meaning towards the differences of men and women, there were three discourses formulated by Hirschman, called as the exit, voice and loyalty. Women, who didn’t want to be subjected to unequal status left the system, some used their voice to protest against it, while others simply were loyal and confined themselves to the household activities. The law stated that the ‘family farm’ should be passed on from father to son, since women were considered weak and have no access and knowledge of property and agriculture. Women only came into this, only by marriage. Hence, the male leads the family into it, he allocates what job has to be done, and he participates in forums decisions, and doing so he becomes publically recognised. Since women are adaptable and flexible, their tasks are confined to household chores, and these tasks are unpaid and not recognised as productive output from them. On the other hand, men’s identities were tied to their ownership of the farms, their occupation and the productive outcome which give them status and economic income. â€Å"Real work was equated with physical tasks and women’s self image is based on the absence of such qualities† (Brandth 2002). In recent days, with the improvement of farming technologies, the female work, such as milking cows, and so on are now being done by these improvised machines, making women less efficient and thus making farming a whole masculine activity (Brandth 2002). Hence with this example it is clearly pointed out that the social construct differentiates an d distinguishes men and women. Apart from gender being differentiated by a social construct, there are factors which raised questions and studies in the society, one of such being gender and its relation to sexuality. There is always a taboo when it comes to sex, and it seems to be a common pattern in the world. Even though, we have sexual feelings and we practice them as it being a part of nature, it is also deeply influenced by culture (Bonvillain 2006). Culture teaches people what is the right thing to do, in what way, when, where and so on. There are a lot of examples where culture intervenes and states the ‘norms’ under which the people in that society or community should behave sexually. For example, sexual relationship between members of a nuclear family or distant relations is prohibited in most cultures. There are other countries which have the legal age of having sex, which are usually the Americans and Europeans, where the legal age is 16, so if a person indulges in a sexual relationship wi th a person who is below 16 it is considered against the law and will be filed for statutory rape (Bonvillain 2006). Other regions such as India, sex before marriage is considered as sin based on the cultural beliefs, whereas in American society it is inappropriate to have sex if you’re not husband or wife (Bonvillain 2006). While in some countries where sex could be considered as normal, other societies, like Islamic countries for example, any adultery committed by a male or by a female is severely punished, or most commonly stoned to death (Bonvillain 2006). But this isn’t the only issue considering sexuality, the most recent yet shocking development, is homosexuality between men and woman. â€Å"Homosexuality was considered to be a violation of the natural law† (Bonvillain 2006). People were only meant to engage in heterosexual activity (between man and woman) to reproduce. During the 1980’s indulging in homosexual activity was considered in crime, people were imprisoned when caught doing so. But in 2003 some parts of the United States, suspended the law, and made hom osexuality legal, soon European countries such as Canada, Belgium, and Netherlands passed an act which approved of homosexual weddings (Bonvillain 2006). If one digs deeper into this issue, where these debatable, one can find that it roots back from religions. Most religion disapprove of homosexuality but in religions such as Hindu, for sexuality, scriptures of homosexual activity only stated that it was normal and natural, to be attracted to the same sex (Bonvillain 2006). But in today’s society the main issue is regarding the issue of males being attracted to each other, an example of this issue is ‘Homophobia of men’. Homosexuality is considered to be a cultural construct, which apart from the ‘lesbian identities’ gave rise to the ‘gay identities’ (Herek 1986). It is common for normal men, to avoid influencing with homosexual men, as they fear what the public might think of them being judged as not ‘masculine’, where as its more normal for woman to associate with lesbians or homosexual women, as they are not being judged by the rest of the females (Herek 1986). Studies showed, that the social construction of gay identities meant that there was something psychologically wrong with that person, it was never attributed to the fact that homosexuality is more of a social construct than something being wrong with the individuals mental state (Herek 1986). Gay men are more scared to come out, or feel comfortable about their sexuality in the public than gay woman. The reason for this is because, men look for other men’s approval to gain the status of being ‘a man’ (Kimmel). â€Å"We are under the constant careful scrutiny of other men. Other men watch us, rank us, and grant our acceptance into the realm of manhood. Manhood is demonstrated of other men’s approval. It is other men who evaluate the performance† (Kimmel). As mentioned earlier, men look for other men’s approval, and because of this gay men are subjected to stigma and discrimination (Herek 1986). As a result, they develop ‘defensiveness,’ an unconscious defence mechanism (defined in psychodynamic terms). This helps them avoid or repress their homosexual tendencies (Kimmel). To summarise, gender is not biologically determined because people have the free will to choose their sexuality (i.e. they are not born being homosexuals, it is clearly a social construct). Gender roles, is defined as a set of rules or rather guidelines towards the behaviour of men and woman. The rights and duties, attitudes and behaviours of men and women constitutes of how they are culturally associated with gender (Bonvillain 2006). The works of men and women are separate, as in, men carry on doing work which they are culturally supposed to be doing and women do their work, based on what the norms of cultures tell them to do. When these two norms interact with each other, they reflect a lot of differences and changes in status, prestige and power of men and woman this is called as ‘gender relations’ (Bonvillain 2006). It is obvious that men are thought to be more superior to women as they are more power driven and physically stronger than woman. While, men get more prestigious and leadership jobs, woman are confined to their homely duties of being a house-wife or in other words a care- giver (Bonvillain 2006). This brings about the inequality of men and woman. There tasks which categorize what woman are capable of doing such as, caring for children and their husbands, cooking food, making clothes and other homely chores, while men on the other hand do more physical and dangerous tasks such as, hunting animals, conducting warfare etc, this is called division of labour (Bonvillain 2006). Gender and status are the most recent conflict and the most studied topic in today’s society. Gender equality, happens when both the male and female agree to equal rights and behaviours. Gender inequality happens when the male and female do not agree to equal rights, attitudes and behaviour (Bonvillain 2006). An example of this, is male dominance in china, the male adult, was the head of the family and they expressed their dominance over their children and wives. Traditional Chinese cultures had more Patriarchal gender relations (Bonvillain 2006). In conclusion, the question â€Å"is gender biologically determined?† is incorrect, even though gender has a biological definition, gender is mostly socially defined in this context. The tasks or norms which each gender (i.e. male and female) is supposed to perform in the society, is based on a social construct. They are not born to be who there are, instead these social constructions are in-built within them since childhood. Since they taught to act and behave in a specific way which is culturally approved. They choose to be what sexuality appeals to them and what each individualistic gender they are taught to be. Hence ‘Gender’ is strongly driven by culture. REFERENCES: West,C and Zimmerman, Don. 1987. Doing Gender. Sociologists for Women in Society 1(2): 125-155 Herek, Gregory. 1986.on Heterosexual Masculinity. American Behavioural Scientist 29(5): 563-577 Brandth, Berit. 2002. Gender Identity in European Family Farming: A Literature Review. European Society for Rural Sociology 42(3): 181-200 Kimmel, Michael. Masculinity as homophobia: Fear, Shame and Silence in the Constructions of Gender Identity. Bonvillain, Nancy. 2006. Chapter 10, â€Å"Gender† from Cultural Anthropology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Pp. 251-282. ISBN: 0-13-045545-8