This class has helped
me understand how much of an impact biology, culture, and society have on my
definitions of men and women. The differences between males and females have
dictated social interactions and gender identity, but our biology does not
provide an explanation for these inequalities that exist between the sexes. Rather,
our society has developed an ideology that favors the male sex, defining them
as the stronger, smarter, more successful sex. Society has constructed and perpetuated
the idea of the working man and the stay-at-home mom. Using the cover that
these characteristics are because of biology, society has created traditional
gender roles that say because men are “naturally” stronger and the dominant
sex, they are the head of the household and they provide for the family while
women, who are “naturally” more caring and feminine, are expected to stay at
home and raise the children because it is in her nature to do so. This class
has taught me that biology encompasses the biological differences between men
and women (different genitalia, egg vs. sperm, etc), and everything else we
associate with either sex is an ideology we have developed from the world
around us.
I agree with your position, and would only add that it is important to note that "society" thus far has meant "male society" creating the world in its image. Until very recently, all medical studies were essentially done on white males, so those results were taken as normal, while results for women that did not fall into those recorded responses were seen as abnormal. It is this dichotomy between male/female, normal/abnormal, reasonable/sentimental, good/bad, that has arisen because of the lack of ideashaping women (or rather, the unequal number of them) in the realms of medicine, political science, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat is changing now, slowly but surely, though whether it will ever be equal is hard to say.