She, Her, He, Him, but not It

My sociology professor began our discussion on gender roles by saying “The hardest thing for my students to understand is that sex and gender are 2 different things.” I guess this not only applies to Sociology 101 at Stevenson University, but the larger society as a whole. 

According to my sociology textbook, sex is the biological differences between male and female. Sex is based on anatomy. Gender is the culture or socially constructed differences between males and females. Gender is based on beliefs, meanings, and practices a society associates with being masculine or feminine. 
 

This is only the second time I picked up my textbook this entire semester, but I had a very good reason to.

According to the Huffington Post, “in the first four months of 2014, 102 acts of violence against transgender people have been reported.” As staggering as this statistic is it could easily me 3 times this much. Such reports are voluntary, so many incidents go unreported. The Transgender Violence Tracking Portal says that 10% of these acts were done to minors.

This circles back to the difference between sex and gender. 

Parents need to understand that even though they gave birth to a baby that has male sex organs, that baby may grow up and identify with the culturally constructed attributes of being female. Children as young as 3 know their actions don't correspond with their sex. This freaks most parents out simply because in the society they grew up in boys had to be masculine and girls had to be feminine. Change is hard. 

The only crime here would be people not calling this transgender person out of the pronouns they identify with. Even worse, calling them the “I word.” Hate starts with misunderstanding and lack of respect. As I mentioned in an earlier post, calling a transgender person demeaning names or pronouns they don't identify with is denying them the right to be human.

I, like my sociology professor, think that hate towards transgender people would end with the basic understanding of that gender and sex are not the same.  

Key to Happiness... Continued!

 

In one of my previous blogs, Key to Happiness, I talked about loving yourself and my experiences in the past with feeling self-conscious.

I didn’t really go into detail about WHY you should love yourself. The “WHY” is significant for many reasons.

A big concern I have for teens and adults is the fact that not loving yourself on the inside and out can not only cause emotional disputes, but it can cause problems with your physical health.

According to ANAD, “91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting. 22% dieted “often” or “always.”5.” This is a big majority of women that try to control how they physically look. It’s scary how easy it is to fall into this type of habit.

Our generations are becoming so focused on having a certain “image”, and we are forgetting that we need to love our bodies just as they are.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to better your body, but there are healthy ways to do so. Something that most girls don’t think about is that eating disorders can lead to depression. Depression is a very serious matter and it’s not something you can just get rid of overnight.

Becoming more self-loving and accepting is such an important thing for us women to do.  We need to stop letting others influence how we want to look.

Be yourself, know yourself, love yourself!

Feminism Interview Part 2

After interviewing my best friend, I decided to interview my boyfriend. Simply to get a males perspective on the topic. I tried be open minded with his opinions, but some of his responses I highly disagree with.

What do you think?

Question 1: What does feminism mean to you?

“Political social and economic women rights equal to men.”

Question 2: If a woman shows “too much skin” or wears revealing clothing, does that draw negative attention?

"No I think it's just them expressing themselves."


Question 3: Do you think females have a less chance than men at getting a job? Why or why not?

"Yes it's just a proven fact. Mainly because men have more power. Most jobs don't want to deal with women always taking off and other things (pregnancy)."

Question 4: Females wear makeup to seek attention. Do you agree?

"Yes. They are changing the way they actually look to get other people to recognize them which is their attention."

Question 5: Do you think it’s acceptable for women to be “slut shamed” for the same actions that men do? (such as sleeping around on campus, for example)

"No not acceptable but reasonable. I think they should cherish what they have and not be so easy.

Comment below with what you think about the differences between the two interviewees!