Gender and sexuality+Life Week 1

Like many people I had trouble distinguishing the words gender and sex. I always thought the two were swapped out to mean male and female. This class and Sacco’s class have taught me otherwise and I now better understand it. Sex as we said it’s basically male or female based on biological features. Gender is the act of being male or female or both. What was really interesting is how society effects the way we view gender, what is acceptable and what isn’t. Long hair on a guy, women who wear baggy clothes, guys who wear tight clothes etc. The talk about Caster Semenya really got me thinking about how our society in America views others and how we compare those around the world to our own people. The question was if this girl was taking steroids or not and then it just turned out it was biological and out of her control but she was questioned based on looks but also how big of a margin she won. During this I started wondering about Serena Williams is a very buff woman and at times doesn’t look very womanly but off the court despite her size is quite attractive. It’s just odd where we draw the line, I mean the Williams sisters are the best women tennis players in the world so just winning a lot can’t be the reason, I don’t know.

Another thing we talked about were gender roles in our society and what a man is expected to do and what a woman is expected to do. I can see where many of them stem from and it’s no surprise that the majority of men think woman should do this and that and vice versa. I believe it to be a joint effect of family and society that mold the minds of others to believe these roles. I’ve known of men that are the cleaners of the house because their g/f or wife is just messy or even that same thing for cooking and there are plenty of women who take charge of the family instead of the man. I’m a very clean person myself, I hate messes or things just lying on my floor and it surprises people to come to my apartment and see it a mess because of my roommate but then see my room and basically call it the safe haven. My point in all this mess is gender roles should not be assumed for men and women because “that’s just how it is” or anything like that. Life is complicated and nothing is just black and white and genders and sexes surely are not black and white which is why we live in these “Gender Wars”.