Self and Gender: Theories and Concepts Explored
To start with this is gendered self essay in which I will reveal this topic. So, this gender experience can be explained through Risman’s gender as a social structure theory. At the individual level, I experienced the process involved in the development of gender, where parents encourage gender-typical behaviour that develop their gendered identity. According to Risman, children are socialised to be feminine or masculine, and, even though I am an adult, I am still being socialised by my father on what a woman should look like. This can also be considered at the interactional level, where people’s expectations of gender exist, so women are expected to look feminine with long hair and men are expected to look masculine with short hair.
This experience can also be explained through the concept of doing gender. West and Zimmerman explained that gender is not something people are born with, but something people do. West and Zimmerman explained that men and women are judged if they fail to perform their gender as expected. Doing gender explains that people are bound to society’s expectations about what is appropriate for their gender. As a result, society will judge girls with shaved heads because they do not conform to their assigned feminine gender.
One night, my female friend and I were dancing with some men at a nightclub and I told them I was bisexual. They suddenly said we should make out with each other. This experience can be explained through de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. de Beauvoir claimed that society considers men as the ‘subject’ and women as the ‘other’ because they are viewed only in relation to men’s standards. Women are treated as objects of desire for men and to satisfy their sexual fantasy. de Beauvoir suggested that since I am a bisexual woman, men will see me as a sexual object, while also being sexually available for them to fulfil their sexual fantasy of two women kissing while they watch.
This can also be understood through Irigaray’s This Sex Which Is Not One. Irigaray argued that the female sex is not recognised as a sex independent of men. These men perceive my friend and I as just bodies to control. Irigaray suggested that the male economy of desire reveals the desire between men to exchange women as objects/commodities. These men I met at a nightclub made us into commodities to be exchanged, as they requested us to make out for their sexual fantasy.
This observation can be explained through Risman’s gender as a social structure. At the individual level, as a child, my gendered self is created through the socialisation of observing my parents subconsciously, where fathers are the breadwinners, and mothers stay at home to look after the children and do the housework. At the interactional level, gender stereotypes explain the behaviour of others, so people interpret men as more skilled than women in the workplace. That is why men are often the breadwinner because they have more access to positions of power and can earn a higher income for the family.
This observation can also be understood through Butler’s concept of gender performativity. This is when an individual consciously and unconsciously learns gender and is unaware that they are performing a gender role but assume the gender identity assigned to them by their performance. For instance, my father performs the masculine gender role of the breadwinner who provides financial support and my mother performs the feminine gender role of the housewife which involves housework and childcare. Therefore, gender is something people constantly do and is maintained through repeated gendered actions.
This observation can be explained through the concept of intersectionality. The term intersectionality was coined by Crenshaw to describe the intersection of race and gender in which white feminists did not consider the experiences of women of colour. Crenshaw explained that black women have experienced discrimination similar to white women and they share similar experiences with Black men. Black women’s gender and race intersect because women are often sexualised and desired for their passiveness and Black men are often desired for their sexual prowess and size. Therefore, society views Black women as the perfect sexual being for their passivity, but also their promiscuous behaviour.
This can also be understood through de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Black women are often sexualised on TV and social media because women are seen as the ‘other’ in the patriarchal society. The reason for this is because women are the passive ‘other’ and men are the active ‘subject’ that allows them to objectify women for their desire.
Last but not least, this observation can be understood through the concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality refers to the specific conditions of oppression that affects women who experience both racial and gender inequality. Since these women have been identified, they have received racist and sexist comments on social media, such as deport them, assuming all African Australians are the same and people are also sexualising them. Their gender and race intersect since many other individuals have broken the restrictions, but their names, faces, and races were never revealed and identified, and this is most likely because they are white and/or male.
