Activity #7

Kimmel argues that understanding masculinity to be socially constructed and historically shifting is very valuable because it gives us the capacity to act. Kimmel means that because of our culture and how it has developed, we can create our own identities. Men no longer have to look or act like men, they can be whoever they want to be.
Kimmel believes that other men are constantly judging you. You have to be accepted by other men in order to join manhood. Kimmel explains that people show off their manhood so that other men can approve of them. Homophobia is a central organizing principle of our cultural definition of manhood. Men are not really afraid of gay men, they are more scared of the idea that they might come off as gay. Men are afraid that they are not real men, and the idea that they fear for another man to discover that they are not real men, shows that they are not very manly.
I agree with Kimmel’s discussion about the fear of being a sissy for a couple of reasons. I believe that the pressure to be a real man starts at an early age because of our culture. Boys do not want to be called a sissy because it shows that they are weak and that is not one of the words to describe manhood. I think that Kimmel was right in his example of walking into a playground and asking who was a sissy. I think that this would provoke a boy to accuse another boy, who would then accuse someone else because of his fear of being a sissy.
Jackson Katz explains that the “tough guise” persona is showing the world only certain parts of you that are identified as manly in the dominate culture. This has to do with masculinity because violence is an accepted part of masculinity. He believes that we have to start examining this system and offering alternatives because there has been a growing connection made in our society between being a man and being violent. Katz thinks that women should show that they are looking for more in men than being a “bad boy”. We also need to break the monopoly of the media system showing only rich white men. We need to hear men’s stories to learn from them if we want our sons to be better men.
I thought that this activity was very interesting because it was very different talking about men and their troubles. We have mostly been talking about women, feminists, and lesbians although we have touched base on homosexuals. I agreed with everything that Kimmel and Katz had to say about masculinity, homophobia, fear of being a sissy, and the “tough guise” persona.

CRJ #4

Sex, Power, and Intimacy was a very intriguing chapter for me. I think that Pepper Shwartz and Virginia Rutter make a really good point when they stated that “sexuality is about society as much as it is about biological urges.” I believe that our culture has made sexuality a social status rather than sexual identity. Often times it is not about your biological urges, it is about who you are supposed to be attracted to. Our society has made up a lot of different hurtful names to express our disgust for homosexuality. However, I think that people should not be criticized for their preference for a given sex.
Politics of sexuality implies issues associated with the distribution of power in sexual relationships. I think that politics of sexuality is very relevant in the discussion of relationships because, it shows that even in heterosexual couples, gender affects your roles. For example, men often feel like they are superior to women and this might lead the woman in the relationship into feeling like she is “owned” by the man. I think that politics of sexuality also explains why a lot of homosexual couples like to play roles. I often see one person in the homosexual relationship as being more masculine and the other person as being more feminine.
On the other side of the spectrum, there is romantic love. Romantic love is couples coming together, sharing the excitement of an erotic relationship and feeling united with the other in such a way that the other is unique and irreplaceable. Romantic love is closely related to consumer culture. Once we enter a romantic relationship, we start buying products for our loved ones. These products have developed from simple Valentine’s Day flowers and chocolates to romantic get-aways and cars. Romantic love is viewed as the women’s domain and we are expected to look wonderful with our make-up, clothes and hair, and spend a lot of time, emotion, and money to maintain our romantic love. As much as I don’t like the idea of romantic love being the “women’s domain,” I do think that this is true because I spend a lot more time getting ready than my boyfriend, and I often spend time making my boyfriend emotional presents such as picture collages. The book also explains that men usually take a more instrumental approach or, sex without emotional strings, while women are more expressive in their relationships.
Aside from the normal reading, I really enjoyed reading 29, I Was a Cosmo Sex Deviant, by A. E. Berkowitz. I am a fan of a lot of different magazines including Cosmopolitan. I like to look at the different quizzes and the advice that they give, however, I do not always agree with them. I feel that they are just there to create a label for society and often times I am more inclined to put down an answer that I know will give me a different outcome. I like Berkowitz, found that most of the time your score is completely dependent on one important question in the quiz which is not very accurate.
I also enjoyed reading 33, Women, Sexuality, and Social Change in the Middle East, by Pinar Ilkkaracan. It is very interesting to learn about what is acceptable in the Middle East and what the Qur’an states. For instance, the penalty for adultery for a man or a woman is 100 lashes! I also find it absurd that Muslims try to control women’s sexuality by extreme veiling with a hijab. In addition to extreme veiling, there are arranged marriages and unequal rights. The oppression of women in the Middle East and the Muslim world is due to historical, sociopolitical, and economic factors. I believe that it will be very hard for the Muslim women to change these practices.

Activity #6- Gender Aptitude Test

Kate Bornstein is the author of My Gender Workbook, and the creator of Kate Bornstein’s Gender Aptitude Test. In the readings, Kate understands gender as, the categorization of people or the separation of people. These categories can consist of appearance, mannerisms, biology, psychology, hormones, roles, and genitals. When compared to the word sex, gender has several aspects while sex is just one straightforward word. Kate lists that there is a gender assignment, gender role, gender identity, and gender attribution for everyone.
I was not surprised by my test results for a couple of reasons. Kate’s book and aptitude test were created to inform people that gender is much more than sex. She wants you to know that just because you are a boy or a girl it does not mean that you have one gender. Some of the questions that she asked were to figure out how curious you were about same-sex relationships and how comfortable you were with your sexuality. I feel very good about my sexuality and yet I was only considered a “gender novice” according to her test. She also asked a lot of repetitive questions about how many genders you think there are and what gender means to you. The test made me feel like I am not very knowledgeable on the subject of gender.
I think that someone would design a gender aptitude test like this one because they want you to be aware of the fact that just because someone is a certain sex, it does not mean they are a certain gender. I think that we should all be a little more aware of that. I think that we can learn that gender is an ongoing discovery and no one knows everything about gender yet. We can also learn that gender should not be taken lightly and you should explore your own gender. Kate talks about the gender/identity/power system in her book. She is amazed that our culture pushes us to become a perfect gender. She states that the further away we are from the top of the pyramid or, the perfect gender, the less real we are in terms of exclusively male or female. I think that this test does hide what your actual sex is and I think that some people might be tempted to put different answers based on what you want the outcome of the test to be. However, I did find the test and the readings very interesting.

Event # 1

Abingdon Square- February 17, 2008- Squires Studio Theatre
Abingdon Square was a fantastic play by Maria Irene Fornes. The play was set in the twentieth century in New York City. The star of the play, Marion, married very young to a man that was old enough to be her father. This relationship soon fell apart as Marion became tempted to do other things and see other men because of her young age. She got pregnant with a total stranger, and her husband, Juster, was under the impression that it was his baby. Soon after Marion had her baby, Juster found a receipt for an apartment and caught her cheating on him. The two were separated and Juster kept the child, Thomas, with him. Marion and Juster continued to watch each other from afar as time passed. Eventually, Marion came back to Juster’s house and wanted to know where Thomas had been. The two had impure thoughts about killing each other and Juster had a gun on him. Juster brought out the gun and shot at the floor to scare Marion. After the gunshot, Juster experienced a stroke and fell into a coma. While Juster was at the hospital, Marion went to be with him every day and take care of him in hopes that she would get to speak to him once more. It was clear that Marion had realized that what she had with Juster was true love, and that she had made a lot of mistakes. Juster finally awoke from his coma and they talked briefly and he sent her away. Afterward, Juster fell out of his hospital bed as he called out for Marion and she soon came back to him. They proclaimed their love for each other as Juster said his last words.
I did not think that there were a lot of connections between the course and the Abingdon Square. The play was about a young, white female in the twentieth century. However, I think that the play did illustrate a role reversal. Normally we hear about men cheating on their wives or sleeping around with a lot of different women. In Abingdon Square, Marion was the one who was cheating on her husband. I think that a lot of people would have seen this as nonstandard, especially, in the twentieth century. In the course, we have talked about what is masculine and what is feminine. In the present time, I think that men think that it is a masculine standard to hook up with as many women as they can. Women on the other hand, are viewed as “sluts” or “easy” if they perform these kinds of actions. In Judy Wajcman’s, Technology as Masculine Culture, she explains that women’s technologies consist of childcare. In the play, Juster keeps the baby for himself and Marion does not take care of him while they are separated. This is also a role reversal that has to do with masculinity and femininity. It is not normal for the husband or dominate male to take care of the children. This is customary as the female’s duty. Other than the concept of masculinity and femininity, I don’t think the play really touched on feminism, race, gender differences, or stereotypes. There was one discussion in the play where Marion was talking to a friend about someone they knew of having a threesome with two girls and one boy. This brought in the concept of lesbians a little but there was no more discussion about it throughout the rest of the play. It did demonstrate that lesbians and homosexuals were thought of as abnormal and frowned upon even in the twentieth century.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed the performance. The play kept me guessing what was going to happen next and was very atypical. This was the first play that I have attended at Virginia Tech and I thought that they did a wonderful job. I also like that the play took place in the twentieth century because, it showed that values and concepts were not completely different from the way that they are now. It was very interesting that Marion was unhappy and thought that she could achieve happiness in someone else but, she ultimately came back to Juster. I think that maybe if she had not married when she was fifteen, Marion would not have felt like she was tied down and needed to be independent. I think that this has a lot to say about why people get married a lot later these days. It seems like nowadays people get married when they are between 25 and 30 for the most part. Although, when my grandmother got married, things were very different and people got married very young, usually when they were teenagers. I think that Fornes’ play was an excellent example of why people started to marry much later. I would definitely recommend this play for anyone and I am glad that I had the chance to go out and see it.

CRJ #3

Judy Wajcman’s, Technology as Masculine Culture, argues that the link between technology and masculinity is in the male bias of the definition of technology. People think of male dominated technologies, such as industrial machinery and cars, when they hear the word technology. They do not think about the significance of women’s technologies which include; cooking, horticulture, childcare, and many more. Our culture has made us think this way. The symbolic representation of technology is the idea of masculinity having an intimate bond with technology.
Today’s present technical culture conveys technology being associated with men. Ultimately, this plays a role in continuing the exclusion of women. This culture comes from a historical construction of gender. Everyone has learned to associate technology with men and it would be very hard to change everyone's view.
Wajcman stated that cognitive styles are often times a product of how you were taught in primary school to use the computer. The computer is usually associated with boys, so girls may not be as confident when they are using computers. This probably turns off a lot of girls from continuing to practice in the computer field. I know that I usually think of computer programmers and people with computer-related jobs as men. However, I think that things have changed a lot. I am a business management major and my schooling requires a lot of work with computers. There are a lot of women these days that work with computers even though men still outnumber women in this field.
It is very interesting to know that the first computer programmers were women because of war. I think that it is very surprising that we relate computers to men so much when women were actually the first computer programmers. I agree with the statement that computers are usually associated with men but, I do not agree that only men can do the creative, intellectual, and demanding work of programming.
Joan Roughgarden believes that hetero and homo distinction is a purely cultural creation because there are over 450 different vertebrate species that are documented as being homosexual. This tells us that same-sex sexuality is normal and probably necessary. Therefore, this same-sex partnering throughout the animal kingdom must be an adaptive trait preserved by natural selection.
I think that Roughgarden makes a very significant point. If there are so many other species of animals that are same-sex partners it must be a normal part of sexual selection. It makes sense that homosexuality is just a normal fact of life and that we are the ones responsible for making heterosexual and homosexual distinctions. If we did not make such a big deal about the distinctions, no one would think anything of someone being homosexual. Everyone would just look at sexuality as a preference and homosexuals would be considered ordinary.

Egg and Sperm

The conception video was a men’s view of how sperm is used to penetrate an egg in a woman’s body. The video used several spacecrafts to show that men have plenty of sperm to go around. They also showed the spacecrafts being fired at as if the egg was very hard to get to and protected very well. Finally, the video showed one spacecraft that was able to enter the egg and made it seem like it was as hard as performing neurosurgery. Overall, the video was giving off the suggestion that women are insufficient in reproducing and men are very adequate.
Emily Martin wrote an article in order to argue against this vision of men being seen as very sufficient in reproduction and women being very insufficient. She makes a good point in saying that the average man can produce over two trillion sperm in his lifetime and that he should be seen as reckless and wasteful. The average woman produces about 500 eggs in her lifetime which should not be seen as unsatisfactory. Martin stated that one clear feminist challenge is to wake up “sleeping metaphors in science,” to describe the egg and the sperm.
It is important to care about ideas about gender because it is not fair to refer to the woman’s reproductive system as “passive” and the man’s reproductive system as “masculine.” This is just another reason for men to feel superior towards women. The language that is used to explain gender should be written in a way that is tasteful for both sexes. As Joan Wallach Scott wrote, gender “offers a way of differentiating sexual practice from the social roles assigned to women and men.” Social construction of gender should be separate but equal in women and men.

CRJ #2

When Carole Vance said ideas about gender and sexuality must not be understood as “natural” or unchanging “truths” but as “social constructions,” she meant that the ideas about gender and sexuality should be produced in societies in a particular time and place. Social construction theory is the violation of our folk knowledge and scientific ideologies that would frame sexuality as “natural” determined by biology and the body.
Essentialism is the belief that human behavior is predetermined by genetic, biological or physiological mechanisms and is not subject to change. Essentialism also outlines that human behaviors which show some similarity in form are the same. In relation to essentialism, biological determinism is the belief that biology determines fundamentally all behavior and actions.
The social constructionist argues against essentialist views of identity in favor of historical and cultural approaches and methods. Social construction says that the relationship between sexual acts and sexual identities is not a fixed one. When someone says that sex/gender is socially constructed, it means that sexuality is viewed in relation to culture and history instead of genetics or biology.
I found that Charlotte Furth’s article about androgynous males and deficient females was very interesting. The Chinese account of “Systematic Aid for the Disorders of Yin” was a fascinating seventeenth-century gynecological text. It explained that human males are not “pure yang” and females are not “pure yin” but sexual differentiation depends on the momentary balance of fluid forces. Yin-yang in Chinese thought, are the two complementary forces or principles whose interplay makes up all phenomena. If there is disorder in yin-yang influences at the time of conception, multiple births, physical and functional defects was a result. The article also stated that medical authorities categorized biological insufficiency in men and women as a product of old mothers and young fathers producing overripe daughters and vigorous mothers and feeble fathers producing weakling sons. Medical authority also defined the sexually normal in terms of reproductive capabilities. The sterile person, even though he or she looks normal and is capable of intercourse, is among those with a basic biological defect. On the other hand, the physically anomalous person is fully human but useless.
I liked that the text explained that the sex of a child is determined simply by the relative ascendancy of yin or yang ch’i present at the moment of conception. They also listed some other environmental influences such as, day, date, month or season of the year, direction, moment in the menstrual cycle of a woman, wind, and weather. However, I do not agree that old mothers and young fathers produce overripe daughters and vigorous mothers and feeble fathers produce weakling sons. I do not think that this is a good definition of a biological insufficiency in men and women. I also liked Li Shih-Chen’s ideas on “human anomaly. He concluded that changes of sex were among the possible “transformations of yin and yang.” I think that gender inversion is an important term and explains why men become females and females become males. Gender inversion is when the gender characteristics or roles of one sex are assigned to the opposite sex. Overall, I enjoyed reading about the history of China and their biology and gender boundaries. A lot of time has passed and I think that the idea of switching genders because you were born with both parts or born with the wrong parts is becoming a lot more accepted. I also think that switching genders is more acceptable because the gay and lesbian communities are becoming larger and more open.