Rothenberg Race And Gender Analysis

• Part 1- Discuss book’s main arguments, supporting evidence and conclusions; Measuring Manhood, by Melissa N. Stein focuses on the influence by scientists in institutionalizing race as being a biological entity, using gender and sex differences to bolster these claims within the early periods of the United States from 1830 to 1934. Within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these physical differences as argued by scientists were used to create a hierarchy of beings in the United States. Through one’s physical body their social body was constructed as being directly dependent on their physical characteristics. Moreover, she is concerned with how these “facts” were internalized by the citizens and how this led to differences in treatment.

Beginning with the findings from Buck’s Constructing Race, Creating White Privilege, there are multiple, brilliant examples of racial mixing and establishing “whiteness,” both being main points discussed in Omi and Winant’s racialization theory. Buck establishes that ideas about race weren’t truly established until the late 1700s, and how physical differences were seldom ever noticed beforehand. This is illustrated with stories of different individuals living together with little conflict. Buck uses the

Charles Mills, who works in the general area of social and political philosophy, promoted an idea which is linked between the political theory of gender and race. Mill`s brought up the concept of how Blacks in America have certain implications that reflect towards their individual freedom as a whole. In his essay, “But What Are You Really?” The Metaphysics of Race” he extrapolates this view to how race is defined amongst our society and how he opposes racial realism. He guides his perception through dividing his argument through examples of racial classifications. Such examples include “quace”,”horizontal”, and “vertical” systems. He is interested answering how racial classification applies to basis of nature. Mill`s main goal of his argument is to show how race raises metaphysical issues, These issues might answer the question who and what we are as individuals.

During the late twenty-first century the academic focus recognised as the ‘critical philosophy of race’ was developed with the purpose of analysing the metaphysics of race. Scholars began to conceptualise ‘race’ with frameworks other than biological determinism due to scientific findings that proposed that race, as conceptualised as a biological fact, does not exist. To ground the social reality of race, theories of social constructionism attempt to explain the social practice of interpreting difference along a constructed hierarchy. The accounts primarily of Haslanger, but also of Zack, Tattersall, and Glasglow form a complex overview of the constructionist theory of

The book has as its principal thesis the consideration of race as “a folk classification, a product of popular beliefs about human differences that evolved from 16th to 19th centuries” (Smedley, 2007, pag.24). The book also specifies three characteristics that distinguish the racial ideology in America: the absence of a category for biracial people, the homogenization of the black or African American Americans, and the impossibility to change a person’s race. (Smedley, 2007, pag.7)

Race was socially constructed through white worker’s ideologies of distinguishing themselves from Native Americans and black folks, or simply the “others”. As Roediger states:

In “A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality”, Lynn Weber claims that categories such as race and gender are socially constructed. In this paper, I will defend Weber’s claim with a particular focus on gender and gender identity, with gender being defined as a state of masculinity or femininity which is either based on the sex of a person or on their personal identification (Oxford Dictionaries). I will first explore the for and against arguments to Weber’s position, then in my own response, I will argue that gender is a social construct as gendered behaviour is learned over time, and that gender is contextual in nature. Additionally, I will explore the implications of the social construction of gender in

Race and gender are two important terms in society that define us. However, they lead to inequality among individuals. "Race is a socially defined category based on real or perceived biological differences between groups of people" (Ferris and Stein 216). It is based off our biological makeup that distinct us from others (Ferris and Stein). Many people do not know the actual term of race, how deeply rooted it is, or where it derived from, but it all works in one form. Race goes a long way from how you may appear to someone. Just because someone looks a certain race does not mean they will not have inevitably biological material from other races. It is very diverse between many different populations. Race does not identify who you are but what social category you are from. Gender is how you physically appear in society. "Gender is the physical, behavior, and personality traits that a group considers to be normal, natural, right, and good for its male and female members" (Ferris and Stein 243). It is the identity of masculine and feminine. Gender identifies who we are and it reflects deeply on a person's personality. They normally change over time from the assigned sex given at birth. Society has its way of discriminating between race and gender and it shows differences distributed among individuals.

The concept of gender is not as cut and dry as you might think. The term gender is often used incorrectly as a synonym for our biological sex. Gender is more of a predetermined set of ideas and characteristics used in identifying socially acceptable behaviors and appearances for the sexes. It is not determined by the biological sex of the person. From an early age we begin to develop ideas of what it means to be male or female by observing others. Gender falls on a spectrum from masculine to feminine with many combinations in between. Gender expression and gender identity are also not the same thing. Gender expression is not related directly to how a person perceives their gender,

Race and gender are socially constructed. In spite of being a biological factor, gender is considered as a social construct. The males are considered superior to the females in many societies. The more a gender has been treated in a certain manner, the more one succumbs to the same environment. Different people expresses that a gender is superior to another but they do not consider the biological factors associated with the same. Gender is socially constructed because of the views which have been created in theories or the culture around us (Glenn and Nakano, 1999). The social construction of gender has

Omi and Winant’s discussion from “Racial Formations” are generally about race being a social construct and is also demonstrated in the viewing of Race - The power of an illusion. Omi and Winant have both agreed that race is socially constructed in society. Ultimately this means that race is seen differently in different societies and different cultures. Media, politics, school, economy and family helps alter society’s structure of race. In the viewing , also media as well as history seemed to create race by showing how social norms have evolved in different racial groups.

The textbook describes sex as biological and gender as behavior and attitudes. Sex is what people are biologically born with, and gender is a person’s masculinity or femininity in their actions and behavior along with their thoughts and outlooks about themselves. The articles go into detail about sexual orientation and gender identity. Sexual orientation is far more external and relates to the emotional connections one shares with other humans beings.

When considering gender and sex, a layman’s idea of these terms might be very different than a sociologist’s. There is an important distinction: sex, in terms of being “male” or “female,” is purely the physical biological characteristic differences – primarily anatomical differences. (There are also rare cases of “intersexual” individuals as outlined in the Navarro article, “When Gender Isn’t a Given”.) Gender, on the other hand, is an often misconstrued concept that is commonly mistaken as synonymous with sex. A non-sociologist might surmise the following, “men act masculine and women act feminine, therefore, it must follow that gender is inherent to sex,” however, this is not necessarily the case.

Gender is not based on physical attributes. Sex is the word that should be used when speaking about biological characteristics. So, based on the definition of gender by LeVay, gender identity is one’s personal attitude towards being more male or female.

There are distinct differences between Sex and Gender. Sex is divided up into two divisions, male or female, based upon their reproductive system. Gender is the notion set by society on what social behaviours are acceptable for males and females, for example the expectation that females are more caring or nurturing than men. Gender can be further divided into two subcategorise: identity and stereotype. Gender identity is the concept that your sex and gender do not have to be the same but can different, i.e. a male at birth can identify as a female. These notions of acceptable behaviour set by society create gender stereotypes for both male and female, which can cause a person to reject their gender identity if they do not conform these gender stereotypes.