premise on which people consider gender as mechanical or automatic. Butler argues that gender and sexuality are, contrary to normative restrictions, improvisations within some constraint. Furthermore, a person does not do their gender in complete exclusion of others people’s genders. Gender is only done for or with others even when the other person(s) is imaginary. What is to be considered someone’s gender exists only as something a person authors or owns. The conditions that constitute the gender of a person are beyond and outside a person inside. The idea that someone can author gender in a society that is opposed to the suggestion… Continue Reading...
Essentialist vs. Constructionist Views of Gender and Sexuality
During a period in history when gender lines and blurring and conceptualizations of sexuality are changing, identifying how these trends affect modern society has assumed new importance and relevance, especially given the legal implications of these trends for Americans today. It is also important to note, though, that these same trends occurred in many ways in some parts of the ancient world where pansexuality was the norm rather than the exception. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the relevant literature to describe… Continue Reading...
(Belshaw, 1974, p. 520). For example, among other fields of interest, anthropologists have investigated questions concerning gender and sexuality using field research and ethnographic studies (Mazzarella, 2002). Likewise, anthropologists have also carefully examined the extent to which these findings can be used to develop a better understanding of the respective roles of biology and the environment on modern gender roles (Mazzarella, 2002).
The use of anthropological studies to investigate the impact of biological influences versus environment factors just makes good sense given the discipline’s focus on developing a better understanding concerning how human society affects modern gender roles. Certainly, the influence of environmental factors has long… Continue Reading...
