...What is the Difference Between ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’? To start this essay I will clearly state definitions of ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’ respectively. ‘Sex’ is described as ‘the biological properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles.’(Princeton University – 2010). Whereas gender is listed as ‘the state of being male or female, typically with reference to social or cultural differences rather than biological.’(Michigan University – 2010). In this essay I will explore and investigate both sex and gender, whilst identifying the differences between the two. I will start by elaborating on the given definitions. Sex is defined on the Princeton University website as ‘biological’. This is a word that has recurred in many other definitions that I have researched for the word ‘sex’. This would suggest that sex is able to be categorized in a straight forward manner. However, there are several high profile cases in the media, when the issue of ‘sex’ has come into question. Perhaps most recently is the case of South African athlete, Caster Semanya. Semanya won the 800m race during the African Junior Championship, with the fastest time of the year. This lead to some spectators questioning her sex. When looking at the athlete she has an incredibly muscular and angular frame, and this coupled with her record breaking run made the International Athletic Association ask for a sex test. This case brought the issue of ‘sex’ into much disrepute. Now, we are...
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... “Gender and Sexuality Defining Our Identity” How do we establish identities? We construct our identities through experiences, emotions, connections, and rejections. An identity is a snapshot of who we are at a point in time. Identities are fluid, constantly changing, shifting, becoming. Identities vary across scales, and affect each other across scales. Gender– “a culture’s assumptions about the differences between men and women: their ‘characters,’ the roles they play in society, what they represent.” By nature, we as humans have needed to identify ourselves and others in broad and exclusionary/inclusionary terms. But then, “human nature” is actually nothing more than human habit. Every set of standards that we as a society currently use to identify ourselves is coupled with an opposing set: good versus bad, female versus male, hetero versus homo. This system of duality in the everyday assessment of ourselves and those around us holds the power to rob individuals of their dignity as human beings. As society changes over time, the people of society change as well. People all around the world are defined by many things, including characteristics, ethnicity, and many, many more. But, today something else is defining people, and that is their gender. In reading two essays, “Deconstructing...
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...Comparing and Contrasting Essentialist Approaches to Social Psychology with Social Constructionist Approaches to Social Psychology. A widely recognised definition of social psychology is “an effort to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others” (Allport, 1985). However, how to measure this, the research methods to be used and what constitutes useful evidence has caused much debate in the history of social psychology. This essay will compare and contrast the two epistemologies of essentialist and social constructionist approaches to social psychology and the research methods of quantitative and qualitative used in each approach. Essentialists’ view of the world is that the properties possessed by a group are universal in that group and do not depend on context. However, a member of a group may possess other characteristics that are not required to include it as a group member but, it must not have characteristics that preclude it from being a member of the group (Burr, 1995). For example, essentialists believe that personality consists of a number of traits and personality of an individual is established by the level of each of these traits. Essentialists also believe that these traits remain more or less stable over time and it is our personality that influences behaviour (Maltby, 2010). As essentialists are able to classify groups as such, they use quantitative research...
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...Picture Through discriminations of class and gender This photo displays physical activity inequity and is supported through the incorporation of class and gender discrimination. This photo is an example of physical activity Class discrimination Shoe Inequity in Opportunity? Ahead inequality of condition; (ii) inequality of opportunity Gender discrimintaition Symbolize inequity in power – holding all sports Ahead start why? – inequality of capability. Write a four-page essay based on the photo. In the body of your essay, begin by explaining how the image symbolizes inequity. Next, argue for what you believe to be the ultimate cause/causes of the inequity. Finish off the body of the essay with a brief account of what you think should be done to help resolve the inequity. The body of your essay should make up about three and a half pages. Finally, write a short introductory paragraph in which you briefly describe the circumstances under which you took the photo and state your thesis (in a sentence or two) about the ultimate cause/causes of the inequity, and a short conclusion paragraph in which you emphasize what you believe to be the most important points in the essay. Intro Over time the types of physical activity inequities in sports have become better understood and recognized by our changing society. I took this photo because it captures inequity of ‘condition’ and ‘opportunity’ on a basketball court in the west end of Toronto...
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...Throughout this essay the main aim will be to convince the reader that gender is a social construct and is socially determined. This will be done by analysing evidence, both biological and social and showing how social research is much stronger and what we can learn from it. The ways in which society determines gender will be brought to light and then the main points which biologist thinkers tend to ignore will be explained. it will then be shown why and how this can effect not just women but men as well. By doing this the reader will understand relevant research, identify the key points of how gender is socially constructed and then finally be able to realise how this is effecting individuals lives and how it would be beneficial to some...
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...Aaron Schwartz Professional Communications Essay outline Prof. Kirshenbaum Farleigh Dickenson University Wednesdays 1:00-4:30 11/1/10 “Boys will be boy, girls will be girls” They say: “Boys will always be boys and girls will always be girls”. What does that even mean? Well our society has come to interpret this often said phrase to mean; little boys will always play with their guns while little girls will always play with their dolls. Teenage boys will always play with a football while teenage girls talk on the phone for hours. Men will always watch professional sports while women will still be talking on the phone for hours. Now is this just a stereotype or is this indeed a fact of life? Are guys truly more aggressive? Are women really more nurturing? You better believe it! Gender differences are real and they are simply more than just a serotype. “Boys will be boys” because their brain tells them to be, not because our society does. “Testosterone plays a huge role in aggression testosterone is the primary male sex hormone produced by the testicles. The male is said to produce forty to sixty times the testosterone then women. The University of Wisconsin did a study in which the researchers injected testosterone into unborn female monkeys. Once these females were born they did not nurture or groom their children they acted like male monkeys and began to become more violent and very aggressive.”(York) from that experiment we learn that once the testosterone...
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...like a girl”. The phrase “throwing like a girl” has become an offensive, almost derogatory term that shames some women and implies they do not possess the same athleticism as men. Fallows suggests that the answer to why they throw so differently must be more than just being a woman. Some people believe a man and a woman's shoulder are hinged differently, and that is the reason for the difference in the way...
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...Running Head: SEX ROLES AND GENDER INEQUALITY Sex roles and Gender Inequality SEX ROLES AND GENDER INEQUALITY Introduction Sex is defined as the biological differences between a male and female. Gender, however, can be identified as the way society organizes understandings of sexual difference (Shaw & Lee, 2001). In this essay, I will try to discuss whether gender differences, and in turn inequality, is a creation of people and society or it is indeed the natural state with virtue of their sexual character. This essay, which is written under the guidance of Daniel Bosley, part-time lecturer at Maldives National University, will focus upon the formation of gender, sex roles, feminine and masculine character, gender stereotypes and how it leads to gender inequality. SEX ROLES AND GENDER INEQUALITY Formation of Gender: Feminine and Masculine As people live together in a society, different roles are taught based on their sex known as sex roles, not much different from social role and socialization. The way individuals of different sexes acquire these roles, also known as role learning or socialization, is important in understanding how sexual characters are formed. “Feminine character is produced by socialization into the female role, masculine character by socialization into the male role – and deviants by some kind of failure in socialization” (Connell, 1987). The sex roles are therefore a set of prescriptions, attributes and expectations...
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...Melanie Haughton DD102 TMA02 Drawing on what you have learnt from the DD102 module materials and your work on TMA 01, outline some examples of difference on City Road, Cardiff. In this essay I will be looking at they types of difference on City Road. Difference is the dissimilarity between groups of people. Differences are the features that make groups of people distinctly different and could be defined by age, gender, class, disabilities, ethnicity, religion and sexuality. What is clear from observing people and their lives on City Road is while for some differences are made through personal choice, some differences are For the purpose of this assignment I will be defining difference. Difference is the dissimilarity between groups of people. Differences are the features that make groups of people distinctly different froone another. The focus on difference could be defined by age, gender, class, ethnicity and sexuality. One of the examples of difference I have chosen is the Mackintosh Centre. The head coach notes that local people can feel excluded from the sports club (The Open University 2014a). It looks expensive and exclusive even though it tries to be inclusive and open to everyone (Blakeley and Staples, 2014, p.27). The next example I am going to use is the men in the Municipal Club. The men in the Municipal Club feel that the street no longer belongs to them, as it once did in the past (The Open University 2014b). The sense of nostalgia they...
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...are determined by forces beyond their control (e. g., fate, chance, luck, powerful others and supernatural forces) and that they determine the occurrence of specified events. As Rotter (1966) pointed out, the effect of reinforcement “depends on whether or not the person perceives a causal relationship between his own behavior and the reward” (p. 1) As cited by Samaei (Samaei, Ramezani, & Semnani, 2012) in his study, to some researchers such as Rotter (1986), Heinrich & Gullone (2006) and Ekwall (2004) one of the researchable and important aspects of personality is the study of locus of control in individuals. According to Bal, Singh, & Singh, 2010, locus of control has been one of the psychological factors that give impact on sport performance. Locus of control has been associated with many different personalities and situational variables. The assumption upon which locus of...
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...Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the claim that gender differences in educational achievement are primarily ‘the result of changes in wider society’ (30 marks) Girls have rapidly improved, compared to boys, in terms of educational achievement, as Item A states, since the 1980’s. In Key Stages 1-3, girls consistently do better than boys in writing subjects such as English; at GCSE, girls are 10 percentage more likely than boys to achieve five or more A*-C grades; at AS/A-level, girls are more likely to get higher grades. Additionally, at each stage of a pupil’s education, the gap gets narrower. Therefore, more girls go into higher education. However, this is not the case for boys as there are in changes in the both the education system and wider society. As item A suggests, there are many external factors resulting in gender differences in educational achievement. One factor is the impact of Feminism. Since the 1960’s, feminists have challenged patriarchy by creating the ‘Feminist Movement’. This has help to improve the rights of women, as well as raise expectations and the self-esteem of women. Although many would agree that true equality with males has not yet been achieved, women have now started to reject the traditional stereotypes of women such as the ‘mother and housewife role’. For example, in McRobbie’s study of girls’ magazines shows how girls view of themselves have changed. She found that in the 1970’s, girls emphasised the importance of getting married...
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...[pic] |Course Design Guide College of Humanities SOC/105 Version 5 Introduction to Popular American Culture | |Copyright © 2011, 2010, 2006, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved. Course Description This is an introductory course on modern American culture. The course focuses on the interactions between social forces such as advertising, media, and lifestyle and cultural trends in modern American society. Students are asked to cast a critical eye on current trends and changes in our culture. Policies Faculty and students/learners will be held responsible for understanding and adhering to all policies contained within the following two documents: • University policies: You must be logged into the student website to view this document. • Instructor policies: This document is posted in the Course Materials forum. University policies are subject to change. Be sure to read the policies at the beginning of each class. Policies may be slightly different depending on the modality in which you attend class. If you have recently changed modalities, read the policies governing your current class modality. Course Materials Petracca, M., & Sorapure, M. (2007). Common culture: Reading and writing about American popular culture (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. All electronic materials are available on the student website. |Week One: Overview of Culture ...
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...In what ways does a comparative study accentuate the distinctive contexts of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A Room of One’s Own? A Room of One’s Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) by Edward Albee, when compared, accentuate the difference in values and beliefs that pervaded the context in which they wrote. Woolf’s critical yet creative essay explores truth and gender equality in a period driven by progression and the first wave of feminism. Contrastingly, Albee attempts to confront his audience through satirical dialogue and bombastic characters. Although Albee also explores truth and gender equality, the difference in context allows him to examine the way in which these values have been discarded in the moral decline masked by the American Dream. When paralleled, it is evident that both texts reflect the differences of their context. Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own digs beneath the veneer of social progress to expose the patriarchal values entrenched in society. Woolf first establishes the subjectivity of truth, so that the readers draw their own conclusion as “they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker.” By making them conscious on the subjectivity of truth, Woolf is forcing the reader to draw their own conclusions on what is logical, rather than accepting the patriarchal beliefs of their context. The anecdotal evidence of the fictitious Mary Seaton’s experience at the British Museum exposes the...
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...Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality.”1 She combines the lived body theory of Merleau-Ponty and the theory of the situation of women expressed by Beauvoir to explore the modalities of feminine body experience. 2,3 By investigating the different ways men and women hold themselves and use their body, one can comprehend the root of the differences between the sexes. By exploring observations in daily life, such as throwing a ball, Young explores the reason for terms such...
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...The difference between Western and Eastern education. The difference between Western and Eastern education - Education system in need of change? 林怡廷 (Joyce Lin) 三年十八班 台北市立育成高級中學 1 PDF created with pdfFactory trial version www.pdffactory.com The difference between Western and Eastern education. I. Introduction: People tend to think that Westerners are more assertive and creative, while Easterners are more conservative and reserved. So what makes all these difference? I would suggest it is the result of the different education systems. Having studied under both foreign and local teachers, I discovered that their approaches to teaching are fundamentally different. In this essay, I would like to examine and evaluate these differences. This is vitally important as it influences our choices and responses in life beyond school. And will finally determine our values, the quality of our lives and the satisfaction we derive from life. II. Thesis: A. Teacher-centered and student-centered I would say that the prime difference between the two education systems is that one uses teacher-centered classes, and the other uses student-centered classes. In the Eastern education system, the teacher is the only authority; his or her words are not to be questioned. Students are not expected to speak up in class or respond to the questions that the teacher asks. Therefore, most of the questions are rather rhetorical. Questions are brought up for the teachers to answer. Thus, there is...
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