Nature is a constant state of the unchanging natural world. Culture is the constant changing of humans and other aspects of the world.
Saying that gender and sexuality are social as opposed to natural I believe is quite accurate. Although I don't believe certain aspects of sexuality and gender are appropriate, they are a part of our time period and I have to learn to accept them the way they are. Back when our parents were younger, there was no tolerance of homosexuality, bi-racial couples, and trans gendered individuals. Those are a few examples of gender and sexuality being a social construction. If it were natural then there would be no change and no variation from past generations. All couples would be male and female. All couples would be of the same race. Those are the 'traditional' modes I believe the author is referring to.
Another aspect in reference to gender is the fact that women now have more abilities, powers, ideas, and objectives. We can own our own business, run for President, raise a family, be a doctor or a lawyer; there are very few limitations now. Had the role of gender been a natural truth, then we would only be allowed to marry a man and then raise his family (depending on how far back in history we travel).
We can look into different perspectives about this issue. The essentialist's perspective states that a person's sexual desires and needs are innate (chapter 4 pg 186) and that social impact has very little to do with it.
The social constructionist view was also explained in the same section of reading and was seen within the biological desire and evolutionary understanding of biological adaptations. This is saying that the ideas of male and female are based on culture.
As seen in the previous section of my journal, I had to go to the text to find out more information on this topic. I didn't really find these readings to be helpful. They were bland and boring and I can't say that I agree with most that were in them. Some of the ideas seemed to be a bit outrageous to me and others seemed to be more commonsense. The idea of "biopower" threw me for a loop. Looking back over the reading now, I believe it is in reference to women being involved in the medical and science fields. But originally, all I could think of was: where do these people come up with this stuff? There were women arrested for wanting other women to have birth control and equality. There are still women (and doctors) being arrested now for wanting the freedom to have (perform) an abortion- which is a completely different topic and I will not go into this because I'll write more than you want to read.
Women should have the right to the birth control and other contraceptives they may need but sometimes things get taken too far. I think abortion is wrong and should only be used in rape cases. And even with rape cases I think they should bring back the law which will allow a woman to be "cleaned" after a rape so that way there is no chance of her becoming pregnant from it.
1 comment:
I encourage you to try to be open to the concepts in the reading for this section -- I interpret your post as being hesitant to work with them because you feel as if they might go against your beliefs... in actuality, I don't think that they do... these ideas in this section are not about the acceptance of "alternative sexualities" (I read your post as that you oppose these as appropriate)... rather the concept of social construction is about how the very concept of gender/sex/sexuality have changed over time and place -- that is why he readings look at the history of science and medicine -- science has been influenced by cultural ideas of gender/sex/secuality over time... through our microscopes we have made sense of sex/gender/sexuality in different ways..
social construction theory states that the very concepts of gender/sex/sexuality are specific to time and place...
additionally it says that gender is much more than chromosomes... it is stuff like girls wear pink and lke dolls (that's not biological, its social!) and these meanings change...
social construction theory is different than the nature v. nurture debate...
true that non-heterosexual sexualities and non-male/female genders are more accepted now than before -- but these are still understood in a binary system... not a gender system where there are 7 options (like in the Fausto-Sterling article)...
be sure to check out the notes on this section (they are posted with the scanned readings)....
Current scientific ideas about male and female bodies and cultural definitions of masculinity and femininity all have histories. Studying the different models that practitioners and scholars of the body and health in different cultures and time periods have used to conceptualize human bodies can help us realize that these ideas are not essential. Vance’s essay describes this way of thinking about bodies as a social constructivist theory: a belief that the cultural context in which a person, act, or behavior is situated determines the way gender will be perceived and experienced. In contrast, essentialists assert that bodies possess qualities that do not change over time and space. Biological determinism considers gender to be biologically determined.
Social constructionist view: “… physically identical sexual acts may have varying social significance and subjective meanings depending on how they are defined and understood in different cultures and historical periods. Because a sexual act does not carry with it a universal social meaning, it follows that the relationship between social acts and sexual identities is not a fixed one, and it is projected from the observer’s time and place to others at great peril. Cultures provide widely different categories, schemata, and labels for framing sexual and affective experiences…” (Vance, 30-31). The social construction view makes us question the “naturalness” of sexuality – remember we have seen how human values and stereotypes get into science and the lens by which we “see” sex/gender
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