The Biological View on Gender
Dr. Strode
English 101:KK
17 September 2010
The Biological and Cultural View on Gender Society has drilled an image into our minds as people of how the role of each gender should be played out. There are two recognized types of genders, a male and a female. Most people come to think that gender is just male or female. Yet it has become more complex then that. Today it is not just that if you have male parts, you are a man, the opposite goes for women. According to the authors Aaron Devor and Deborah Blum. Gender is much more complex then just male and female, it is more socially composed. We are taught to be male and female trough things like media, our parents, and role model figures. These gender roles are not something that we are born with; we are not genetically put together to act male or female. Using the ideas of Devor and Blum to advice. My paper will display how gender is socially engineered, by analyzing an ad for Marc Jacobs’s male fragrance Bang. To show that gender is imposed on us by society we live in, I will first look at one of the two sides of the gender issue cultural or biology. Writers like Aaron Devor in “Gender role behaviors and attitudes” represent the Cultural side of gender. Aaron Devor believes gender is taught to us, For example in culture today if you possess male characteristics as a female you could be considered culturally masculine. And the same goes for a male who posses feminine characteristics. Devor makes this point about gender Devor writes, “ people appear feminine when they keep their arms closer to theirs bodies, their legs closer together, and their torsos and heads less vertical then do masculine-looking individuals”(569). By using words like “masculine- looking” and “appear feminine”, Devor stresses the idea that you may look more like one gender when using certain body postures. Things like putting your legs and arms closer together are feminine signs. So a man who does
English 101:KK
17 September 2010
The Biological and Cultural View on Gender Society has drilled an image into our minds as people of how the role of each gender should be played out. There are two recognized types of genders, a male and a female. Most people come to think that gender is just male or female. Yet it has become more complex then that. Today it is not just that if you have male parts, you are a man, the opposite goes for women. According to the authors Aaron Devor and Deborah Blum. Gender is much more complex then just male and female, it is more socially composed. We are taught to be male and female trough things like media, our parents, and role model figures. These gender roles are not something that we are born with; we are not genetically put together to act male or female. Using the ideas of Devor and Blum to advice. My paper will display how gender is socially engineered, by analyzing an ad for Marc Jacobs’s male fragrance Bang. To show that gender is imposed on us by society we live in, I will first look at one of the two sides of the gender issue cultural or biology. Writers like Aaron Devor in “Gender role behaviors and attitudes” represent the Cultural side of gender. Aaron Devor believes gender is taught to us, For example in culture today if you possess male characteristics as a female you could be considered culturally masculine. And the same goes for a male who posses feminine characteristics. Devor makes this point about gender Devor writes, “ people appear feminine when they keep their arms closer to theirs bodies, their legs closer together, and their torsos and heads less vertical then do masculine-looking individuals”(569). By using words like “masculine- looking” and “appear feminine”, Devor stresses the idea that you may look more like one gender when using certain body postures. Things like putting your legs and arms closer together are feminine signs. So a man who does