Lorber, Judith. “The Social Construction of Gender (1991)”. WL.
If any color were to ever to describe me it would be pink. Almost every item I own in my life is pink, in materialistic terms. My ipod, bed sheets, computer cover, clothing, shoes, my room, even my grandma had my car painted pink for my sixteenth birthday. I was on the dance team in high school, cheerleading, and despite my previous ideas about college, joined a sorority last spring. I even have pink in my blonde hair. So then who am I in society? Or rather the question that Lorber brought to my mind: what has American culture placed me to be in society? It is quit clear that I have bought into the process, the stratification, and the structure of that that is to be “gendered”. Does this make me shallow? Does this make me a lower class citizen of society? Does this mean that I have subconsciously “bought” into the idea that I am of lower class, that I will never be equal to a man, that I will inevitably have to be a house wife, that my identity will always be of a lesser person in society? Lorber makes extreme points of not the idea of gender, but actually claiming that there is no such thing as gender, but only the act of “being gendered”, as in an action that citizens all over the world par take in as a reflection of their culture. This made me rethink the entire structure of what it means to be physically called a man and to physically be called a woman. There are obvious anatomy differences when every human is born (expect those that are hermaphrodites, which are the corrected to be “gendered”). Yet the question I have for Lorber is why do women, or rather those that produce the chemical estrogen bare children, and humans that produce testosterone do not? What does that reflect about the literal construction of humans, and how has the mind, rather then society, adjusted to that? I believe the only way that humans can cope with the idea and physical purpose to reproduce is to process that notion in a way that the brain can separate the two. This may be a naive concept, but this idea came to mind when I tried to grasp the overwhelming concept that gender is not a noun, but an adjective in order to describe society. So is pink a reflection of being an American girl? Or is that I being the individual I want to be?
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Hey! This prompted something interesting for me-I worked at Victoria's Secret and I always wondered why they decided to call the brand for younger women PINK, not to mention the fact that the entire store is intentionally wallpapered, carpeted, painted and waxed in shades of pink. I think I will explore this idea more in a blog!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great blog, thanks for sharing! You make some really interesting points about our brains being able to "seperate" people into male or female gender. It's so weird to think that this could be kept in place by something like the color pink. But it really makes you think, because it is all over the place in "women centered" stores (and elsewhere).
Jess Moore:
ReplyDeleteThank you so much from the input. I have never been married or have had a child, so when I wrote the sentence “…inevitably have to be a housewife” this term I throw around very loosely, and in no way intended it to be demeaning, but prove the point that it is looked down upon in society, and I agree with your passion to fight against that respect issue much of American culture has for the “home maker” “house wife”. Coming from the perspective of someone who was raised by the single, working mom my whole life the theme of being independent for yourself and no one else has been instilled in me my whole life, and I have great respect for the moms who choose to stay at home, I believe personally its much harder then the majority of salary paid jobs!
I agree with Lorber in the fact that gender is a concept that is used to label people, and that people are not a specific gender in themselves. Instead, it is the images that people create within their minds that are used to classify people into different groups. On top of this, the media helps to solidify these internal images, and to change them to their specific molds. It seems as if the media uses its power and influence to group people into social structures, assigning labels to these different groups.
ReplyDeleteIt is because of this that I believe that even though your favorite color is pink, it is not a reflection of the fact that you are female, instead it shows your individual personality. We all make consciencious decisions to look a certain way, to build our personalities, to portray an image that we choose, so that we can express ourselves in unique and different ways.