The Prism of Gender

By: Catherine G. Valentine.

The Prism of Gender is a very detailed and interesting insight into the history of male and female gender and how people’s perceptions of gender, sex and sexuality has essentially become unchanged of how they view gender and sex. I think the overall point Catherine Valentine was trying to make in The Prism of Gender is that gender has always been this stigma of a male/man and female/woman; males present masculine tendencies and have dominant male characteristics such as playing in rough sports, working in dangerous jobs and being the provider for their family; females present feminine tendencies and are looked at as someone who is valued and treated differently and unfairly than a man, someone who can’t do what a man has done for many centuries in this country and their only duty is to take care of the children and do house hold chores.

One important point that stood out to me that Valentine mentions in the Prism of Gender is when she states that “We refer to the American two-and-only-two sex/gender/sexuality system as the pink and blue syndrome (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009). This syndrome is deeply lodged in our minds and feelings and is reinforced through everyday talk, performance and experience. It’s everywhere. Any place, object, discourse, or practice can be gendered. Children’s birthday cards come in pink and blue.” (The Prism of Gender, p.4). This statement Valentine makes made me think of all the birthday’s I had as a child and the toys, objects and other material things I had as a kid and how everything I wanted, I wanted it in the color blue, such as having my entire room painted in blue, the Lego’s I played with were blue, my clothes, shoes, were mostly blue. Now, you may be wondering well that’s no coincidence, you favorite color is blue. Yes it is, but every memory or birthday I can remember as a child has always been the color blue which I think represents the stigma that me being a male or boy in this case, the color blue represents a male gender.

Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism

By: Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill.

Zinn and Dill in Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism talk about how women of color are treated differently not only because of their gender but also because of their race and how that transpires in a male dominated world. I think the overall point that Zinn and Dill were trying to make in Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism is that there are other social factors that have a different influence on females. One of those factors that Zill and Dill list is race.

One of the things that stood out to me was multiracial feminism. Zinn and Dill state in their writing that “Multiracial feminism asserts that gender is constructed by a range of interlocking inequalities what Patricia Hill Collins calls a “matrix of domination.” The idea of a matrix is that several fundamental systems work with and through each other. People experience race, class, gender, and sexuality differently depending upon their social location in the structure of race, class, gender and sexuality. Multiracial feminism also examines the simultaneity of systems in shaping women’s experience and identity. The matrix of domination seeks to account for the multiple ways that women experience themselves as gendered, raced, classed, and sexualized. Multiracial feminism emphasizes the intersectional nature of hierarchies at all levels of social life. Class, race, gender and sexuality are components of both social structure and social interaction.” (Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism, 326, 327).

The connection between The Prism of Gender and Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism is that both readings discuss gender and how males and females are treated differently when it comes to different social outcomes. On one hand, you have gender being discussed in how specifically Americans define gender and the different concepts and tools they use to differentiate males from females. On the other hand, you have gender being looked at from a racial standpoint and how it affects women of color.

Keywords:

Kaleidoscopic, Dichotomy, Transvestism

My Question to You

What is your take on how gender is defined in western countries, specifically in America? Do you think gender is still taught in today’s society?