Lesson Four: Learning and Doing Gender

Gender Identity: As stated in a previous lesson, gender is the actions and characteristics associated with femininity and masculinity as defined by the society and/or culture one lives in. Therefore, gender identity is the personal sense of being masculine or feminine. For example, my gender identity is not straightforward. Some days I feel feminine, others masculine, and sometimes both or neither. The above picture is of myself on a day when I felt mostly feminine and slightly masculine.

Gender Roles: Gender roles are the everyday expressions of maleness or femaleness within a society or culture. Often times gender roles become stereotyped, vastly generalizing how men and women should express and present themselves. For instance, when asked to express how they felt the average male and female would react to in a dark cave, the female chose to act frightened and weak while the males chose to act unafraid or strong and eager to venture further.

Hypersexualization: Hypersexualization is the growing trend of excessively sexualizing women and girls. In particular, female children are being sexualized and objectified at younger and younger ages. This happens when children look up to older sexualized teens and adults, and when children see themselves as being portrayed in a sexual manner in the media.

Doing/Performing Gender: Doing gender is the idea that, instead of gender being the quality of an individual, is instead a psychologically ingrained social construct apparent in everyday social interactions. For example, when choosing which restroom to use, you are doing gender. When someone wears masculine or feminine clothing they are performing gender, or presenting their gender to society based on that way they act and dress.

Leaning Gender: Gender is a human invention created to categorize people. We are not born knowing our gender, rather we are taught it through the socialization of what is expected of us based on our sex, such as girls baking. Despite being rewarded for going along with these expectations and punished for not, some people simply do not feel comfortable identifying their gender with their biological sex. These individuals are known as gender-queer, and those whose gender and sex match up are known as cis-gender.