In our lesson 6 we learn about gender and sex, and how easily these are mistaken for the same thing. “The term sex refers to a biological distinctions of being male or female, while the term gender refers to the social or learned characteristics that are associated with being male or female (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012)”. What this tells us is that sex is a characteristic one is most likely born with, for example being born with male gentiles or female gentiles. This differs from gender in the sense that society and social norms dictate what is male and what is female. Males are socially designed to be tough and hardy, while females caring and understanding. These two references get confused with each other all the time, due to lack of knowledge.
These certain characteristics proposed by humans to fit the social norms can also support these traits. “When a male baby cries, everyone will say that he is angry, but when a female baby cries everyone will say she is frightened (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012)”. This is wrong on numerous levels, but lets attempt to scratch the surface. Why is it that we as a society correlate a baby boy crying to him being angry? Perhaps because we view most of today’s societal problems and massacres on the shoulders of men, making them inherently angry at birth? Or is it because we label males with traits such as being strong, therefore a baby boy cannot cry because he is scared, but only because he is mad? This is an enormous dilemma that we face as a society because it appears we are already labeling babies, which should never be the case due to personality and physical instabilities. I am not a father yet, but I am fairly certain that boys can be scared into crying and girls can be angry and feel the need to cry.
With these traits comes an unfortunate drawback such as sexism, which is differential and often-detrimental treatment of a person based on that person’s sex (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). When sexism comes to mind the first thing I consider is a man not giving a woman fair treatment. Why do I think this? Perhaps its due to the everlasting stigmas that our society portrays, such as women still fighting to be equal even years after the Women’s Rights movement was passed. It scares me that I do not see a scenario where a man is being mistreated due to sexism in the workplace, or at home. These feelings are called hostile sexism, which refers to negative attitudes towards women specifically (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). The perceived antithesis of this is called benevolent sexism, which refers to sexism in a positive manner, but still adheres to stereotypes about women in limited ways (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). There is seemingly no type of “good” sexism, as the root of the meaning is to cause bias. We as a society need to make more of an effort to delete sexism from our workplace, and even more importantly our hearts. It baffles me that we blindly put stereotypes on children and babies and even adults that adhere to what we think they should be like. Sex and gender may be two entities in their own right, but they should not be discriminated upon.
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles.
Tags: benevolent sexism, sexism
I like how you worked this argument, but I had my hopes up with your image of the multi-gendered bathroom sign that you might touch on the assumption in our society that gender and sex (as you define them) are a binary. I have particular interest in those children that are born intersexed (sometimes referred to as hermaphrodites). What happens when a child is neither male or female or both male and female? What happens when there is a disconnect between sex (physical expression) and gender (emotional expression (transgendered)? So many things to consider, and as you said, we are still fighting over how to treat one another respectfully regardless of these things.