ALJ304 Local Journalism

Gender binary has been within the society since the time it was constructed. The roles in the society are divided on the basis of these gender binary and every individual within the society is supposed to adhere to these rules. The term, “gender binary”, in simple words would mean the strict gender roles of men and women as defined by the society (Carrera et al., 2012). There is no equality in these gender roles but huge gap exists. This is exactly what Carrera, DePalma and Lameiras talks about in their article.

Gender has been associated with sex for a long period of time. A person with female like features is categorized as a woman and is supposed to be interested in men. On the other hand, a person with male features is categorized as a man and should be interested in women. This strict distinction might seem logical but is not practically possible.

Sex cannot be the basis to define the gender of a person. The wake of feminism and feminist writers brought to light the existence of a section of people who did not comply to any of the roles mentioned above. They are often known as transgender people and the strict gender binary is oppressive towards these people. Writers like De Beauvoir even left hints about the same in the work, “The Second Sex”. The line, “one is not born a woman but becomes one”, shows how the society categorizes men and women but in reality, there exists no connection between the natural sex of a person and their gender (De Beauvoir, 2010).

The society has not been very effective in understanding the whole gender system and the one that exists is highly insufficient. Harper literary piece also talk about the way society is wrong in categorizing the gender of people based in their genitals (Harper, 2007).

Falzon in his article talks about personhood and while doing so makes reference to Locke’s definition of a person (Falzon, 2014).  According to Locke, a homo sapiens specie just because they have the human body does not mean that they qualify to be a person. He separates the quality of being a person with the physical human appearance.  A person is the one who has the ability to think, reason and reflect on their action. It is this quality that separates the humankind from other animals or species.

The article draws an example from the television series of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The personhood of Data is brought under analyses in the episode “The Measure of a Man” where a question arises if Data has the power to give consent or withdraw the consent with respect to its dismantling. This is a great example to talk about personhood as Data is actually a machine and does not have the human body to be referred to as a human being but he does have the ability to analyse, reason and reflect which qualifies him as a person with the qualities of personhood (Willey, 2010). It literally justifies the claim made by Locke.

Another example is seen in the film, “The Elephant Man” where John is not given the due respect throughout his life till he transforms (The Elephant Man (1980) - IMDb, 2021). His claim that he is not an animal but a man is a reflection on personhood. This is because throughout the movie he is in the body of a man but he gets respect and acceptance from people only after he is able to reflect and reason. These two again date back to Locke’s definition of person hood. “Planet of Apes” reverses the entire concept where the importance lies on intelligence and not human appearance (Planet of the Apes (2001) - IMDb, 2021).

The two terms “Gender” and “Sex” has been elaborately discussed by Jamison Green. Sex is defined as the understanding of the biological construction of a human being. In simple words it means the interpretation through genitals, chromosomes and other characteristics that belong to the second sex (Shapiro, 2015). The broad category of sex is male, females and lastly the intersex. Gender on the other hand is constructed by the society where their own convenience. It is a social status awarded to human beings which is predominately man and woman. Gender mainly defines the role of a person and their activities which they must follow. These roles are strict and gender greatly relies on the sex of a person.

Gender is experienced based on the way one moves their body and behaves. The way of dressing and talking is also based on the gender. Society gives the position and addresses a person based on the gender. Sex on the other hand is strictly confined to the way the body looks and what internally consists of a human body. The body of a man is very different from a woman. It is based on these bodily features that a person is awarded the tile of female sex or male sex. Gender is not just used for defining the activity of person but it also forms other socially significant identity like race, class and sexuality.

While sex is confined to the way a person is naturally born, gender is what defines the life of a person. Although gender is not a natural thing and is created by humans it effects the lifestyle of a person greatly and defines the way a person conducts himself or herself.

Bibliography

Carrera, M.V., DePalma, R. and Lameiras, M., 2012. Sex/gender identity: Moving beyond fixed and ‘natural’categories. Sexualities, 15(8), pp.995-1016.

De Beauvoir, S., 2010. The second sex. Knopf.

Falzon, C., 2014. Philosophy goes to the movies: An introduction to philosophy. Routledge.

Harper, C., 2007. Intersex. English ed.

IMDb. 2021. Planet of the Apes (2001) - IMDb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133152/> [Accessed 3 June 2021].

IMDb. 2021. The Elephant Man (1980) - IMDb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080678/> [Accessed 3 June 2021].

Shapiro, E., 2015. Gender circuits: Bodies and identities in a technological age. Routledge.

Willey, R.D., 2010. Becoming data: Star Trek wisdom and the unforeseen effects of fieldwork on the fieldworker. The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 22(3), pp.3-3.

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