FREE ESSAY ON DOING GENDER

DOING GENDER

Gender in Society
...everyone does gender without thinking about it (Judith Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender,
p.13).
When I was young I did not think about my gender role. I did not think about the day to
day events in my life that effected my gender. When I look back I can find so many
instances of gender in my life. So, I am taking one of the smallest instances because of
the many ways it relates to not only gender building, but maintaining.
As a child I remember very cold winters in Omaha. My sister and I loved to play outside
in the snow. So, my parents bought us matching snowsuits. They were pink with lavender
trim. My friend, Charlie, who lived up the street, had a snowsuit too. His was black and
red with a logo of a racecar on the back. As a child I never thought of the implications
of my snowsuit. It was functional and I suppose I thought the color pink was pretty at
the time. My room was pink, my bike was pink, and Barbie's corvette was pink. Why should
it be any other way?
As I look back at the photographs of the three of us playing as children I see what
implications the pink snowsuit had on my gender. Not only that but how we played
together. All of us had hoods on our snowsuits to cover our ears. With out the difference
in the pink and black snowsuits you may have not been able to tell who the boy was and
who the two girls were. My long blonde hair was pulled back under the hood and all of us
had childlike chubby faces with big smiles.
Charlie was always building big, macho, snow forts and my sister and I were making snow
angels. The snow angels were pretty and soft, like the pink snowsuits. The snow fort was
supposed to be tough, a boy thing. We could all play together, but even by age four,
Charlie knew that making snow angels were not a tough thing to do so he refused. He was
going to make the fort to protect my sister and I. He was going to build something better
and bigger.
According to Lorber, social statuses, such as gender, must be constructed through
teaching, learning, and enforcement. Gender is thus both ascribed and achieved (West and
Zimmerman 1987). So how is it that by age four, that we were constructed to know so much
about what was supposedly masculine and what was supposedly feminine? There are different
theories about how children are gendered. 
Most parents create a gendered world for their newborn by naming, birth announcements,
and dress (Lorber, p.25). Lorber believes that children are gendered from birth. This is
easy to do in our social institution. Gender statuses are made very important in American
society. The way people behave and act reflects not only upon the individual, but their
families as well. Parents tend to want their new born baby girls to be described as
delicate and beautiful. On the other hand, boys should be described as strong, handsome,
and alert. Gendering starts even before a baby is born with the decorating of a room in
light colors such a pink, blue and yellow. 
Gendering does not end at childbirth; it is an ongoing process that develops thoroughly
throughout our lives. Lorber makes a good point about the process of gendering;
...individuals learn what is expected, see what is expected, act and react in expected
ways, and this simultaneously maintain the gender order (Lorber, p.32). I, at four years
old, was aware that I was not expected to build a big, tough fort. Everyone would think
my dainty snow angels were precious and everyone would think Charlie's fort was brilliant
and tough. 
By putting my sister and I in pink snowsuits my parents were making a point that we were
girls. If I were to have worn Charlie's black snowsuit my neighbors would have thought it
was a hand me down from my brother. Even the way we interacted with each other show
domination and gender roles. Charlie was strong and rough while my sister and I were
docile and easy going. Charlie made the rules when we played and my sister and I followed
them.
In Sandra Bem's book, The Lenses of Gender, she begins with the first lens,
androcenterism. It is stated as male-centeredness because it simply describes how society
is structured (Sandra Bem, Introduction to the Lenses of Gender, p.2). Man's experiences
are seen as the norm and females experiences as not the norm. This does not necessarily
mean that he is superior to her, but simply that man is treated as human and woman as
other (Bem, p.2). 
Bem sees three different aspects of a woman's relationship to a man. First, that men see
women's difference from man and inferiority to man. Second, that man see women's domestic
and reproductive function, as he will be the head of the household. Third, that men see
women as a way to satisfy their sexual needs.
In the situation of girls building snow angels and boys building snow forts I thought
androcentrism would have little relevance. But, in the tradition of American culture,
Charlie was building the snow fort to protect us. He was making a shelter and was
commended for his idea and hard work. If we look into the deeper meaning of what was
happening, he was viewed as making something useful. My sister and I were viewed as
making something pretty, and rather useless. Therefore, supporting the idea that male
experiences are normal and female experiences are not normal or as important as male
experiences.
Charlie took a role to protect us, almost like Bem's second idea, that men see women as
domesticated and he had his need to protect them and head up that household. Also, as in
Bem's first idea of how men view women, Charlie thought building the snow fort would be
difficult, giving us girls the easier job. At the time, I did not feel inferior but it
was inferior and we both knew better then to help with his big job of building the snow
fort. Charlie was proud of his massive creation, and my sister and I were proud of the
angels scattered all over the lawn. But, to an outsider, it would seem that my sister and
I were waiting for Charlie to get done so we could play in the fort he built for us.
Lorber believes that as gendered beings we go along with these norms and expectations to
build a sense of worth and identity (Lorber, p.35). We have been taught that things like
Bem's view of antrocentrism is normal and that we have no need to stray from the reality
that society gives us. If we do we might be alienated, not desired, and end up alone.
Bem's second lens of gender is polarization. She defines this as the male-female
difference (Bem p.2). She believes that the male-female difference is superimposed on so
many aspects of the social world that a cultural connection is forged between sex and
virtually every other aspect of the human experience (Bem, p.2). In other words, the
masculine way of doing something is usually seen as the correct way and it forms a
societal norm. 
At age four, my gender was apparent to not only myself but also all of our neighbors and
friends. It has been said, that parents dress their children to display the category of
girl or boy from birth so that they don't have to answer the question. What they don't
realize is that they are marking their children for different treatment by society.
...others treat those in one gender differently from those in the other, and the children
respond to the different treatment by feeling and behaving differently (Lorber, p.14). 
Society, our parents, and our race mark us by gender. They do it by the clothes we wear
and the activities we are involved in. We are seen as masculine or feminine. Girls that
have more masculine qualities are not seen as being masculine but instead, tomboys. Boys
that have more feminine traits are not seen as feminine but instead, weak. We label the
members of society based on their gender.
Bem's third lens of gender is biological essentialism. It views the other two lenses as
natural because of biological differences (Bem, p2). This seems to influence our culture
the most with the argument that men and women are biologically different sexually, then
they must play different roles in life. 
Biology between men and women is different. No one denies that. But it is history, not
biology, which is determining the gender norms. Biology does not put little girls in pink
and little boys in blue. Biology does not teach girls to build snow angels and boys to
build snow forts. Accepting biology as the reason for gender norms is an easy way out.
Bem puts it best when she says No matter how many subtle biological differences there are
between the sexes there may someday prove to be, both the size and the significance of
those biological differences will depend, in every single instance, on the situational
context in which men and women live their lives (Bem, p.38). 
Power by males in society has led to gender stratification, until people stop supporting
it you can consider it androcentrism, biological essentialism or polarization. Any of
them are good reasons as to why we are so gendered. But, until we get to the root of the
problem, which lies in political power and our environment, not much can be done to
change the norm. Individuals are born sexed but not gendered, and they have to be taught
to be masculine or feminine (Lorber, p.22). 
As a child, in my pink snowsuit, playing with my little sister and Charlie, I saw nothing
wrong with the scenario. When I look back I see that the clothes we wore, the games we
played and the way we interacted had us molded into our gender roles by a very young age.
Gender began with our parents. I only hope that through education we can slowly break
down the gender barrier through a new generation.