Week Two Blog
Gender performs who we are really. The type of job you obtain in most cases can be determined by your gender. It rules the way we dress and how we act. Most men aren't going to obsess about which outfit they wear for the day whereas a woman might. We do perform our genders through hairstyles and dress, jobs, and actions. There are certain actions that would be classified as feminine or masculine, and by doing those actions we show others whether we are male or female.
So how does gender make life real if it isn't authentic? It's like a child learning the language of their country. They are born into it and learn it just by hearing the people surrounding them. A young child isn't going to have a desire to be learning a different language. The same type of thing happens with gender. If you're an American, you'll speak English, and if you're born a woman, you'll learn from others how to be a woman. The actions you do may be learned from others but it's what you've done your whole life. As a person becomes older they can decide if they want to learn a different language, and if you don't like something about your gender, you can change that too. Even though most of our actions are learned from previous generations, we always have the right to change according to who we are. If you don't like wearing skirts, you don't have to. I believe the ability to make your own changes and adjustments to the system make your gender real to you.
How we present ourselves definitely affects how others will treat us. A girl who dresses more like a boy isn't going to get the same attention as a girl who wears a mini skirt and feminine shirt. I do think that slowly our culture is learning to accept other styles. If our culture were to turn to a system of five sexes instead of two I do believe people would be much more open to stranger social conditions. Whether we get to that point is the question. Having five sexes would change how America does sports, how many different rooms there are for public bathrooms, and many other things. It would be a very hard transition and it would take a really long time, but it would make people more open to new ways of "performing gender."