Question

1) What is gender? Discuss significance of gender as a category in the analysis of power relationships and the ways in which modalities of femininity and masculinity are performed.

Answer 1

In psychology the characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced by which people define male and female. Gender is guides us and tell how the very individual in society is looked by its members, whether an individual is male or female, boy or girl. Every society or culture has defined some rules and norms according to which it works and these norms guide how people of each gender and in general should act. For example in many societies it is expected that women should work in home and men should take care of external matters. On the basis of these genders an individual form the self concept which is based on social identity and roles these genders play in the society. Gender has an important role to play in power relationship. When people think of us it helps us to think of ourselves. When we label on gender as more superior to other, more aggressive, hard working and as more powerful it tends to incorporate such ideas into their self concept and behaviour. For example women feel threatened by low expectations for their math and science performances and they may start identifying their interest elsewhere. Similarly women in some cultures are perceived to be less powerful and they are considered to stay and work in home and men are required to work outside and to earn for family. In this way gender roles leads to power relationships. Imagine two people one is adventurous dominant and other is dependent and affectionate, submissive when you give this description some will automatically say that first one is a men and second one is women.

Masculinity is defined as sexual dominance, femininity as sexual submissiveness: genders are “created through the eroticization of dominance and submission. The man and woman difference and the dominance and submission dynamic define each other. This is the social meaning of gender” in defining genders like masculinity and femininity we must make reference to social factors. In particular, we must make reference to the position one occupies in the sexualised dominance and submission dynamic: men occupy the sexually dominant position, women the sexually submissive one. As a result, gender is fundamentally tied to sexualised power relations. The notion of ‘gender equality’, in this sense does not mean anything to society.

Gendered personalities are supposedly manifested in common gender stereotypical behaviour. Take emotional dependency. Women are stereotypically more emotional and emotionally dependent upon others around them, supposedly finding it difficult to distinguish their own interests and wellbeing from the interests and wellbeing of their children and partners. This is said to be because of their blurry and confused ego boundaries: women find it hard to distinguish their own needs from the needs of those around them because they cannot sufficiently individuate themselves from those close to them. By contrast, men are stereotypically emotionally detached, preferring a career where dispassionate and distanced thinking are virtues. These traits are said to result from men's well-defined ego boundaries that enable them to prioritise their own needs and interests sometimes at the expense of others' needs and interests.

Feminine and masculine personalities play a crucial role in women's oppression since they make females overly attentive to the needs of others and males emotionally deficient. In order to correct the situation, both male and female parents should be equally involved in parenting. This would help in ensuring that children develop sufficiently individuated senses of selves without becoming overly detached, which in turn helps to eradicate common gender stereotypical behaviours.