Significance of Gender in Female Evaluation and Discrimination : My Understanding Of the Primary

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Feminist theory in the 21st-century deals with a number of vital issues, one of which is the recurring argument on the influence and versatility of Gender. As we know, gender is a factor that has interwoven relevance with the term sex and yet so very different from its meaning. Even though gender isn’t a causal element, but it sufficiently affects the sex of a human being. One of the factors that the twenty-first century feminist movement and theory essentially deal with is to clarify this distinction between sex and gender and to observe how the dynamics of these factors are deeply rooted in the socio-cultural evolution of females as well as their oppression.

The discussion can be best started by referring to the first line in Shefali Moitra’s book Feminist Thought: Androcentrism, Communication and Objectivity – “The sex/gender system has been identified by feminists as a social variable present in every society. While sex is a biological category, gender is a cultural category.” The opening of the essay itself is a very significant argument that the feminist theorists point to. It talks about our biological body, or sexual identity, versus our social expression, or gender identity. As she goes on to describe further and as derived by feminist critics, our biological body is more of a domain of nature, and our gender identity is more of a domain of our culture. This means that although sex and gender are arbitrarily related, one is only born with sex but not their gender.  This has been termed as biological determinism or the naturalist account of gender, which means, our biological body, or sex, develops naturally without any cultural or social intervention, whereas our gender is a development over time under the influence of social and cultural norms. Even Sigmund Freud, the 19th-century psychoanalyst whose theories are still popularly discussed in several disciplines, mentioned that our selves are not biologically given, and what we call our gender is the result of undergoing certain processes. This can be derived as sex to be the raw material, naturally given to us during birth, while gender as an end product, that we evolve through socio-cultural practices as we grow up. Although Freud’s accounts had a number of fallacies which according to the 21st-century feminist theory sounds extremely sexist, backdated, and not believable, feminists back then drew a lot of theoretical insights from him to make their arguments. Not only Freud, there were several other famous names from that time like Havelock Ellis, Krafft-Ebing, and others, who were sharing their theories about the human sex. Numerous researches on the human sexual being were conducted in America which included chromosomal, hormonal, neural-sexual aspects of the human body. We get to know from this that the talk about the human body and the emerging ideas about sex and gender were there since the beginning of time. However, the theorisation of gender as an analytical category in the modern sense was introduced only in the late 1950s and 60s.

Source: https://dailytimes.com.pk/274465/gender-roles-in-the-society/

Moitra says that “Gender is a cultural construct”, which is, our cultures impose certain norms on our behaviour since our birth which eventually evolves into our expected gender as we grow up. Havelock Ellis, the 19^th century English physician who studied human sexuality, categorized sex-linked differences in humans in three categories- primary differences, secondary differences, and tertiary differences. Primary differences mean the differences of humans on the basis of their sex organs, secondary differences mean differences on the basis of the reproductive functions, like breast and body hair, and tertiary differences refer to differences in humans on the basis of their behaviour. Tertiary differences include aggression, ego, etc. in men and care, submission, etc. in women. It is important for biologists to refer to these three categories of differences while discussing an argument. Such differences have not just been discussed by Ellis but also by other famous enthusiasts of the time like Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwin. Although sex-linked differences have no direct association with gender and its role in human existence, they are very important to be mentioned since they indirectly cause and shape many aspects of our social being. This is because, as Moitra says, “Tertiary sexual traits overlap with gender” and therefore, the construction of gender roles. This imposition of norms by the society is done on the basis of our sex- a person with male sex organs shall be expected to grow up with stereotypical man-like customs and behaviour, and a person with female organs shall be expected to grow up with the stereotypical female-like customs and behaviour. These customs and behaviour are basically characteristics like assertion, reason, strength, etc. in men, and submission, emotion, care, etc. in women. Society, as it still remains in the present day, has always valued these characteristics of strength-and-reason much more than care-and-emotion. From this pattern, we can see a neat binary that forms between the two sexes. Society not only sets its value on these characteristics, but also sets roles to each human on the basis of these characteristics. These roles are called gender roles. So, we see how sex eventually and indirectly leads to the assumption of our gender and consequently gender roles. A person of the female sex is supposed to have characteristics of the female paradigm like care, submission, emotion, and gender roles assigned to her are those of a mother, a wife, a nurturer, and every other role that suit these characteristics. A person of the male sex on the other hand is supposed to have characteristics of the male paradigm like aggression, assertion, rationality, and hence, the gender roles assigned to him are those of an authoritative figure, a provider, a protector, and roles that require these characteristics.

Source: http://websterampersand.com/man-up-or-act-like-a-lady-how-society-dictates-gender/

The distribution of gender roles is strictly heteronormative and leaves no space for executing flexibility between sex and gender even after being aware of the fact that both are not inherently related. Societal pressures do not leave a choice for us to accept or reject a role. This question on acceptance of roles is however matter of question mostly for women since in the course of time, this assignment of gender roles also becomes the root cause of gender discrimination. In Tina Chanter’s essay “Gender Aporias”, she wrote “Feminism challenged the idea that women were naturally destined for certain prescribed roles and unsuited for others by construing the relation of sex and gender not as one of necessity but rather as one that allowed some free play. But what kind of free play?” After all, socio-cultural norms do not allow free play for women, and also by implication for men, to choose what to do or how to behave.

Throughout generations, gender and its assigned gender roles have been discriminatory towards women. Women’s contribution to a family is placed secondary to a man’s contribution to the same family. Even outside of the household realm, women are paid unequally for the same work that men do. The same professions that men and women do are valued more for the male gender and less for the female gender. In every realm of society, we see value is gendered, labour is gendered. Not only these, injustices against women include everything else that is rampant and visible to everyone in the society, like sexual exploitation, female foeticides, rape culture, harassment, etc. which women face a lot more than men. We can easily agree that men are born with the male gender privilege, while women are born with the female gender discrimination. It is a sad reality that even today, a woman need’s a man’s gender privilege to protect herself from men themselves, and by implication, from any danger. This keeps women as a weaker gender, feared, and dependant on the oppressing gender itself, or more specifically, the entire patriarchal system. All of these injustices fall back to the understanding of the gender system, and the naturalist account of the gender system legitimizes these discriminations. Thus, oppression turns into naturalised oppression. Simone de Beauvoir, a great inspiration for feminists, says in her book One Becomes A Woman that the woman is a social category and not a biological category. Gender roles of a woman have nothing much to do with her sex, but mostly they are a result of societal norms and pressures imposed on them. However, Tina Chanter says “To conceive of the relation between sex and gender as contingent, rather than arbitrary, allows feminists to acknowledge the significance of bodies: it is because a girl’s body identifies her with the female sex that she is taught to be, and expects herself to be, feminine. To see the relation as contingent acknowledges the force of social pressure but leaves room for a certain amount of discrepancy between cultural norms and an individual’s ability or desire to reject them.” This understanding by feminists can unburden a lot of gender roles assigned to women just because of their body. The inclusion of this understanding is extremely important to be propagated in our society and this is the only way how systematic naturalised oppression can be reduced. The balance between men and women, their value, labour, characteristics can be brought to change only through these understandings.

Source: https://medium.com/imagilabs/why-gender-equality-in-tech-is-a-prerequisite-for-gender-equality-in-society-48f1a48e8ba9

Looking at the historical development of feminist thought, we know that this argument on gender has been a very important aspect. Although debates on the sexual being of a person have always been present since early ages, much of these understandings have changed and evolved with time. It was in the 1960s that “gender” was a more preferred category of analysis for feminists since it offered a certain flexibility than “sex” did not offer. It was since then that the modern-day understanding of the significance of gender in feminist theory began. We have reached to this day where we can confidently deny popular theories of ancient scientists like Darwin, Freud, and others, and counter beliefs like a woman is an incomplete being lacking a man’s phallus, or a man is the last stage and completed version of human evolution. This has been a progress itself, and there is a lot to come. Gender has been significant in the feminist theory since the beginning of time and even so much more than just a divide between the male and the female. By continuing to refer to gender constantly in the feminist theory, and mentioning exclusively how it affects sex and the society, I believe there can be scope for a lot of enlightenment and changes in the system.