Lorber says that gender is not attached to a biological substratum and instead is formulated by humans. She believes that human beings are not born with any masculinity or femininity and that it is influenced and brought by society. She exclaimes “The social order constructs and holds individuals to strongly gendered norms and expectations”. Society does push these expectations so much that it has become a norm to many and if things are out of place they do not belong. One of the examples she used is describing the marine corps, she says that women are required to wear makeup and look feminine because they are working with men. Even though they both are doing the same thing , they have to look different to portray a different gender. This does seem odd and it should not have to be mandatory but it shows a way how society influences gender roles and goes along with it. Gender to society means different because each gender has to be clearly different. Like baby shows have blue and pink to represent a boy or girl. She says”gender creates the social difference that defines women and man”, which adds on to the point that gender needs to be clear to society and that they only acknowledge the existence of 2 genders .Gender is also used in structured inequality. Like when a man is honored more than a woman doing almost the same work simply because of his gender. This really made me think and realize is our society the cause of only 2 genders? Are we too heavily influenced now that we can no longer accept that gender does not relate to a person in general? Can our views still be changed this late into society. It is becoming more accepted slowly because before it was hard to come out and it becoming normal for people to get sex changes and be accepted in society. Hubbard presents the fact that many countries are more accepting of the idea of more than 2 genders. Since our society is too fixated on the ideology of 2 genders , we have built in biases which allows us to not accept the idea of more than 2 genders. She does not believe that a human is depicted by their biology. She goes into detail on how people are born with a mixture of chromosomes that both males and females have so if it's a mix of both how could it take a side? She explains that in the Dominican Republic people were born as girls and slowly turned into males. They regard the person as neither male nor female but as a 3rd gender. The Dominican republic is accepting which makes it possible for the whole society to be accepting of the 3rd gender. She gives many examples of different countries having similar cases to the one in the Dominican Republic and them also being accepting of the third gender. I find this interesting because its something I never heard of, but how can they categorize this as a 3rd sex if they still have a male or female dominice within them. She talks about the medical system with gender and says,”our gender dichotomy does not flow “naturally” from the biological dichotomy of the two sexes”. That the male and female sexes themselves are socially constructed and are not natural. She then goes in saying sex change is slowly becomeing normal for males and females and society is slowly picking up the idea that there could be multiple genders. She expresses her feelings toward scientists and does not like the fact that it is even hard for them to distinguish the differences between a male a female . She wants to see clear reasons on why they are different rather than identifying based on the little details. She says” they must go and look for other criteria and to concentrate on any differences they unearth”; adding on to the fact that what makes a male a male, and a female, a female. Oudshroom explains the origins of how male and female came about. They were once fascinated on how both were so alike and focused on the similarities. The Greeks who first came up with this believed that both males and females had testicles, they were just in different places. She talks about the one sex modle and how the male and female biology was so similar that they did not have names to separate them. I can see this early on being accepted because there was so little research then that anything could become believable. Although now that we have more advanced technology, if males and females were the same wouldn't we be able to find the similarities? Until the mid eighties she describes that at that time instead of focusing on the similarities anatomists started focusing on the differences between a male and female.At that point they were looking for anything to differentiate the anatomy of a male and female. From skulls, organs , to even cells. They were focused on finding out what actually made them different. Over time with more research they slowly started to identify differences between the sexs. As more research came they went into how hormones are different because females act differently according to them. “Many types of behavior roles, functions , characteristics, as typical male or female in western culture have been ascribed to hormones”, they were so focused on the differences that they came to a conclusion that hormones play a role in differentiating a male and female.If its proven, why is it not accepted by feminist? Males and Females are different . Martin points out the common view on sperm and egg cells. Society has even associated the cells being relevant to the sex. A sperm cell is seen as more masculine because it has to go and find the egg which is just complacent waiting for the sperm. The unfair views on human anatomy like how a woman's egg production is seen negatively because it is finished at birth. While sperm is not being seen as wasteful despite millions of cells going to waste each day. Don't they both work together and form life and why are people concerned on how they are referred to? She wants a less stereotypical view because she believes that it is unfair because of the views society has on the cells. That these views correlate with the male and female in general because many link it with the gender of the person. This is a new topic to me because I've never seen anyone talk about the process and find some flaw. She is fixed that the views society has are unfair because of how they refer to the cells and how they are so different and portrayed. She brings up studies that show that the female egg play is not just how it is portrayed but is more important. She does not agree with the image that shows how the reproductive system works because they try to seem as if it's natural and it's what society accepts which allows them to believe it. I did not know that male and female cells were portrayed so differently and I see why she thought it was unfair. Why do people take into account how society views things, especially when the problem is insignificant? Does this really impact the way people view each sex?
