Part One: A Personal Essay -- How do you "Do Gender?"
Many people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and recreated out of
human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life. Yet
gender, like culture, is a human production that depends on everyone constantly "doing
gender." And everyone "goes gender" without thinking about it.
--Judith Lorber, Night to His Day (19)
So far this semester, we’ve talked about what social constructs are as they relate to
gender and feminism, why we form them, and what they can mean about our
understandings of ourselves. We’ve also explored that, once held up to close scrutiny,
these constructs, these misconceptions, often begin to unravel.
In this assignment, I want you to think about how YOU "do gender." How do you define
your own gender, and where have these conceptions come from? Write a personal essay
that analyzes your own conceptions of gender, either your own or maybe a specific
groups. Below are a list of questions that are there to get you thinking.
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Where do your ideas about your gender come from? How did you learn about
gender?
How has your definition of gender or your gendered identity changed over the
years?
How does your gendered identity compare to others? In your family? Your
community?
What have other people experienced about gender and identity -- your friends,
family, teachers, professors, people in your major, people in your
profession, your community? Here, you’ll need to engage in a little primary
research (which can be, of course, as simple as texting your mom or posing a
discussion on Facebook)
How does your gendered identity change in different contexts? You might think
of how settings/other people influence your gender. For example, are you a
"different" kind of person at school vs. at home?
Is your conception of gender harmful or limiting in any way?
Now, these questions are just designed to get you thinking. They’re not a template for
your essay’s organization, nor should you feel compelled to write about each one, though
some are more important than others. However, they are a good guide for what it means
to do analysis.
When you write your essay, you’ll need to make sure you have a claim you’re trying to
make. Perhaps you’re dispelling a myth, supporting it, creating a new one. You’re
building a theory here, a way of seeing this construct, hopefully, in a more meaningful or
useful (or healthier) way.
Need a bit more direction? Here a some prompts you might want to use:
Write about the impact of a person in your life on your sense of your
masculinity/femininity/gender. You might think of specific experiences or interactions
that helped shape who you are today. For example, what did you mom teach you about
women? What did your dad teach you about what it means to be a man?
How has the media shaped your perception of gender? You might think about specific
books, movies, icons of pop culture that you look up to/look down at in terms of gender.
How has sexuality shaped your perception of gender?
If you interact a lot with children, you might choose to write about how you see them
forming their gendered identity.
Take a construct or label and analyze it. What does it mean to be feminist, machista, gay,
straight, queer? How have these labels shaped how you see yourself/how others treat
you?
Length 1,000 minimum