Delusions of Gender Project
What is gender?
Group members:
Group Supervisor:
Daniella D’Arco De Jesus
Patrick Blackburn
Sarah Smith
Iqra Hamayun
Gunnar Orn Heimisson
Mia Renner Alstrup
Edlira Folman
Project length: 58 pages (appr. 115.600 characters)
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Table of contents:
Abstract…………………………………………………..……………………4
Abstrakt………………………………………..………………………………4
Project Motivation…………………………………………………………….5
Group Dynamics……………………………………………………………....6
Introduction…………………………………………………………………...6
Chapter I: The ‘self’- A philosophical and a sociological perspective……7
1.1 ‘Cogito, ergo sum’, or is it?.........................................................................8
1.2 ‘Self in a Modern Society, a Giddens’ perspective………………………10
1.3 Foucault on Self-identity………………………………………………....13
1.4 A Comparative of Perspectives…………………………………………..16
Chapter II
2.1 Delusion of Gender
Male or Female? Nature given or human made?...............................................19
2.2 Stereotypes………………………………………………………………...22
2.3 The Hard-Wired Brain…………………………………………………......24
2.4 Black and White, or perhaps Gray too?........................................................28
2.5 From Sexual to Gender Belonging………………………………………...30
Chapter III
How do Gender Stereotypes Affect Perception, Self-perception and
Behaviors?..........................................................................................................35
3.1 Gender stereotypes and how they arose……………………………………35
3.2 ‘I think therefore I am’ or ‘We think therefore you are’?.............................38
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3.3 A Truck Driver or a Barbie Doll? Gender and the Way Stereotypes Influence
Children’s Sense of Self……………………………………………………….40
3.4 A gender stereotypes analysis of the Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, by Gene
Kemp……………………………………………………………………...........42
3.4.1 Plot Review………………………………………………………………42
3.4.2 Analysis of Gender Stereotyping………………………………………...44
IV. An Overall reflection on the Subject Topics and Findings of the
Project…………………………………………………………………………..47
V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..49
VI. Considerations on the course Theory for the Humanities and the way we
worked with theory in this project………………………………………………51
VII. Methodology……………………………………………………………….55
VIII. Dimensions Covered………………………………………………………58
IX. Bibliography………………………………………………………………...58
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Abstract
This project report looks into the notions of biological sex, gender, gender-identity
and self-perception, and the way they relate to each-other. It is often assumed that
gender and sex are the same aspect of a human being, and through this project we
want to find out if the two are indeed the same, or essentially different. For a proper
understanding of these notions, we work through research questions to answer the
problem formulation: What Is Gender?
Gender has been studied through many theoretical perspectives; for the purpose of
this project we decided to use a philosophical, sociological and neuro-scientific
approach. The literature used includes mainly Descartes, Michel Foucault,
Anthony Giddens, as well as Ian Burkitt, Cordelia Fine and Gene Kemp.
We arranged the project in three major chapters, each of them trying to answer one
of the research questions. The final conclusion summarizes all the findings and
insights gained while working on the project, and provide an answer to the problem
formulation.
Abstrakt
Dette projekt studerer forskellige opfattelser af køn (biologisk køn, kønsidentitet)
samt selvopfattelse og hvordan disse relaterer til hinanden.
Ofte bliver det
formodet at køn og kønsroller spiller på det samme aspekt af et menneske, og med
dette projekt søger vi at udrede om det at have et køn, er det samme som at have
en kønsrolle, eller ej. For at opnå en bedre forståelse af disse opfattelser, arbejdes
der gennem problemstillinger for at besvare vores problemformulering: Hvad er
køn?
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Køn er blevet studeret via mange teoretiske perspektiver; med dette projekt
besluttede vi at benytte a filosofisk, samfundsfaglig og videnskabelig
indgangsvinkel. Det litteratur som er brugt i forbindelse med projektet inkluderer
bl.a. Rene Descartes, Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens men også Ian Burkitt,
Cordelia Fine og Gene Kemp.
Vi har kategoriseret dette projekt i tre hoved-kapitler, som hver især forsøger at
besvare en af vores problemstillinger. Det endelige konklusions-kapitel
opsummerer hvad vi har indstuderet og erfaret gennem arbejdet på projektet og vil
til sidst give en besvarelse af vores problemformulering.
Project Motivation
From the project proposals presented, Delusions of Gender was the one that
interested the members of this group the most. The project provided an opportunity
for a comprehensive understanding of how we identify ourselves into respective
genders and what factors influence this process. Every group member came into
the project work, with their own pre-conceptions of what biological sex, gender
and gender-identities are and the challenge was to try and question them in the light
of the theories we worked with. We all seemed to know in general terms what
‘self’, sex and gender stand for, but only after getting acquainted with a number of
theories on self and gender, did we realize our limited thinking and how broad
these notions actually are.
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Group Dynamics
Even though there were 6 people working in this group, throughout the process,
the work atmosphere was cooperative and responsive. The challenge faced had to
do more with the fact that living far away from each other and with life getting in
the way, it was not always easy to agree on the days and times to meet, but we
managed to work well together despite that fact. Obviously a project like this is not
just a task, but a learning process as well, and we learned how to manage
frustrations, time constraints and how to reach a common ground, writing wise,
and most of all, we gained a lot of useful subject-related knowledge.
Introduction
This project intends to research what seem to have become controversial concepts
nowadays, namely, biological sex, gender and gender-identity.
While in some cultures there is hardly any difference between the concept of sex
and gender, (regardless of the reality that the first is a biological fact, while the
latter has a lot to do with ‘the characteristics and behaviors that different cultures
attribute to the sexes’ (Nobelius, A, 2004), in some other cultures, the distinction
between the two is quite clear.
Prompted by such inconsistencies, we decided to explore the process of genderidentity formation, the factors that influence it and attempt to answer our problem
formulation:
What is gender?
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The research questions to be used in order to lead us to a final conclusion and
answer the problem formulation include:
1-What is the ‘Self’ and how is our conception of it formed?
2-How does gender identity develop?
-Are women and men’s brains wired biologically in a different way, or is it the way
we are ‘programmed’ that accounts for gender differences?
3- How do gender stereotypes influence the way we perceive our surroundings,
self-perception and behavioral patterns?
The research questions aim to introduce, in a logical progression, the relation
between the ways we perceive ‘self’, how this conception is formed and what it is
influenced by. Moreover, we try to understand from a theoretical perspective, how
gender and gender-identity are developed and what stages this process goes
through.
The paper is structured in three main chapters that revolve around the project’s
research questions. In our view, it made sense to start with an understanding of the
‘self’, from a philosophical and social perspective, before progressing on the
gender topic.
Prior to identifying ourselves as ‘female’ or ‘male’, we all have first an idea of
‘self’, but very little do we know about how it is shaped. The first chapter has three
subsections that present an account of what ‘self’ is from the above-mentioned
perspectives. The arguments presented rely mainly on the theoretical perspectives
of Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Ian Burkitt and Descartes.
The second chapter looks into how we develop into our gender roles. Mainly
through the findings and arguments of Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender, we
attempt to reach a conclusion on whether gender differences are biologically hard-
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wired or if background and cultural conditioning have a much bigger say in what
we perceive ourselves to be (gender-wise).
In the third chapter, through a general overview of how gender stereotyping
influences the way a society is built or works, and more specifically how gender
priming influences the way children perceive themselves and behave, through an
analysis of a literary work, Gene Kemp’s book The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler.
The insights gained through the project work will be presented in the conclusion.
Chapter I
The ‘Self’- A philosophical and Sociological Perspective
Though we seem to have different individualities, we are not always aware of how
they are created or where they originate from. This project has chosen to question
the conventional perception of gender identity.
What does it really mean to be a girl or a boy? Both sexes have different
physiological features, but are those enough to classify them neatly into the known
gender categories? Does our sense of ‘self’ have, after all, a say in the way our
identities/individualities develop and the way we perceive ourselves and others?
This chapter will try to answer the question on how the sense of ‘self’ is formed
and what factors influence this process.
Though the project tries to answer the question What is Gender, we thought it
makes sense to start the investigation by first understanding how the sense of ‘self’
develops (we are, first, human beings with a sense of self, before we identify
ourselves into a specific gender). In order to do this we will work with a number
of guiding questions regarding this process.
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Are we actually born with a “self”, or do we acquire an ‘I’? Is the ‘self’ a welldefined concept that once formed stays the same, or do our “selves” and selfperception change through time, the same way as our bodies do? Can it be that,
through life we end up being ‘someone else’? In order to answer all these questions
and better understand the concept of ‘self’ we decided to view the issue from both
a philosophical and sociological perspective.
We relied for the purpose, principally, on the theories of Rene Descartes, Anthony
Giddens, Michel Foucault.
1.1 ‘Cogito, ergo sum’, or is it?
Descartes, a 17th-century French philosopher, influenced greatly the perception of
the development of mind-body dualism. For the purpose of this project we decided
to focus on his Meditations, in order to complete our understanding of the concept
‘self’, and the knowledge we gain through our ‘selves’.
According to Descartes we cannot be deceived about our own existence and the
distinction between our bodies and our ‘selves’. He goes on to claim that we cannot
be sure about knowledge gained by our senses.
Thus Descartes maintains:
‘It formerly seemed that all my knowledge of objects came through the senses, that
their ideas originated from and corresponded to objects outside me. It also seemed
that my body belonged especially to me, although I did not understand the apparent
connection between mind and body’. (Descartes, R, 1641)
According to Descartes, the mind is the place where imagination, senses and
mental abilities originate from. He goes on to claim that it is possible for human
beings to know their minds though that would require a struggle; the struggle of
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understanding how our bodies are related to our thinking minds. Descartes claims
the mind is basically the part created for thinking and that our body is merely an
extension. Thus, mind and body no longer have anything in common, as they work
on different levels, however, both belong to the individual.
We found this deliberation relevant, in explaining to some extent how it can happen
even for a ‘modern’ individual, to feel at times, trapped inside a physically defined
‘space’, while he/she is, essentially, in a thinking level something/someone
completely different. The same point is made further down by Giddens and
Foucault, who claim that in a modern society, there is a clear distinction between
who one feels to be on a mental level, and how one appears to be in a physical one.
We believe Descartes view is rather limited and somewhat flawed though, in that
he himself claims he cannot trust the nature of his thoughts. He concludes that his
senses may at all time deceive him, either by the power of God’s perfection or that
of an evil demon. Not to mention that as proved afterwards by Søren Kirkegaard,
Descartes’ ‘Cogito ergo sum’ is a flawed argument (explanation follows in the
conclusion part). In the end he concludes that nothing about his own senses are
necessarily true, and by invoking God perfection through his meditations,
Descartes provides a ''clear and distinct idea'' and argues God is his path to real
knowledge.
1.2 ‘Self’ in a Modern Society, a Giddens’ perspective
Through the work of Anthony Giddens, the British sociologist known for his
structuration theory, we want to understand how the self, and self-identity are
created in a modern society.
Giddens’ Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, we
wanted to investigate how the theories of self and self-identity. Giddens In order
to complement Giddens’ sociological theories on the matter, we will provide a
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comparative perspective from the philosophical lens of French philosopher and
historian Michel Foucault.
Righteously, Giddens asks: ‘What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal
questions for everyone living in circumstances of late modernity - and ones which,
on some level or another, all of us answer, either discursively or through day to
day social behavior.’. (Giddens, A, 1991, p. 70)
What Giddens aims to point out, is that modernity challenges and puts into
discussion (whether individually or socially) self-perception and self-identity. The
way a society works in modern and post-modern era seems to make for self-identity
issues, if not, full-fledged identity crisis.
As Giddens puts it, even when we make subconscious decisions we are shaping
our sense of “self” and identity. Such decisions are influenced by the way the
individual perceives himself or others around him. The array of such decisions
varies from trivial ones such as clothing choices to the major kind such as religious
beliefs, political views etc.
Giddens calls attention to the fact that in order for one to understand one’s “self”,
we should be aware of what self-identity is, in order to understand how it is formed
and how it works. According to him:
‘Self-identity is not a distinctive trait, or even a collection of traits, possessed by
the individual. It is the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her
or his biography’(Giddens, A “Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the
Late Modern Age”, 1991, p. 53).
He goes on to point out that in the past, social communities were mostly founded
on traditions compared to nowadays social communities. This goes to show that in
the past, an individual had clearer defined roles within his/her community. He/she
knew what was expected from him/her and acted accordingly from this; this solid,
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not easily changeable framework was easier for the individual to relate to and to
find a ‘place’ within, hence to establish a self-identity.
In modern/post-modern societies, the dynamics that pervade the way society works
and, the factors that influence the texture of the society are ever changing, ever
developing. However, this development does not necessarily imply a positive
rearrangement of conditions or events. Globalization and its ever changing currents
shape and reshape societies constantly depending on the evolution of economy,
amongst others. Furthermore the individuals have to keep up with this change, if
they are to remain ‘useful’ part of the big, development machinery, part of which
they have, even unwillingly, become.
In the perspective of Giddens, this explains the identity-crisis the modern
individual experiences, since this individual’s ‘biography’ changes continuously,
his way of perceiving ‘self’ changes just as much. As individuals living in a late
modern era we are constantly required to redefine ourselves, in order to ‘win’ an
erratic rat race. As Giddens points out, modernity does not make available a
limitless set of identities to the individual, in that the conditions on which these
‘opportunities’ are provided is strongly influenced by capitalism. Thus, even in
terms of identity creation, the individual ends us with a limited choice of
‘consumer’ choices.
Many aspects of the self are challenged and put under scrutiny, by the society as a
whole, as well as by the individual himself, who unlike in a traditional society, as
Giddens argues, has now the possibility to question and reflect on the ‘identities
for purchase’ offered through capitalism and science. Though the range of
‘identities’ is limited and dictated by market forces, the individual has a say in
reflecting on, choosing and creating a self-narrative of his own approval.
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Thus, if in traditional societies the pre-existing gender role frame of behavior did
not leave much space for individuals to ‘move’ inside the gender boxes, in modern
societies gender conception has not only expanded limits, but a lot more
legitimization of it diverse nature as well.
Moreover as Giddens argues, if the surrounding environment provides the
individual with a richer multitude of inputs/options, the individual has somewhat
the freedom to be creative, reflect on their surroundings/information and shape
his/her self-identity. This and developments in the understanding of the concept of
identity and gender have made for a radical change in the way we view ourselves.
1.3 Foucault on Self-Identity
Michel Foucault a French philosopher and social theorist, well-known amongst
others for his post-structuralism theory (a term which he though rejected preferring
to call his work a critical history of modernity), basically argues that the formation
of self happens through a combination of three forces, namely: power, truth and
subjectivity. Supposedly the relationship of this forces to each other is unique and
that these forces together greatly influence the creation of the individual being.
According to Foucault’s theory, one can always be critical towards these forces
and alter the way they relate to each-other by altering so the very ‘politics of selfcreation’. As he states: ..’ ..I will say that critique is the movement through which
the subject gives itself the right to question truth concerning its power effects and
to question power about its discourses of truth. Critique will be the art of voluntary
inservitude, of reflective indocility. (Foucault, M, What is Critique, p:386)
Foucault argues that one should cultivate an individual awareness of oneself and
the background that surround him. In his view, being critical would mean
examining the status quo of things and maintain the freedom to question it. The
way Foucault suggests one can do that is through what he calls the ‘cure of self’,
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and that basically is constituted by ‘…life long work on of one’s body, mind, and
soul, in order to better relate to other people and live an ethically-driven life’
(Foucault in Batters, S, 2011)
In this aspect, Foucault seems to share similar views with Giddens, since they both
claim an individual does not have to ‘digest’ anything the surroundings, society
serves him with. Giddens uses the term creativity in interpreting the inputs from
the ‘biography’ one lives in, while Foucault comes up with the term ‘critique’. It
can well be that our selves are greatly influenced by the way we interact with and
reflect on our surroundings but it is one’s responsibility to challenge them, as
Foucault put it: ‘..it helps make available one’s ability to exert freedom in a
civilization dictated by forces of power’ (Foucault in Batters, S, 2011).
The nature of this forces of power is ever changing, much more so in a globalized,
modern society, and that consequently takes to perceptions of self being shifted,
and altered too.
In a comparative look of the theories we worked with so far, we can draw an
analogy between Foucault and Descartes in their findings. Thus, Descartes
maintained, as mentioned above that, it is possible for individuals to get to know
the mind (‘the self’ originating place), but that would require a struggle while
trying to understand how bodies and minds are connected, while Foucault claims
that we can get to know and ‘govern’ our ‘selves’ through the process of ‘care of
the self’, which requires individuals to engage continuously in introspection.
This way they would acquire a realistic sense of their surroundings. But the
challenge individuals face in a modern society is that the background provides
persistent distractions that make it difficult for one to focus on the ‘self’, and to
think in an ‘inside-out’ fashion,
Though Foucault seems also to differ from Giddens when he claims that what
shapes our identity and urges us toward developing a unique sense of self, is a
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combination of present, cultural and social norms, together with previous
traditions. Foucault points out that in modern societies individuals do not seem to
have much choice, as the processes that takes place around them are perfectly
automatic with little if any room for individual thinking and action henceforth:
“Everyone has their own way of changing, or, what amounts to the same thing, of
perceiving that everything changes. In this matter, nothing is more arrogant than
trying to dictate to others. My way of no longer being the same is, by definition,
the most unique part of what I am. Yet God knows there are ideological traffic
police around, and we can hear their whistles blast: go left, go right, here, later,
get moving, not now... The insistence on identity and the injunction to make a break
both, and in the same way, feel like abuses. '” (Foucault, M. 1979)
According to him, people are perfectly aware of the expectations imposed on them
(directly or indirectly) by society, as well as they feel an urge to “fit in” somewhere,
and thus will choose ways to ‘make sure’ that they do. Foucault implies that this
kind of pressure exercised both by tradition and modern society, is building up
pressure and is not allowing one to develop a unique sense of self, since a ‘pattern’
has to be observed. In his own words:
‘…the relationships we have to have with ourselves are not ones of identity; rather
they must be relationships of differentiation, of creation, of innovation. To be the
same is really boring. - identity becomes the problem of sexual existence, and if
people think they have to 'uncover' their 'own identity' and that their own identity
has to become the law, the principle, the code of their existence; if the perennial
question they ask is 'Does this thing conform to my identity? (Foucault, M, 2000:
p. 444.)
From the above perspectives one would be safe to assume that self-identity is not
to be taken as a given constant, since its nature is dependent on a whole set of ever
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changing factors. Identities and roles we take, seem to be by products of a
combination of social context background and individual assimilation into it or
resistance to the very same (an individual’s struggle to ‘care for the self’ and build
his own self-narrative).
Foucault highlights the same as Giddens when he claims that identity is not
something that one, as an individual possesses from the beginning of one’s life.
Rather, it is obtained through experienced social, cultural, historical and
economical occurrences.
The way these self-identities are forged seems to have significantly to do with how
we as individuals respond to pressure put by society to ‘fit in’ and respect
established social norms. Though as noted above, since social norms are bound to
change over time and in different developmental stages a society goes into, the
ways we write our self-identity narratives changes accordingly.
Obviously, certain categories of a society, perhaps the most revolutionary ones are
doomed to be frowned upon the moment they choose to challenge the status quo
of socially accepted norms. Curiously, it turns out, nowadays; in order to fit in, one
should not just comply, but stand out from the crowd too.
1.4 Giddens, Foucault and Descartes- A Comparative of Perspectives
There is both common threads and differences in Foucault’s and Giddens’ theories.
They both claim that despite social conditioning and pressure, the individual has,
to some degree, a choice in what way they reflect on their surroundings and manage
to write a satisfactory self-narrative.
Both Giddens and Foucault urge toward creativity and deepening of knowledge of
the environment we live in and our own nature in order to be able to keep a float
on an ever changing horizon line, as it is custom in modern societies. Only this
way, Giddens argues that traditions loose power and thereby no longer decide what
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is normal and “right”. By emphasizing creativity on how one ‘uses’ the options
society serves to the individual, Giddens claims the latter can actually affect and
change the same society.
Giddens points out that the philosophical question ‘who am I?’, in nowadays
societies ends up being ‘who do I want to be?', since the individual can use the
options at hand to custom-make his/her self-identity.
When looking at the work of Foucault and Giddens you find that there are no real
answers, and that every solution is questionable. One can always argue that the
theories of Giddens and Foucault are questionable in their findings.
In the classical philosophy of Descartes, the “self” is a simple notion, and not as
complicated as in the case of Giddens and Foucault. Where Giddens and Foucault
constantly question themselves, Descartes pass by complications met through his
studies so easily, by avoiding deeper elaborations on the big questions. Descartes
used God to validate the perceptions of self and the knowledge gained through the
“self”; he (opposite Giddens and Foucault) only needed the path (study and
questions) to lead him to his conclusions.
Descartes had an intention, and through his meditations, he ‘conquered’ the very
same complications that Giddens and Foucault find so intriguing to study over and
over again from different perspectives, for instance ‘What am I, and why?’. For
Giddens and Foucault, cultural and social norms greatly influence what makes us
who we are. But they claim that new questions can always be asked, such as ‘even
though our acts are affected by society, do we still have e.g. a “personal” way of
thinking/feeling’. For Descartes, the reason for what we are, and why we are here,
the reason will always be the same: God. Nevertheless, all three thinkers seem to
point towards:
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1. There is connection between our body and our mind, although they are not
necessarily dependent on each other, and an individual’s ‘freedom’ to use his/her
body the way they see fit is not unlimited (certain aspects seem to be governed by
society (ex. divorce)
2. Why we are who we are can always be questioned
Identity and the ‘self’ seem to have inflicted us all with an invisible, discursive
abuse of power. We have become our own creators and lords, however, these titles
are only given to us through cultural and social norms (or God from the perception
of Descartes), of which we cannot escape (or can we?). So in the end, did we just
become even more controllable?
If we as individuals ends us with a limited choice of ‘consumer’ choices from the
norms and traditions of society, does identity then really get created by our ‘selves’,
or are they only a product from the authority of society and cultural norms?
As Giddens puts it:
‘It seems to be current, that the more we reflect on the “creation” of ourselves as
individuals, the more the question about what a “person” or a “human” fades out.
This could be because we feel as if the human body and mind are two separate
things. The human body (like the “self”) can no longer be specified as established
by nature. Back in the days, the body was something given by nature, with no
significant possibility of human interference. Nowadays our bodies are fields of
interaction, constantly changing simultaneously as our feeling of identity and
individuality.’ (Giddens, A.: Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the
late modern age.) 1991. P 252-254)
Through our study of Giddens, Foucault and Descartes, it seems that our ‘selves’
and identities are not necessarily something we are born with, and possess from
the start of our lives, but are rather influenced from socially, culturally and
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economical established norms. Thereby, our ‘selves’ seem to be taught to us during
life.
Chapter II
2.1 Delusions of Gender: Female or Male? Nature given or human made?
If gender is a delusion and women do not come from Venus and men from Mars
and we all come from the planet Earth, why are the sexes, male and female, so
different? What is the difference between the notions sex and gender? Mallan talks
about the difficulties regarding the use of the terms:
‘To begin, gender is a term with a history. It is also a term, which for
some time now, has become increasingly flexible and difficult to pin
down. One part of the historical transition from the use of ´sex´ to
´gender´ saw the two terms as interchangeable or one collapsing into
the other.’ (Mallan 2009:11)
Sex and gender are inseparable terms because the sex always referrers to gender.
Biological sex divides humans into two categories; male and female. Gender is a
more complex concept than sex because gender describes behavior and not only
physical appearances. Scientists and scholars have disputed the meanings and the
use of the terms because gender (and sex also, perhaps) is an ambiguous term. The
distinction between the two is intangible, but as Brannon puts it, when she talks
about how psychologists use them: ‘Such distinctions have been elusive, but those
who use the term gender often intend to emphasize the social nature of difference
between women and men, whereas those who use the term sex mean to imply
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biological differences.’ (Brannon 2005:15) In this project we will use the notions
as described above.
Biological sex is of great importance from the very beginning of life. When babies
are born, they are born into a world of sexism, where different things are expected
from the sexes. We picture a hypothetical father and his young daughter having a
conversation. The father is in no way a sexist (consciously at least). The daughter
asks her father what her options are when she grows up, and we could guess some
fathers would answer along these lines: ´You can be anything you want to when
you grow up. Women and men have equal rights and opportunities in our society.
Now go on and play with you Barbie.´ Let´s assume that there is nothing wrong
with girls playing with Barbie-dolls; it´s a harmless game, but the problem stands
in the fact that Barbie and millions of other brands of toys, are marketed to sell to
little girls, rather than boys (and vice versa with classical boy toys). Children are
born into a world of sex difference where they are expected to behave, act and even
think accordingly.
In Cordelia Fine´s book, Delusions of Gender, she discusses sex differences and
gender roles by studying scientific research. By using the word delusions in the
title she indicates that innate gender differences are perhaps overstated or do not
exist at all. If we think of the mind as a computer, some would argue that men and
women have different kinds of hardware that operate differently. But according to
Fine´s findings the hardware is the same, just operating through different software
provided by genetics, society and environment.
In the first part of the book, ´Half-changed world, Half-changed minds´ Fine argues
that, the mind is influenced by outside factors rather than men and women being
in some fundamental way different thinkers. Society and environment influence
the way we think about ourselves, stereotypes and respective abilities. That is, for
example, the idea that women are better caregivers and men better drivers. Even
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though we do not consider ourselves sexist, we act and perform unconsciously
fitting into these gender stereotypes, because we are a part of a society and
environment that produces sex differences: ‘this change in the self-concept can
than have effects for behavior’ (Fine 2010:12). Men and women act according to
the stereotypes because they are a part of their identities.
As the hypothetical father earlier suggested, that women and men have the same
rights and opportunities in his (our) society, why is there so much difference in
women´s and men´s conditions? Why do women get smaller salaries than men for
the same kind of work? Why are women the subjects of inequality inside and
outside of their homes? Fine asks: ‘Today we don´t think one sex better or more
valuable than the other – and yet, at an implicit level, could we still be holding
males in higher regard?’ (Fine 2010:195)
To answer these questions one has to consider social hierarchy throughout the past
millenniums. It is only recently that women have gained the same rights and
opportunities as men (legally) in developed western societies. Prior to our days,
patriarchy infiltrated history; men have since been the center of power. The name
of Fine´s book part referrers to this: ´Half-changed world, Half-changed minds´.
Even though the legal system and the politically correct debate regard women and
men as equals, reality is something different that has deep roots in our environment
and not in our hard-wired minds.
Stereotypes are important in order to understand predetermined ideas humans have
about each other. Stereotypes help us simplify our thoughts. When we define in
our minds a certain kind of human being, we visualize that person (or group of
persons) with certain distinctive traits and appearances. All these information we
take from a collective source that is provided to us through experience, media,
environment and society.
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2.2 Stereotypes
A hipster, a basket ballplayer, a nurse, a banker; when we hear those words we
immediately picture a certain type of person. Not only visually, but a person that
holds certain qualities and even beliefs and opinions. We use stereotypes to
simplify. The world looks simpler if we generalize rather than think about all the
extremely complicated and diverse factors and emotions that a single person holds.
Stereotypes portray both myths and reality. That is, there is always some truth to
them but as well some fiction. In Linda Brannon’s book, Gender, Psychological
Perspectives, the role of stereotypes are explored in relation with people’s
identities and performances. She states:
´A gender stereotype consists of beliefs about the psychological traits
and characteristics of, as well the activities appropriate to, men or
women. Gender roles are defined by behaviors, but gender stereotypes
are beliefs and attitudes about masculinity and femininity. The concepts
of gender role and gender stereotypes tend to be related. When
people associate a pattern of behavior with either women or men,
they may overlook individual variations and expectations and come to
believe that the behavior is inevitably associated with one gender but
not the other. Therefore, gender roles furnish the material for
gender stereotypes´ (Brannon 2005:160)
How do gender stereotypes affect us in our daily life? The truth is that according
to research, women and men do differently at diverse kinds of tests when given
predetermined indications (or straight out lied to) about gender roles. (Brannon
2005:159-160, Fine 2010:27-29). This is called the stereotype threat. If women are
told that they do worse at solving mathematical problems than men, they do so in
the tests. If they are told they do better than men, they do a lot better at the tests
than if they are given the stereotype idea.
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Let’s picture an elementary school class learning arts and crafts; knitting and
carving. What do the stereotypes tell us about these two kinds of crafts? Maybe
something like:
(1) Knitting: an old woman sits in a rocking chair knitting socks for her
grandchildren
(2) Carving: an old man sits on the porch carving a wooden horse for his
grandchildren.
By applying the theory of stereotype threat it is easy to assume that the children
would perform differently at those two tasks. The boys would be better at carving
and the girls better at knitting.
This may seem as an innocent comparison because that is tradition. That is the way
things have been for centuries. The years pass and the children graduate elementary
school and high school and apply to college. Is it more likely that the boys would
apply to more masculine lines of education, let´s say engineering and the girls to
more feminine ones, let´s say nursing? Probably yes. Why?
Perhaps because the reality is that more men are engineers and more women are
nurses. Engineering is masculine and nursing is feminine. Does that mean that men
are in some fundamental way better at calculating physical construction and
women at care giving? Society and the environment seem to tell us so.
Cordelia Fine discusses the stereotype threat in the chapter; ´Backwards and in
high heels´ referring to “… a female doing traditionally male work faces the same
problem as the dancer Ginger Rogers, who, as it was once famously noted, ´did
everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels´.” (Fine 2010:29).
It seems as women face more demands than men when doing a masculine line of
work.
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2.3 The hard-wired brain
Is the brain like a blank page when we are born or are there already written ones
and zeros that predetermine our behaviour? It is known through research in
linguistics that some channels in the brain are pre-programmed. A child’s ability
to learn language gives us a hint that we are born with some kind of a program in
our minds that makes sense of language.
A three year old may well have a vocabulary of thousand words and knows how to
use them in an extremely complex system of rules, but at the same time the three
year old cannot solve the simplest tasks like tying their shoelaces. So if this applies
for language does it also apply for other things, like gender perhaps? Are we born
with a gendered mind?
In part 2 of Cordelia Fine´s book, called Neurosexism, she discusses research that
point to that there is an innate difference between the male and the female brain.
At first it might be tempting to assume that there is an innate difference between
male and female brain; men and women are different and seem to have different
skills. Men tend to get more Nobel prices in physics than women. So isn’t it easy
to assume that it is easier for the male brain to learn mathematics than it is for the
female brain?
More women than men seem to fill positions such as kindergarten teachers and
nurses. So isn’t it easy to assume that the female brain is better suited to be good
at educating and care giving? Fine talks about testosterone in foetuses and
newborns. Testosterone levels in baby boys and male foetuses are higher than in
girls and are an essential part in the developing of male genitalia. Furthermore she
ironically asks:
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´Such discoveries led to a brilliantly elegant idea known as the
organizational-activational hypothesis. What if the same hormone
involved in building male genitalia, a gift to be enjoyed for a lifetime,
also permanently ´organises´ the brain in a masculine way?´ (Fine
2010:101)
Fine points out that research made on birds and rats give the conclusion that if an
individual of the other sex is put in a situation that imitates the opposite sex´s
surroundings then they take on their behaviour; a castrated male rat acts more like
a female rat. (Fine 2010:102)
Men do all sorts of experiments with animals for all kind of purposes; to test
cosmetics and medicine for instance. When mammals are tested with cosmetic
products and their skin reacts badly, it is safe to say that the products are probably
not good for human skin. If rats get cancer and die when given drugs that are in
development, it is also safe to say that the medicine is not suitable for humans just
yet. Research and testing of animals can be helpful to science.
Even though testing and experimenting on animals can be helpful in research, it
does not mean that the results also apply to humans, especially the human brain.
Kelly G. Lambert and Catherine L. Franssen recently wrote an article called The
Dynamic Nature of the Parental Brain. Here they describe various tests made on
female rats. The tests showed that female rats that have given birth or associated
with baby rats did better at tasks and were more resourceful than female rats that
had never gotten pregnant or associated with baby rats:
´The research described here provides evidence that the maternal brain
is altered in ways that make the female rodent a more successful provider for her
offspring. A few questions remain, however, about the
generalization of these
results.´ (Lambert and Franssen, 2013:28)
25
That is the point. These tests on rats’ maternal brain tell us a lot about rat brains
and not necessarily about human brains. To generalize results on experiments made
on rats to humans is, to say the least, questionable. (Fine 2010:103)
Fine talks about Norman Geschwind theory about foetal testosterone. The theory
claims that boys have high levels of testosterone that slows the growth of the left
hemisphere which affects their ability in certain areas. (Fine 2010:105) There we
have an explanation for why boys surpass girls in some areas and vice versa; boys
have structural skills and are good at mathematics and girls are more empathetic
and read between the lines.
Simon Baron-Cohen is a scholar whose findings, Cordelia Fine disputes. His
hypothesis is in the spirit of Geschwinds theory; the testosterone levels in the foetus
determine whether a child develops a ´male´ or ´female´ brain. Fine states that other
researches indicate, that there is no evidence of males having smaller left
hemisphere. (Fine 2010:206)
Testosterone has a great effect on determining whether a foetus develops male
genitalia. The higher level of testosterone, the bigger the chance is that the foetus
will be male:
´Higher levels of foetal testosterone are strongly correlated with having
a penis. That means that a correlation between foetal-testosterone levels
and later sex-typed behaviour, or differences between boys and girls,
could have nothing to do with foetal testosterone and everything to do
with the different socialisation of boys and girls.´ (Fine 2010:106)
26
Cordelia Fine discusses the effects of this hormone; testosterone and how it is
linked to masculinity, and lack of it linked to femininity. Researchers have
problems with measuring testosterone levels in foetuses because very rarely blood
samples are taken from foetuses, so they use other methods that are less scientific
(Fine 2010:107-108).
Fine criticises another study made by Baron-Cohen and Jennifer Connellan. The
study involved timing how long new-born babies paid attention to a face and to a
mobile. The purpose of this was to measure if baby girls and boys differed in the
amount of time they viewed these two objects. The results were that girls paid more
attention to the face while the boys looked longer at the mobile. (Fine 2010:112).
But there were serious flaws to this study. The face and the mobile were not shown
to the babies simultaneously. The babies were in different positions when the study
was conducted, and the so called ´experimenter expectancy effects´, that is that the
person executing the study is affected by the environment. (Fine 2010:113-114)
Fine mentions another study that showed no differences between girls and boys
when they were newborn, but they did so some months later when the study was
repeated. (Fine 2010:115) So it seems that children learn gendered behaviour from
a very early age.
So, how does the brain function? We add new knowledge as long as we live and
loose some older knowledge with time. The mind changes and renews itself
constantly; we change our opinions and develop new tastes. But do these changes
have a predetermined basis? Fine talks about how the brain has been perceived:
´For decades, brain development has been thought of as an orderly adding in of
new wiring that enables you to perform ever-more-sophisticated cognitive
functions.´ (Fine 2010:176). But we know that genes are an important role in how
we are shaped. Children resemble their parents physically and sometime mentally
as well. The face and body resemblance is obviously owed to the genes and not the
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environment we grow up in. Fine argues that genes and biology present
possibilities but do not determine our behaviour and abilities:
´But our brains, as we are now coming to understand are changed by our
behaviour, or thinking, our social world. The new neuroconstructivist
perspective of brain development emphasises the sheer exhilarating
tangle of a continuous interaction among genes, brain and environment.´
(Fine 2010:176-177)
So it seems that the brain is more complicated in order for us to assume it is hardwired. We are controlled by complex sets of activities that are determined by
biology and the environment.
2.4 Black and White, or perhaps Gray too?
In the above sections we talked about that the main distinction between gender and
biological sex seem to stand in the fact that sex is a biological given while gender
has a lot more factors determining it. Most of us believed that sex alone was enough
to determine a new-born’s gender, but is that always the case?
Can anatomical features alone suffice to classify a new-born as a boy or a girl?
Gender is an essential part of our identity and is closely related to sexuality. Us
humans seem to have a need to categorize ourselves, in terms of gender too, most
probably because society is built in such a way. One has to have a place or a
position to ‘fill’ and act accordingly to be ‘accepted’.
This process though is far from painless or obstacle free.
What happens in the cases when sex traits are not clearly distinguishable?
‘Sometimes, a child is born with sex chromosomes that are different from the usual
XX of the female or the XY of the male. The child may develop sex and/or
reproductive organs that are ambiguous — not completely female and not
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completely male. Ambiguous sex organs can develop for other reasons, as well.
These are called intersex conditions’.(Cullins, 2013: Female, Male and Intersex at
a Glance)
In this case it gets slightly complicated to classify one gender –wise, already from
physical features alone, not to mention that later in life, this physical peculiarity
can lead to identity crisis too (gender identity just as much). And the process of
gender assignment at birth for intersexual born babies raises a number of ethical
issues. Most seem to agree that the right way to go about it is decide already what
gender the baby should be by help of surgical intervention. Opponents to this view
suggest that one can still decide what gender the baby should be but that can be
done ‘just’ by raising the baby as a boy or a girl, without intervening surgically.
And a third party in the debate proposes a gender-neutral upbringing until the child
is mature enough to decide for him/herself what gender he/she wants to be.
The outcome of the debate seems pretty much to be determined by the social
context and family background a child happens to be born into. Depending on the
combination of the two a child can be ‘lucky enough’ to be given a chance to decide
for his/her own life or can arbitrarily have a assigned a gender to him. The
implications in the latter case can be from minor to major in terms of selfformation, body image and gender identity.
If we are to reflect on the theories of Giddens and Foucault regarding this process,
the life of an intersexual is destined to be even more of a battlefield that that of a
‘normal’ (as the mainstream would have it) individual that at least sex trait wise is
easily identifiable as a man or a woman. Thus, an intersexual does not only have
to make sense of him/herself in terms of gender, he/she has to struggle more to find
a place in a society that often operates by rigid rules and frames. If the average
individual has to ‘care for the self’ the way Foucault suggests, the intersexual’s
effort to define ‘the self’ are doubled.
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If as Giddens suggest, self-identity is a reflection of the individual on his
‘biography’ and his interactions with it, the nature of such interactions for an
intersexual are bound to be turbulent, in the sense that often the very same
surrounding is the one that rejects the intersexual, and creates no room for him/her
to create a satisfactory self-narrative. The following section will elaborate longer
on the hardships intersexual face in traditional of modern settings in order to build
a life of their liking and have the ‘liberty’ to decide for themselves the kind of
people they want to be.
2.5 From Sexual to Gender Belonging
Gender is linked to the behavior, roles and characteristics of men and women and
that varies significantly throughout time and between different cultures.
Social sciences have – for the last 15-20 years – become conscious of those
specific human beings who are born with physiological traits that make it difficult,
if not impossible to clearly categorize them under any of the categories: a woman
or a man. That is the case of what are known as intersexual.
This category has created a challenge to the gender binary as it shows how difficult
it is for the modern biological science to keep a sharp division between the two
sexes. Some of the intersexual are being open about how they do not want to be
categorized as either male or female, but rather as a 3rd gender – which is to be seen
as them. These developments have put our perception under discussion of notions
such as biological sex and gender identity.
While some of the category known as intersexual prefer to be ‘identified’ as either
a man or a woman and live their lives accordingly, others refuse to be identified as
belonging to any of these gender groups.
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They consider themselves different, in terms of both sex and gender and would
rather live that way, as intersexual, thus requiring a sort of intersexual identity to
define them. As Ian Burkitt puts it: ‘..they are fighting for their right to exist among
other genders in the modern society, without being seen, as perhaps, a medical
disorder’ (Burkitt: 2008). In some countries, a legally recognized third sex or
gender option (Gender X) has made it possible for this category to live their lives
as they choose to be defined, namely as intersexual, trans-people or transgender.
Gender X is for those people who do not want to be listed as M (male) or F (female)
in the public register and was first introduced in Australia in the year of 2011. It is
a great acknowledgment for those who do not fit the traditional legal categories
and shows how the society has started to accept change. Germany is the first
country in Europe who has allowed parents the opportunity to register their
newborns as neither male nor female. This change happened due to and after a
study made in 2012 that showed the Germans how the rights of intersexual were
not protected properly.
This new change in legislation was designed to prevent parents from making hasty
decisions on behalf of their newborns, who are not clearly male or female.
Passports will also have a third sex option called X, besides M and F, but this
acknowledgement is only a step towards change, as there is still a long run before
it gets ‘easy’ for the intersexual. The intersexual can surely register themselves
under gender X in their passports in some countries, but they cannot travel to those
countries who have not legalized the third sex option.
As the President of Intersex International in Australia, Morgan Carpenter points
out in a statement of his, he cannot travel to the U.S. as he possesses a gender X
passport. This creates massive difficulties and Morgan states it is more difficult to
fight stereotypes than to deal with legal confusion. Perhaps for this reason, gender
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reassignment surgeries are still flourishing in Australia, ‘deciding’ how newborns
that do not fall clearly under the established sex categories, have to be ‘made’
seem/look as either male or female (RT News, 2013). In a society with rigid
definitions about sex and gender, there seems to be no place for those ‘who do not
fit’.
The policy director of International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex
Association in Europe expresses this way his concern: ‘Schools have toilets for
boys and toilets for girls. Where will the intermediate child go? There are separate
sports activities for boys and for girls, and so many other things like this. The law
doesn't change that. It does not immediately create a space for intersex people to
be themselves’. Though, change takes time to create change and the third sex option
is a great step towards the equality and recognition the intersexual are wishing to
get.
The incidence of children being born into the ‘gray’ area of sex categories is even
higher that reported one out of 2000 newborns are intersexual, and this because
intersexual are not always recognized instantly. 150 intersexual are born in
Germany every year and between 8.000-10.000 people have signs questioning their
physical gender defining characteristics (RT News, 2013). With this high a
percentage of people not fitting the known stereotypes in terms of sexual or gender
belonging it would seem changes in the way we as individuals or societies perceive
sex and gender are unavoidable.
If we are to pay attention to statistics, gender reassignment surgeries’ number has
tripled on the National Health Service in England as 54 surgeries were processed
in 2000 and 143 in 2009. 853 transgender female and 12 transgender male received
state-funded surgeries to change their sex. That shows a support that they have
received from certain states. The number could easily have been higher, but not
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everyone wants to go under the knife and not everyone is able to access it (Pink
News, World’s Largest Gay News Service: 2010).
Gender reassignment happens at the moment an individual (born as a girl or a boy
the way society defines these categories) realizes he/she has been ‘tricked’ by
nature and is trapped in a body with whose features he/she does not identify. Thus
they decide they need to be reassigned a gender that represents their own gender
identity.
With the cultural, social and technological evolution experienced, we as humans
have gained the opportunity to be represented by alternative identities. It seems
finally possible to be able to make one’s body fit to the sense ‘self’ one holds:
through gender reassignment surgeries. The first gender reassignment operation
known was that of Danish Einar Wegener, who in 1930 became Lili Elbe. The
surgery got a lot of attention and made great history. She did, on the other hand,
go through a rough time after the transformation. ‘Fear and paranoia started
running in her mind – she feared of losing her friends and felt her new identity was
only seen as a phenomenon. She experienced anxiety about seeing the people who
knew her as Einar and she felt as she had murdered him’ (Søndergaard & Oldrup:
2011).
This is understandable and explainable from a social perspective. As Ian Burkitt
argues in his Social Selves: ‘I’ need a ‘We’ to become an ‘I’ (Burkit, I). We define
ourselves and create a self-identity based also on our interactions with others.
Intersexual faces a big challenge on an everyday basis, as they have to make ‘sense’
of themselves with a changed gender in a rigid society.
People are often scared of what is different and it is not easy for the transgender to
live in a society where he/she, at one point, was seen as a medical disorder. The
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acceptance of others is important for many and there is a risk of being alienated
from friends, family and communities when being transgender.
Some transgender are restricted about how ‘out’ they can be due to workplaces that
might not hire ‘their kind’. The reason can be homophobia or the non-acceptance
of queer due to religious reasons. It is especially hard for those who live in
conservative communities to live an easy life, because it makes them go through
the struggle of (1) finding friends and (2) getting a job in a community where they
are not accepted. This makes them face difficulties to get their basic needs covered.
Their ‘self’ is most of the time not respected and that can lead to depression,
anxiety and loneliness. Reassignments surgeries bring about radical changes not
just to the human body, but indirectly to the psyche as well. The first transgender
Lili, did not totally succeed in her transformation, as she died after a failed surgery
she never recovered from, but her attempt made history and opened the ‘doors’ to
a new perspective on gender and sex belonging.
Psychologist Suzanne Kessler claims that humans have a tendency to attribute
gender on others on behalf of the way they socialize themselves – this is seen as
the basis of a so-called “gender display” instead of a person’s physiology. When
people meet they often attribute a gender to them and automatically conclude them
to be either male or female. But how do we know who they are and who are we to
decide? We cannot see people’s genitals but can only judge them upon their
behavior, clothes, hairstyle etc. These factors help most people to assume if
someone is either a man or a woman.
Wendy McKenna and Suzanne Kessler made a research on ethnomethodology and
thereby pointed out how people, after they have attributed a certain gender to
someone, discover other features that are closely linked to the opposite gender than
the one that is given.
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Everyone has both masculine and feminine characteristics within him or her. There
are two main key factors that gender attribution involves: (1) people and their
representation of themselves when we meet them, and (2) what we in our childhood
have learned from our culture regarding what is considered as masculine or
feminine. These two factors combine a difficult process of social interaction when
dealing with gender roles. We are living in a society where people are not just
finding, but also creating themselves and the acceptance for change is in growth.
People have the opportunity to become whomever they want – e.g. through plastic
surgery which has become common and popular in the modern society. There is
no longer a need to be ‘trapped’ in a body that doesn’t fit your mind or soul, as
gender and sex is not the same thing, even though many inappropriately see them
as similar. We are living in a society that at times can be judgmental and not
everyone shares the same opinion. Some accept difference; others don’t, and that
is one of the greatest challenge intersexuals are facing on an everyday basis. While
the challenge societies face at large is precisely that of widening borders of
perception though this includes the discomfort of letting go of familiar and
‘comfortable’ ways of thinking.
Chapter III
How do gender stereotypes affect perception, self-perception and behaviors?
3.1 Gender stereotypes and how they arose
Human beings are social creatures; we depend largely on the approval of our social
background to find meaning in our existence. The ever debatable topic of nature
vs. nurture keeps relevant question of our need to categorize gender and the
meaning of it. Nowadays the question of gender has become a far more elaborate
question than ever before with the growing emphasis on the individual and the self,
we strive to define ourselves with every opportunity.
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To make it easier for ourselves we need to look outside on the world and our
surroundings to know how to define ‘me’. Do you know what a human is if you
have never seen one? No! The best way to understand a creature is to observe it.
When we are born our journey of learning how to become a human being begins
and we start with observational learning.
After a period of time we being to imitate the behaviors of ‘models’ the people
around them like parents or siblings. Models are important for the child
development as it learns to engage actively in a social context when it tries ti
imitate correct behavior in a situation. “According to social theory young children
are more likely to imitate people who are nurturant, powerful, and similar to
them.”(Weiten & Lloyd cited Bussy & Bandura, 1984, 1999)
Children have a tendency to imitate same gender models. Therefor the girls play
with doll and boys with cars because their models teach them that. Children are not
passive bystander that looks on from the side they pick up the gender labels,
behaviors and activities society introduce to them quickly. As a parent you may try
to raise your child in a gender free environment but if you were a dress and you
husband don’t, you have already made a distinct difference that the child spots right
away; thus keeping stereotypes alive and well.
Gender roles have always existed but when did the stereotypes we know today
present themselves. Some believe that with the industrialization the divide between
male and female expectation change greatly. Before the industrialization men and
women used to be farmers and both genders would share the work. The divide
between them were smaller.
After the 19th century the world change and now the demand for workers laid
outside the home. The men went out to work and the women stayed home to
managed the house and take care of the children. The genders now had to adapt to
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different roles and environments. “These changes produced two beliefs: the
Doctrine of Two Spheres and the Cult of True Womanhood.”( Lewin, 1984)
The first belief was that men’s and women’s interest diverge - meaning that they
had their different areas of influence. “The Cult of True Womanhood arose between
1820 and 1860. “The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged
herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors, and society could be
divided into four cardinal virtues—piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity”
(Welter, 1978, p. 313). Literature from Victorian time confirmed the society’s
expectation of women and the “gender propaganda” women were subjected to.
The Cult of True Womanhood named the four virtues that characterized successful,
powerful and happy Victorian woman, as the ideal and the lack of it would give
life no meaning. The industrialization forced men to seek employment to provide
for their families therefore proving their masculinity by being good provides. They
were pressured by the ideal to seek a job to secure the family; to achieve this goal
education became an essential part of men’s lives. Men had to be independent,
confident, self-reliant and strong; any demonstration of female characteristic was
look down upon. Like women had to prove their femininity, men had to
demonstrate and confirm their masculinity to have a place in society.
Stereotypes live long and prosper because we depend upon them to tell us who we
are. Stereotypes places us in a category were we belong and it only becomes a
problem when we do not feel at home in the category any more. Our western
society has change greatly since the 19th century; thus making us aware of our
displacement in the existing stereotypes.
We now challenge the old stereotypes and strive to define new ones. Time is
against us because change takes time, and we are not use to the slow pace of time.
We are a spoiled generation in our world’s history we seek to alter all the problems
in a split second and nothing less is not good enough.
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3.2 ‘I think therefore I am’ or ‘We think therefore you are?’
In the first chapter we discussed how self and self-identity are formed and what are
the factors that influence them. According to Giddens theory, an individual creates
a sense of self by reflecting on his surroundings and in this chapter we want to look
into how a ‘biography’ that is shaped by certain believes and expectations
regarding genders can and does influence the way we think about ourselves and
how we afterwards behave.
In Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine argues that not only do we perceive others
through stereotypical lenses but do the same with ourselves too, since, according
to social psychology research, our self-concepts are very malleable. Fine, as also
mentioned in the second chapter of this project, goes on to explain that ‘selves’ are
rich and complex and have various nuances, her point being that, what aspect of
‘self’ we use at a particular time has a lot to do with the context in which it is used.
Turns out we have more than one identity, and as Fine explains: ‘…with a
particular social identity in place, it would not be surprising if self-perception
became more stereotypic as a result. In line with this idea, priming gender seems
to have exactly this effect’(Fine, C, 2010).
When we talk about gender stereotypes, attention must be paid to what
distinguishes them from gender roles. While roles seem to denote the kind of
activities men and women engage in with different frequencies, gender stereotypes
have to do with, often, generalized beliefs about the kind of activities appropriate
to, traits, characteristics of male and female.
Stereotypes are abound to provide unreliable information in that, they are
generalized and they oversee the fact that, as Fine mentions above, we all are
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complex individuals different from each-other in a variety of ways, regardless of
the whether we belong to the same gender or not.
It seems that, the power of stereotypes stands in the fact they can shape the behavior
of the people who hold these stereotypes. As Sharon Begley argues in her article,
The Stereotype Trap, stereotypes that pervade cultures ‘make people painfully
aware of the way society views them’ (Begley, Sh, 2000). Begley explains that the
stereotypes (gender ones in this case) have such a strong grasp as to affect the way
their holders perform intellectually or in other kinds of tasks.
Gender stereotypes create social categories for gender, and form often the way we
think about these categories. Because of their generalized nature, gender
stereotypes very often consist of false beliefs, but beliefs are a powerful force and
unless their wrong nature is understood they shape wrong views we may hold about
others and our-selves too.
Cordelia Fine argues that the way gender stereotypes affects our perception is at
times subtle, but even these subtle almost imperceptible stimuli can change the way
we perceive ourselves. Fine makes a very interesting point when she argues that
‘..the boundary of self-concept is permeable to other people’s conceptions of you
(or somewhat more accurately, your perception of their perception of you’(Fine,
C, 2010). As social psychology research has showed, people socially attune their
self-evaluation in accordance with the perception others hold of them. Thus, as
Fine claims, if their perception of us is stereotypical, our own self-perception will
follow in the same track. But the change that happens is not just reflected in the
way we see ourselves, it goes on to be manifested in the way we behave, by
matching the expected way of acting the stereotype suggests. As the illustrative
example in Delusions of Gender shows, in a conducted experiment, women who
thought they were about to meet a man with traditional views about women,
perceived themselves and behaved in a more feminine way, than the ones who
39
thought the man they would meet had a more open-minded, modern attitude
towards women. Our self-perceptions seem to have an adaptable and dynamic
nature. Or social selves shape themselves accordingly with the situation, according
to Fine, in order for us to be able to fit, as well as better perform our ‘social role’
(Fine, C, 2010).
3.3 A truck driver or Barbie doll? Gender and the way stereotypes influence
children’s sense of self
When speaking about children, and how they get to develop the
personality/identity they do, psychological literature abounds with examples of
how children get shaped by what they observe in their surroundings. Doubtless,
their primary role models are those of their parents or main caregivers. In his essay
Contemporary Gender Roles in Children’s Literature, Joshua Heinsz argues that
most are able to identify themselves gender wise, as early as the age of three.
Almost just as important as the primary role models, is what children get exposed
to during their formative years. It is this combination (daily institutions, friends,
games, literature, music and other forms of entertainment) that seems to play a
major role on how a child’s personality develops.
There are, needless to say, various ways this process happens to take place, but,
for the scope of this project, we will consider just one of them, namely how gender
stereotypes portrayed in literature affect and shape a child’s perception of self and
others.
Author Mem Fox made a valid point when saying: ‘Everything we
read...constructs us, makes us who we are, by presenting our image of ourselves
as girls and women, as boys and men’ (Mem Fox, 1993). Books, are not just word
scribbled on paper. From personal experience with them, we would be safe to
assume we know the power they exercise in shaping one’s reality. The process is
40
so subtle and unforced upon one, that the message gets a lot easier accepted and
identified with. This process is a lot more noticeable and prompt in children, who
are impressionable and have not yet developed proper critical attributes towards
their surrounding environment. According to researchers, the readers tend to
identify with characters of their own gender in books…’therefore, the relative lack
of girl characters in texts can limit the opportunity for girls to identify with their
gender and to validate their place in society’ (Majari, Singh). To make matters
worse, according to Heinsz, the way genders are portrayed in literature targeting
group ages as young as 3 years old, provide a ‘way of being’ to their young
audiences. Thus the male characters are portrayed in roles that display tough
character skills and very often lack of emotional reaction.
On the other hand, argues Heinsz, female characters in illustrated children books
are portrayed to be ‘mild-mannered, submissive and worst of all: damsels in
distress’. The way they contribute to the story seems to be mostly limited to their
looks and how they contribute to further highlight male characters’ attributes. Thus
‘her’ being so beautiful compels the hero to go through ‘hell and back’, conquering
all sorts of almost insurmountable obstacles to ‘save’ the damsel.
One would not need to do more than just leaf through an illustrated fairy tale book
for children, to notice the heroine depicted in sexually revealing attire, perpetuating
this way impossible ideals of physical beauty and perfection. One would be
tempted to ask, for all those little girls who choose to dress as Cinderella’s, Belle’s
or Sleeping Beauty’s, whether they do so for what they notice their heroines do in
the story, or rather for the ideal of physical appearance the latter represent.
When talking about literature, and in this case, children’s literature, an adult would
have no difficulty determining whether the piece of literature contains gender bias
(depending on who the main character in the book is or example, and how a certain
41
gender is described, through stereotypical features), but such would not be the case
with the child.
From these observations one can conclude that the type of literature a child is
exposed to, and the way gender is portrayed in it, will either limit a child’s idea on
gender roles, or encourage him, to even that young an age, to challenge the existing
ones, and perhaps try to envisage a more egalitarian relation between the two
genders. These understandings, for better or worse are going to provide the child
with what a society considers gender appropriate behavior.
According to Heinzs, much attention has been paid to recognizing and
reconsidering of aspect of race depiction in literature but not much has been done
with reevaluating gender stereotypes in children literature. He mentions several
positive attempts in this regard, citing, Robert Munsch’s Paper Bag Princess,
Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole and The Only Boy in Ballet Class, written
by Denise Groska and illustrated by Amy Wummer.
For the purpose of this project and for its content’s peculiarity we decided to go
with Gene Kemp’s The turbulent term of Tyke Tiler.
3.4 A Gender Stereotype Analysis of the Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, by
Gene Kemp
3.4.1 Plot Review
In the recent years, following an ever increasing awareness on matters concerning
gender and gender identity, literature, and children literature in specific has
experienced innovative attempts that portray gender, gender roles and gender
identity in a much less traditional way, promoting the message that we should not
and are not supposed to fit nicely in the gender boxes our respective societies have
cast for us. Gene Kemp’s ingenious book, much more so for the time in which it
42
was written (1977), in our opinion has taken these efforts to a greater and more
significant level. Before we continue with a detailed analysis of the book, a review
of its plot will follow.
The story is narrated by the main character in the book, namely Tyke Tiler and it
is account of the happenings and events of Tyke and his school mates’ last term at
Cricklepit Combined School. Tyke is a very active and athletic 12 year old who
loves to climb and play outdoors. Together with his best friend, Daniel (Danny
Price), one way or another they both manage almost always successfully to get into
trouble. Though according to Tyke’s narration it is Danny who initiates most the
troubles, since the latter is speech impaired, Tyke ends up in the situation where he
has to explain to the school headmaster, teachers and his parents what happened
and why.
Danny’s academic prowess and overall attitude in school is a lot less impressive
than Tyke’s and Tyke, though sometimes resentful, feels Danny should be
protected and helped in his helplessness, which always seems to be the case. When
Tyke was once sick and absent from school, Danny gets accused for stealing a gold
watch from one of his teacher’s, and in fear of action being taken he disappears. It
is Tyke, who knows Danny’s hideaways and his nature that manages to find the
boy and clear his name from what turns out to be a false accusation.
Until the final chapter of the book, from the adventures and daring character of
Tyke the reader is lead to believe Tyke is a boy. Only when Tyke is on the top of
the schools building trying to ring its bell who had been silent for 30 years, do we
hear one of the appalled teachers call Tyke’s full name in an angry fashion, and we
learn that the main character whom we have grown fond of for its just and daring
nature, is in fact a girl, Theodora Tiler.
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3.4.2 Analysis of Gender Stereotyping
In the second chapter of this project, we looked upon how Cordelia Fine, in
Delusions of Gender, tries to prove wrong the claims that differences between male
and female are hard-wired, a ‘nature given’. Fine’s arguments, which are based on
social psychology research outcomes, claim that, gender differences more than
physiologically explained, are a question of social construct. According to Fine,
gender stereotyping not only influences the way we view others, but it influences
just as much the way we perceive ourselves. Media and society prime individuals,
gender wise, continuously and from a very young age, and that this process seems
to happen unaware to us:
‘Stereotypes, as well as attitudes, goals, and identity also appear to exist at an
implicit level and operate ‘without the encumbrances of awareness, intention and
control’ (Fine, C, 2010)
We chose to ‘illustrate’ Fine’s findings through a concrete example. By analyzing
Gene Kemp’s The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, we will attempt to show, how
indeed gender priming influences gender perception and how it shapes our
behavior accordingly.
Gene Kemp’s book seems to support Fine’s claim and throws light exactly on how
subtle the gender priming is and how unaware we are of it. In the same time, the
narrative conveys the idea we found also in the sociological theory of Giddens,
basically that, self-identity is not a set of traits, but more so a reflexive
understanding of one’s self by a person, depending on his biography; a biography
so saturated with stereotypes and ‘expected ways of behaving’, will, predictably,
produce a (specific gender) biased perception of the ‘self’ or ‘others’.
What makes Gene Kemp’s an extraordinary and unusual (for the time it was
written) approach to debunking and challenging gender stereotypes is his
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masterful, subtle way of doing it. When the reader (though the target audience is
supposed to be that of 7-12 year olds, the book seems appealing just as much to
adults) gets ‘onboard’ and travels through the adventurous term of Tyke Tiler,
he/she gets introduced to a daring, bold and athletic 12 year old whose dream is to
climb and hide away in mysterious places, not even for a moment does the reader
suspect on what Tyke’s gender is. One is tempted to ask, why? Starting with the
name, Tyke, and the attributes used in the book to describe the character, the reader
assumes, Tyke has got to be a boy!
As Fine argues, the implicit associations of mind connect a variety of
representations of ‘objects, people, concepts, feelings, your own self, …’ (Fine, C,
2010)..’the strength of each of this connections depends on your past experiences,
and also, interestingly, on the current context) (Fine, C, 2010). Thus, us assuming,
Tyke is a boy because of the ‘agentic words’(Fine, C, 2010) that describe the
character, is a clear indication of gender priming.
Tyke’s gender, does not even appear as a fact under suspicion, when one starts
reading the book. As the title indicates: The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, the
reader would expect the ‘story’ the books tells to be that of adventure, trouble and
fun of this little ‘boy’ named Tyke’s and his friend Danny. After all, ‘Tyke’ seems
to be a name a boy would have. More than once, does Tyke save Danny, his best,
weak friend from trouble. Tyke is the hero…and were not most of us raised with
fairy tales portraying heroic deeds of male’s saving either battle fellows or
‘damsels’ in distress’?
More than once, has Tyke been ‘punished’ for challenging authority, either at home
or at school. If we were to ask ourselves what gender do we associate with features
as individualistic, competitive, just, daring as opposed to caring, submissive,
connected, we would expectedly assign the first category of adjectives to males
and the second to females. What hint is there for us even remotely to question
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Tyke’s gender to start with? As Fine, points out at, the beginning of her book, when
it comes to gender, we drift along with ‘cultural lore’ (Fine, C, 2010), rather than
stop and think, each and every one is a unique person, a ‘multifaceted, sometimes
even contradictory individual’(Fine, C, 2010) and that it is pointless and wrong to
define such richness into rigid stereotypes. Tyke, seems to be exactly this kind of
person, someone who despite young age and a restrictive cultural background, uses
inner resourcefulness and personality to live the way the character finds fair, just,
fulfilling.
Tyke, seems to be the fish who swims against the stream. But when the majority
follows the flow it is hard to notice. The culturally ‘produced’ soft-ware’ by which
we seem to operate subconsciously and the perceptions that result from it, (as Fine
argues in her book) do not necessarily indicate we consciously would choose to
think in a stereotypical way.
Thus, while we reach the end of the book, and we find out that actually Tyke, is
Theodora Tiler, a resilient and very resourceful young girl, we may perhaps
regretfully admit that though the author, wittingly threw hints suggesting Tyke
could be something more than ‘Tyke’, most of us failed to notice them; our
perception clouded by ‘ready-made models’ of what a boy or a girl is.
The ingenious contribution of Kemp stands in, aside for providing a fine piece of
literature, pervaded by wit and irony, in the fact that he manages in a very clever,
not intellectually arrogant way, to make the reader aware of the existence of ‘preprogramming’, the ‘software’ while in the same time providing the young readers
with a refreshing example of ‘way of being’, and ‘examples to live by’: the courage
to be ‘oneself’ regardless of what society and family expect one to be, or what kind
of moral conduct code they force one into. As Giddens puts it, once can always
manage to use ‘his/her biography’ in a creative way and find ways to build a
satisfactory, self-narrative.
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IV. An Overall Reflection on the Subject Topics and Findings of the Project
In the course of the project we looked into many aspects of gender, gender identity
and the dynamics of their formation. We learnt how even when we believe we hold
conscious attitudes towards gender and gender belonging our behaviors and
perceptions are prompted by subconsciously activated stereotypes. The speed by
which we ‘learn’ stereotypes and act accordingly is astounding. One could say
stereotypical thinking is learnt almost just as quickly as language is. Gene Kemp’s
book, The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler, proved to us, first hand, the power of
stereotypes. The gender primed associations we hold shape our thoughts, ideas and
conclusions regardless of what our consciously maintained attitudes about the
same subjects are.
One last aspect we wanted to wrap this project with has to do with the contradiction
that seems to be in the case where a child is brought up in a gender neutral
environment and he/she still portrays stereotypical behavior. What accounts for
this discrepancy? But if it is true that children tend to learn from models, and their
early life models are their parents, how do stereotypes manage to infiltrate the
child’s psyche, when it is assumed that they are being grown in a ‘gender-neutral’
environment?
As Cordelia Fine argues ‘..the obstacles to gender-neutral parenting begin even
well before a baby is born’ (Fine,C 2010). Turns out, parents have gendered
expectations even before they plan to have a child. Interestingly, Fine points out,
psychological research shows, in the post-conception phase, when women were
asked to describe the way their fetuses moved, the women who did not know the
sex of the baby, reported no particular pattern of movement, while the ones who
knew the sex, reported different pattern movements for the baby boys and different
for the baby girls. Obviously the women developed a stereotypical way of thinking
right from the moment they learnt the sex of the baby.
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Fine, brings an even more curious example of a researcher with an educational
background in women’s studies, who had kept notes on her pregnancy.
According to the reflections on her own notes before and after she came to know
the sex of the baby, Karen Smith (the researcher) reports that her words and attitude
changed drastically, once she learned she was expecting a boy. She noticed
surprised that she adjusted her tone of voice (more articulate, shorter, less tender)
and word choice to ‘fit’ the sex of her unborn.
The startling fact she found, was that even someone of her educational background
and knowledge on the influences of gender socializations, could not help but fall
for a stereotypical way of relating to her unborn child. As Fine puts it, it is
important for people to understand ‘what happens in minds without explicit
permission’ (Fine, C, 2010). That goes to say it is, often, so difficult to realize and
be aware how our behaviors are being driven by implicit gender associations rather
than by the beliefs our conscious mind endorses.
So when talking about gender-neutral growing environment, Fine argues the idea
to be rather utopic, since ‘..Parent’s gender associations are firmly in place well
before a child is even a twinkle in daddy’s eye’..’beliefs about gender- either
consciously or unconsciously held- are already shaping expectations about a
child’s interests and values, already biasing the mother’s perception of the little
kicking baby inside her..’(Fine, C, 2010).
Though in modern societies, at least at first sight, we tend to think equally about
sexes in terms of aptitudes and skills, from the way we react stereotypically, the
implication is, as Fine concludes, that we might still hold males in a higher regard
than females. Psychological research shows that parents treat children differently,
regardless of the absence of differences in the way they behave or the abilities they
possess.
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All this scientific evidence goes to show that there is more to the picture than we
can ‘see’. So, to answer the initial question of this section, how do children raised
in ‘gender-neutral’ backgrounds learn to behave in a stereotypical way?
It is a commonly accepted fact that communication happens just as much through
non-verbal ways as it does with verbal ones. Fine, assumption is that parent’s
implicit gender attitudes are subtly transmitted to their children, and not necessarily
by means of words. Children pick up non -verbal cues and actions just as easily as
they pick up verbal expressions. Research shows, surprisingly, that parents’
consciously expressed attitudes on a certain matter do not seem to have much
influence on their children, while the implicit associations are those that mark a
big difference in the way a child behaves towards the matter in question (say,
gender, race etc).
On a conclusive note, as Fine argues, the gender differences we see are in our
minds, as are the cultural beliefs that shaped our idea of these gender differences
to start with. Our non-stereotypical self-perceptions are hindered in the moment
our gender primed associations are activated by the surrounding social context.
V. Conclusion
This paper has given an account on what gender is, through a sociological,
philosophical and scientific consideration not only of the notion itself, but also of
the factors that influence it. We started this research, each with their individual
conceptions of what gender, biological sex and gender identity are. Being this a
multi-cultural project group, those conceptions were, at times, different from eachothers. The purpose of this research was to answer the problem formulation by
understanding, to start with, how we develop a sense of self, and later on, how we
end up with our respective gender identities. At the end of this study, having
considered a number of theoretical views on the notions mentioned, we found out
49
that, what felt as convictions at the beginning of the project, were actually
delusions.
Our findings at the end of the learning process this project has been, showed
that:
1. Our sense of self, and self-identity are not ‘a given feature or group of features’
at birth. They are created, on a continuous series of action-reaction pattern,
between the individual and the surrounding environment, as well as by the
individual’s reflection on the latter.
2. While we believe to have full possession and conscious control of our bodies
and minds, the truth seems to be slightly different. Thus, as far as the body goes,
we cannot always decide how to ‘use’ it (e.g abortion is illegal in many states). As
for the mind and thoughts, our conscious endorsements (in the case of this project,
the ones related to gender and gender belonging) do not necessarily match our
unconscious ones. Identity exists just as much in an implicit level.
3. We as human beings seem to have a natural need to belong, and this, amongst
others, explains how sometimes we become part of a stereotypical way of thinking,
or part of a stereotype itself, in order to gain approval or favoritism. Stereotypes
‘help’ individuals that do not question their surroundings to build a self-narrative.
4. Even though we may not be aware of our gender primed associations, their
existence does not only influence the way we see others and their behaviours’ but
ours just as much, in that, as social beings we depend on others to build a sense of
self.
5. There are many indications that gender (much the same way as self), is not just
nature given, but a social construct. Scientific researches that point in the direction
to a nature given gender are questionable. We don´t know if gender is nature given
or a product of environment and society or a mixture of both but there are many
50
indications that environment and society play a bigger role than we realise. The
idea of nature given gender provides explanations for why society is sexist but the
quality and lack of scientific data gives us reason to at least doubt that we are
gendered born.
We realize that a project of its nature has its limitations. We were not able to
conduct first hand research (and gather empirical data). Furthermore, we have used
only a few of the theories applied to the vast topic of gender, self and sex belonging,
and this makes in their turn our conclusions limited too. And finally, the validity
of our conclusions depends on how well we have understood the theories and
concepts we worked with.
VI. Considerations on the course Theory for the Humanities and the way we
worked with theory in this project
This section will present an understanding of the term theory in the context of
humanities (as explained in the progression course of the same name), as well as a
presentation of how the theories we chose to work with were applied in this project.
Theory is such a ‘big’ word and apparently, (nowadays) so all-encompassing that,
most of us, through the course of our studies to date, have often had a hard time
understanding what exactly it refers to and how one can use it in a research project.
From the course on Theory of Humanities, we learnt, among others that theory
refers to a systematic reflection on one’s guiding assumptions and this kind of
definition made it somewhat easier for us to grasp the term. In simpler words, it
helped us imagine theory as a big pot in which various ingredients (concepts and
principles) are mixed together to create a concoction, which, depending on the
ingredients, would suit or satisfy a certain taste.
In the past, not any kind of ‘ingredient’ would be deemed good enough for the
‘production’ of a theory. Thus certain aspects of human behavior or performance
51
were left ‘uncovered’ or ‘un-ruled’ by theory. But theory evolved too, with one of
its branches, cultural theory bringing under its wings even previously trivialized
objects of study, such as gender or sexuality, as Terry Eagleton point out in the
Politics of Amnesia. He goes on to emphasize that that :
‘Human existence is just as much about fantasy and desire, as it is about truth and
reason’ (Eagelton, T, Politics of Amnesia).
While back in the days, things you saw and experienced in an everyday basis were
deemed not worth studying, nowadays, cultural theory has made it possible for
subjects such and gender and sexuality to be recognized not only for their relevance
as objects of study, but also for their ‘insistent political importance’ (Eagleton, T,
Politics of Amnesia), as Eagleton puts it.
Incidentally both of these concepts are part of the project we worked with. While
‘cultural theory’ deals with both of them, the challenge we faced was that of finding
what specific theories to work with in order to gain a comprehensive understating
of these concepts. Valentine Cunningham seems to specifically word our challenge
in his paper ‘Theory, What Theory? As he explains: …’We all come after theory.
Certainly, but what theory? We live in an abundance of apparently novel theories,
approaches, terminology, rhetorics. Theory is everywhere.’….’..theory as we know
it, as the student guides have it, comprises clearly an awful lot of things..an awful
lot’(Cunningham, V, 2002, p:13-37)
Just as Cunningham points out we also found it daunting to dive into the ocean
theory and pick a ‘theoretic fish’ to feast on.
Another challenge we faced in understanding and working in general with theory,
or with specific concepts or notions that revolve around a focal point (gender in
this project’s case) can be explained by Ferdinand Sassure’s suggestion that we are
to think of language as a sign-system rather than a word one. If we think of
52
language in Sassure fashion, we have to be aware of his claim that signs are
arbitrary and have ‘little necessary link to what they denote’ (Sassure in
Cunninhgam, V,2002), thus one word can mean something completely different
from what it denotes. This would go to show that ‘..language, writing, meaning are
being declared to be arbitrary, not grounded in reality, a mere illusion of language’
(Cunningham, V, 2002, p:13-37). In simpler words, did we really understand the
concepts and notions we worked with, or were we mislead by the ambiguous nature
of language?
This project set out to study concepts such as self, self-perception, sexual and
gender belonging, gender identity, roles and stereotypes and we tried to identify
the most relevant theories that would make clear to us the nature of these concepts
and how they relate to each-other.
Thus, finally, it was decided to study the ‘self’ from two theoretical perspectives,
the philosophical one represented by Descartes and the sociological one
represented by, among others, Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory and Michel
Foucault’s post-structuralism theory. As for the notions of sex and gender we relied
on biological and neuro-scientific theories, occasionally on social psychology
theories too.
We tried to use these theories with a critical eye, by considering the limitations
they may represent, in terms of relevance or actuality, being the notions we worked
with dynamic in nature. While we made use of the arguments each theory presented
we tried to not just use them, but rather reflect on them and end up with our own
conclusions.
Thus, to bring an example from the project, being Descartes one of the ones who
took a very skeptical standpoint towards all kinds of knowledge or perception, we
felt it was only appropriate too view the knowledge he produced critically. Just as
53
an illustration when discussing about the ‘self’ and how it is created, we learnt that
his ‘Cogito ergo sum’ is not after all a flawless argument. It was Soren Kirkegaard
who pointed the fallacy in this statement noticing that an argument that assumes
its conclusion is valid before actually making that conclusion, loses its validity.
We tried to view Giddens and Foucault’s work under the same light.
Another useful knowledge gained in the course of study of Theory of Humanities
was that of differentiating and learning how to read and make the most out of it.
This knowledge gave us the tools to make the most of the literature we chose to
work with. As Mathew Kirschenbaum puts it: ‘…text is an essential conduit for
scholarly communication…’..’reading of written text is essential to humanistic
study’ (Kirschenbaum, M, 2007). But not all kinds of reading are the same (close
reading, not-reading and distant reading). It helps to understand what kind of
reading will best suit the purpose of the activity itself, which is also what we tried
to figure out while getting acquainted with the theoretical texts we used.
While Kirschenbaum does not devalue the ‘traditional reading’ as we know it, he
righteously point out to the fact that ‘not only that kind of reading is meaningful or
necessary’ (Kirschenbaum, M, 2007)
And while this whole process of theory absorption and usage was anything but
easy, we believe we managed to make them work for the scope of the project. The
greatest challenge with using different theories was how to validate each of their
findings and how to decide which one of them is more relevant or accurate for that
matter.
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VII. Methodology
Since it was impossible within the scope of this project to conduct first hand
research or interviews and analyze our own data, we decided to take a theoretical
approach. The notions we worked with include ‘the self’, self-identity, biological
sex, gender and gender identity. During the process of choosing the relevant
literature, we discussed about and chose those theories we believed would provide
us with the best understanding of these notions, assisting us so in answering our
problem formulation.
In order to understand how we perceive these notions, the ways they are
interrelated and how these perceptions shape our behaviors, we decided to start,
with what we believed to be a logical progression, leading from one concept to
another. Thus, we started in the first chapter with an understanding of ‘the self’
from a sociological and philosophical standpoint, since, even though the project’s
corner stone is gender, before we perceive ourselves and others in terms of gender
belonging, we are first individuals with a sense of ‘self’. In the second chapter, we
studied the notion gender and its relation to biological sex and self-perception and
the various claims on how gender differences can be explained. The literature used
to develop this chapter is of a scientific nature and provides two accounts for the
differences between genders.
The final chapter gives an overview (based amongst others, on the same theories
used for the previous chapters) of how gender stereotypes influence our selfperception and thus our behaviors too.
The chapter starts with a general overview that is finalized with an analysis of a
piece of literature, in order to give some sense of concreteness. The book in
question is written in such a way as to make the reader aware in the end, of how
55
pre-conceptions shaped by society and culture do have a say in the way we view
others or our self.
The conclusion part summarizes all the findings we reached in the process of
studying and writing this project.
VIII. Dimensions Covered
We carried out a research on the gender topic, by analyzing the concept from a
sociological, philosophical and scientific perspective. The theories used within
these project fall accordingly under the dimensions of Subjectivity and Learning
and Philosophy and Science. Having chosen e literary work to ‘illustrate’ the
findings reached by use of the above-mentioned theories, we came to interpret text
as well, thus touched upon the dimension of Text and Sign.
IX. Bibliography
 Andersen, Heine. (2011) “Sociologi – en grundbog til et fag”. Denmark.
Hans Reitzels forlag.

Begley,
SH.
(2009).
The
Stereotype
Trap.
Newsweek.
6
http://content.nmsu.edu/documents/coe/ci/morehead/documents/begley.pdf last accessed
14th Dec 2013.

Brannon, Linda, Gender Psychological Perspectives, fourth edition,
NcNeese State University, Pearson, 2005, USA.
 Burkitt, I (2008). Social Selves: Theories of Self and Society.
 Cunningham, V: ‘Theory, what Theory?’, Theory’s Empire: an Anthology
of Dissent, Columbia University Press, 2005
 Eagleton, T: After Theory Penguin, 2004: Chapter 1, Politics of Amnesia,
 Fine, C (2010). Delusions of Gender. New York, London: Norton &
Company.
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 Giddens, Anthony (1991) “Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in
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