Remember the good old days when gender was a simple matter? A person was born a boy, grew up playing with trucks, cars, and action figures, became a man and father, and worked to support his family. A person would be born a girl, played with dolls as a little girl, grew into a woman, gave birth to children, and lived as a mother.
That was then; now, it is a bit less cut and dry. People are born feeling like they are trapped in the wrong bodies and they change their gender.There are also scientists who believe a person’s gender can be determined by how he or she is raised. Ultimately it is not one or the other that determines a person’s gender, but rather a mix of both factors: what gender a person is born as, and how they are raised. A mix of nurture and nature determine gender identity. The way a person is raised can play a large role in his or her gender.
For years society has decided how a male person should act and how a female person should act.Boys play with trucks and action figures and girls play with dolls and do each other’s hair. There is no law published that states this is how it has to be, but these socially constructed perceptions have been drilled into peoples’ heads to become almost equivalent to law. The story “Bros before Hos: The Guy Code,” by Michael Kimmel, outlines all the unwritten rules of “being a man” in today’s society, like men do not cry, or do not ask for directions, or show any signs of weakness at all. Breaking any of these unwritten rules is considered unmanly or even girly.
One of the many problems with these unwritten rules is that there is so much emphasis on them that focus is brought away from the true aspects of their gender children need to know to aid in their gender identity. Scientific aspects of their gender, such as the function of their penis or vagina or the menstrual cycle for girls can get lost in the shuffle with the “manly” or “womanly” behaviors like cooking and cleaning for girls or sports, and car repairs for boys. Some of the scientific topics may be inappropriate arly on, but since there are appropriate aspects of this also, the inappropriate parts can be worked up to. No matter what gender a person is born as, how he or she is raised can play a large role in their gender identity. The stress on these unwritten rules of gender identity has significantly changed the process.
No matter how a person is raised, he or she is still born a certain gender before any nurturing happens. Despite being born a certain gender, sometimes a person believes he or she is the other gender.The story “A Boy’s Life,” by Hanna Rosin examines this idea. She shows an example of a child that was born a boy but always saw himself as a girl and in his mind he was a girl.
There was no outside influence for it, he just saw himself as a girl. People like that are physically and biologically one gender, but mentally they are the other gender. Transgender children are more prominent now not because there are more of them, but because it is more socially accepted now. Many years ago, a transgender person would never be socially accepted, it is even hard for them now.Biology also plays a large role in a person’s gender identity. There was another example in “A Boy’s Life” where a child was born a boy but his parents raised him as a girl.
He was always unhappy as a girl and then when he found out he was a boy, he killed himself. This proves that even if a person is raised differently, the gender a person truly and biologically is can also be who he or she mentally is. The body is a difficult thing to figure out for everyone. A mix of nurture and nature determine how a person sees their gender identity.When a child is born it is important for the child’s parents to teach him or her about the values of being a boy or a girl, and then a man or a woman. In most cases boys are born as boys, and girls are born a girls, and they all know it; that is the nature side.
However when they are just babies and very young children, they do not really have any idea what gender they are. This is where the nurture side comes in; it is up to the parents to teach their children about who they are, and what gender they are.Nurture and nature are terms that go together when determining a person’s gender identity. In conclusion, gender identity is a difficult thing to determine for some these days. Some say that a person is born who he or she is and there is nothing that can be done to change that. Others say that the way a person is raised determines gender identity.
The truth is that it takes a mix of both nature and nurture to determine gender identity.The main points in this essay are that it takes both the nature of the person and the nurturing, or how the person is raised, to determine their gender identity. I chose this topic because before reading the stories we read in class about gender identity, I never really thought much about it. After reading these stories, I became more interested in the topic and wanted to write my essay about it.
I feel that the strongest aspect of my paper is the use of examples from the readings we did to help illustrate my main idea.
