Gender and Society

When examining the effects on gender and society, it can be a rather ambiguous topic and open to interpretation. This week I looked at some book excerpts dealing with gender, the issues with defining it, gender discrimination, transgender issues, and the overall implications gender has on our society today. The first book I took a look at was Steve Harvey’s “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” in which Harvey describes the thinking processes of stereotypically men and women. The chapter 4 excerpt focuses on the communication lapse between men and women, basically giving women the basic knowledge of how men want to fix issue instead of merely “talking” about issues at hand. I went on to read Susan Sontag’s article “A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?” Sontag describes how the beauty of a woman is more important in today’s society versus the attractiveness of a male. So goes on to explain how in today’s day and age a women’s outward beauty helps her get ahead in society. In Vanessa Baird’s article “Transgender Indentities: Like Stars in the Sky,” she explores issues with transgender people throughout the world and how different societies deal with the issues. She also helps the reader to understand how complex and ambiguous the issue of gender really is. The last piece I looked at was “Suit Over Estate Claims a Widow is Not a Woman” by Jodi Wilgoren. In her article she brought up the issues that a transgendered male-to-female faced when involved in a dispute over her late husband’s estate. These issues with gender and society are ones that I think get “swept under the rug” more often than not and that in my opinion is very problematic. In Harvey’s piece, I thought the reading was humorous and I agreed that there is often a lapse in communication in all relationships. However, I took issue with some of the things he related to as far as differences in the thought processes of men and woman. This seems extremely stereotypical to me. In my opinion I don’t think what specific sex what necessarily defines what “role” we play in a relationship. In romantic relationships I agree that one or the other person involved in the relationship do have there differences in how they look at situations that may arise throughout the course of the relationship, whether one looks at the particular situation more analytically or more emotionally and vice versa. I do not agree that our particular sex defines that but rather that our personalities do. While I was reading Sontag’s article, I agreed with some of the points she was making, but I disagreed with her in part as well. I think that men also have to take care of themselves and their looks or attractiveness are just as important in getting what they want out of society. I realize that not everyone is drop dead gorgeous but either male or female, your level of attractiveness is a power source in today’s society. This is quite controversial and not always necessarily fair or just, but I think it is rooted into us and is biological in nature. Judging a book by it cover, unfortunately is something that we will be dealing with for a long to come. As I took a look at the transgender discrimination issues, I was taken back by the fact that other societies in other countries more readily excepted people with gender identification issues and moreover accepted them as leaders. That is amazing to me that America being the land of the free chastises these individuals while other societies raise these people to the level of spiritual leaders a shamans. Maybe we need to take a look at other societies and how they have dealt with these issues and learn how NOT to discriminate from them. After all, the society of the USA isn't always right. I think looking back at history, we would all agree to that.