You and a friend, Elliott, are enjoying your conversation at a local coffee shop
ID: 421410 • Letter: Y
Question
You and a friend, Elliott, are enjoying your conversation at a local coffee shop when you both take a bathroom break. You arrive at the two-bathroom doors and see each door labeled with the sign ALL-GENDER RESTROOM. Upon returning to the table, Elliott remarks, “What’s up with those bathrooms? Women should use the women’s room and men should use the men’s room.” You decide to take this opportunity to share what you have learned about sex and gender. Compose your initial post as if you were responding to your friend, Elliott. In your initial post, be sure to do the following: Distinguish sex and gender. Describe at least two different ways that gender identity is expressed; include at least one way that gender identity is expressed in your culture and at least one-way gender identity is expressed in another culture. Apply the principles of cultural relativism.
Explanation / Answer
Sex of an individual is determined by the physiological features one is born with, while the gender tends to denote the social and cultural role of each sex within the society and environment. It defines the socially designed roles, norms and interactions one does with other members of the society. Gender identity in a progressive society have no distinct boundaries and thresholds, where more and more members of a gender taking the roless of the other. For example, women have accessed and are dominating many male bastions like those of fighter pilot, project enfgineer, exploration geophysicist, among others, and it is not uncommon for a male to work from home and take care of children and do dishes in the kitchen. In a conservative societies, there are clearly defined gender roles such as men go out for work, earn the bread for themselves and provide for family while women cook food, bear children and act as full time homemaker. These roles follow the principle of cultural relativism where the roles defined for each gender in a society are justified by that culture. For example, a developing society regards its men to be tough, masculine, of higher intellect and productive, fit to do manual as well as brain powered work to earn money. The same society regards is women to be tender, of lesser intellect and apt in household chores and child raising, making them fit to work within homes only.
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