Author: Jennifer Haimowitz Contributing Columnist
Published: November 06, 2009
People are always dividing themselves into categories. The most obvious one often goes unnoticed: gender.For as long as anyone can remember, one has been labeled as either a boy or a girl. When a parent is walking outside with their baby in a stroller and admiring people stop to look, they immediately ask, "Is it a boy?" or "Is it a girl?" However, gender is losing the simplicity we once thought it to possess, and today, answering these questions isn't quite as easy for everyone.We generally rely on either a person's biological make-up or cultural stereotypes to create the definition of gender. So what does it mean to be a "man" or a "woman"? When I attended a meeting on trans awareness by the Rainbow Pride Union Tuesday night, those in attendance were asked to write down some words to try to answer this question.Things written under the section for "male" included "penis," while under "female" were words such as "vagina," "breasts" and "bear children." As the meeting continued and these words were discussed, each of them was erased from the board one by one as we broke through the typical, narrow-minded way of perceiving the distinction.The point was made that "sex" does not equal "gender....."
No comments:
Post a Comment