draft essay

Cultural Influence on Gender, Sexual Identities and, Experiences

Name: Hassan Al-Najar

Institution: Marlon Bailey

Course: WST 294

Date: Oct, 3rd, 2019

The majority of research designs believe that every individual has one sex, one sexuality, and belongs to one gender which is eternally fixed. When comparing postmodern feminists and the queer theorists to the sociologists, it is evident that the latter lacks desires and gender. From that, the deconstruction of sexual identities and experiences highlights the imminent categories that are established within a social experience and practices (Davidson & Layder, 1994). Furthermore, reviewing the aspects covered in class, it is clear that the sociologists have the role of deconstructing the conventional forms of sex, sexuality, and identities within a geographical setting. In relation to geography, the idea of doing gender seems more praiseworthy because discussions have shifted from gender display or gender role to the idea of accomplishment of gender in a relational manner. Equally important, this paper is effective as it examines how culture impacts gender and sexual identities and experiences within a certain social geography.

Accordingly, the sociological project of shifting from the concerns internal in an individual towards the interactional is majorly most important for the trans-people. As for trans people, their gender is created as the achievement of true self but not because trans-people do gender regularly than the others or succeed in gender roles but as a result of many explanations in U.S. to clarify on social norms (Vidal-Ortiz, 2009). Besides, the interactional constitution of gender allows for us all to notice these events which turn out to be informal practices mainly oversimplified by our lived experiences and interactions with trans-people. Also, there are revolutionary changes inherent in perceptions about the types of gender, sexuality, and biological sex. The sociological data is essential in framing guiding questions that investigate about the legitimacy of our ways of thinking about gender and sexual identities and experiences in a particular social geography.

Noteworthy, majority of the research designs about culture and its influence to gender identities are based on sociology. Sociology on the other hand is comfortable to assume the idea of sexuality is a socially constructed. The idea is then enhanced by the interpretive sociologists and feminist theorists. Culture has a very great impact in defining the gender and sexuality of people within a certain geographical setting over global assumptions on whether only two gender categories are in existence (Davidson & Layder, 1994). However, from the current debates, it is obvious that these two categories have led to the determination which exceeds races and class as designed by culture. Additionally, sexual orientation has grown gendered sexual states to about four categories. These include the heterosexual men and women, gays as well as lesbians. Hence, the supposed natural contradictions governing the social orders in modern cultures are radical as velarized by biological effects, shaped by the traditional gender roles and inclusion of heterosexuality.

It is crucial to deconstruct gender, sex and sexuality because it helps identify majority of the possible types of our socially motivated experiences and social practices the same way we are able to deconstruct race and class within a given culture. For instance, the queer theorists have been able to identify certain aspects which interfere with the well-organized polarity of familiar opposites and assumes that one is dominant while the other is the subordinate group (Vidal-Ortiz, 2009). Similarly, they identify one as the normal while the other as the different identity or categorized them in terms of one being hegemonic situated and then the other. Any person’s behavior which is gender-oriented is termed as appropriate and normal by culture, but any other act such as girls abusing or physically fighting boys is termed as gender deviance. It is then clear that gender roles and identities have been shaped by the culture we are brought up in within a geographical setting.

Notably, there is the cultural combination which assumes and produces seemingly clear and constant contrasts. In the process of deconstructing those contrasts, one is able to note that both the normal and the deviant sexual identities are as a result of the deliberate social practices in a cultural discourse. In that, it pushes sociology as the best option for use in analyzing these sexual and gender practices and their discourses instead of only assuming the results a natural or normal occurrence (Lorber, 1996). Culturally reviewing the sexual and gender differences, it is important to understand each aspect which conflates to sexuality identities. The differences are majorly in terms of sex, the sexuality, as well as gender where all these are uniquely socially constructed. Gender transits through every aspect of our social status as well as forms the base for the organization of all areas of social life.

Gender is a social institution which forms the patterns of desires among people in daily processes as well as organizes the society economically, ideologically, politically, and even in the family settings. Furthermore, in our contemporary cultural settings, there are distinctive activities which have been developed as a result of gender ideologies. For instance, most sex workers own the sense of agency about their perception of their work in the present community. It signifies of how the experiences of the racialized sexualities and feminists’ bond with other women of color in certain geographical localities such as the African Americans (Vidal-Ortiz, 2009). Since most of them are hyper-masculine African Americans, these hyper-sexualized Latina teenagers who endure the subsequent negotiations subjected to people of such an image in the community. Thus, these stereotypes of gender roles form a significant contribution on the interactional exploration of how culture creates gender distinctions and identities.

Mainly, for each individual within a certain geography, the components of gender are considered sexually as enforced by birth and the physical nature of the genitalia. It then forms the gendered sexual perceptions and marital procreative assumptions of personality regarding each group of sex. The gender display is the base for gender structures in terms of work and family roles where there are the culturally defined tasks for each gender (Lorber, 1996). Moreover, the above factors should be consistent and congruent through the perceived physiology. As a result, the real collection of genes and genitalia which comprise of prenatal and adolescent could or could not be presented as aspects supplementing each other or even with the gender and sexuality. Additionally, the aspects beneath gender as influenced by culture cannot be lined up neatly on just one side of the binary divide. Culturally, most societies present women as having an existential identity and that they have certain features which are imminent.

Significantly, the most common practice of comparing females to males or heterosexuals to the homosexuals leads to information full of mixtures resulting to the study of the meaningful categories for comparison. It is then important to derive the subject categories are evaluating their influences on sexuality, gender, and sex. Carrying out an analysis about this effect of culture on gender and sexual identities and experiences within a certain social geography incurs long-accepted theories (Davidson & Layder, 1994). For instance, lesbians and homosexual parenting leads to the concern of the generation of hetero-gendered nuclear families. Through the psychoanalytic theory, if women are allowed to be single parents, it allows girls to have a stronger bond with them but pushes the boys to establish their masculinity. Most women in heterosexual relationships have children as supplements of the lacking male partners but others are deep in fellow women but still do homosexual men.

Overall, in studying how culture influences gender and sexual identities and experiences within a certain social geography has been stated as effective in identifying the revolutionary possibilities that are inherent to types of gender, sexuality, and biological sex. Sociological data deals with the conventional challenge and ideas of reframing the concerns leading to legitimacy of the new perceived cultural ideologies. In most cases, resistance confirms the polarity if only one term has been defined using the opposite. Besides, the center and the margin or the conformist and the deviant are the two major sides of concern. Culture helps create a clear distinction between conflicting social concerns such as bisexuality, heterosexuality, and homosexuality. Conversely, it is evident that there is a struggle to move past the confines of the inside or outside model which are split racially and by social classes. Hence, the fundamental alteration of discourses is valorized by biological issues, essential heterosexuality as well as the traditionally determined gender roles in families and workplaces.

References

Davidson, J. O. ’C & Layder, D. (1994). Methods, Sex and Madness. London & New York.

Lorber, J. (1996). Beyond the binaries: Depolarizing the categories of sex, sexuality, and gender. Sociological Inquiry, 66(2), 143-160.

Vidal-Ortiz, S. (2009). The figure of the transwoman of color through the lens of “doing gender”. Gender & Society, 23(1), 99-103.

2 | Page

2 | Page