In Gender a Useful Category Joan Scott discusses the word gender. Scott analyses where the term came from, in what context it has been used, and the different meanings it holds. First we must understand what the dictionary definition of gender is: this is to label something or someone masculine or feminine meaning the male or female sex. Scott states that women began to use the term gender to refer to the \u201csocial organization between the sexes.\u201d (pg 1053) This word first appeared among American Feminists to stress normative femininity. (pg 1054) What are the different views of gender according to Scott? What is more important, how do they apply to us today?<\/p>\n

Feminist historians classify gender in two theoretical formulations. The first is a case study that shows the continuous accounts of inequalities as a social experience. The second does not address dominant disciplinary concepts, this is because they can\u2019t prove women had a history or participated in it. (pg 1055) \u00a0Feminists historians then began to further theorizes about gender in two categories. First was in a descriptive context referring to existence of phenomena. Second is casual, in relation to nature and realities. They then claimed gender is a social category imposed on a sexed body. (pg 1056)<\/p>\n

Marxist feminists also have a historic approach, that there must be a \u201cmaterial\u201d explanation for gender. (pg 1059) Marxist\u2019s state that \u201cgender has had no independent analytical status of its own.\u201d This view of feminism share the concept of work that Marxism classifies. As zhedrick says in their post, Marxism focuses on the disenfranchised workers and lower class.<\/a> This ties in with the feminists in that they too also believe class structure has a role in gender.<\/p>\n

Lacanian theory is \u201cthe key to the child\u2019s induction into a symbolic order.\u201d This theory talks about how children learn the meaning and behavior of words depending on their sexual differences. Therefore, depending on how a child is raised the words can have different meanings. This theory however can be very problematic because it suggests that males and females aren\u2019t the same.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Scott calls for us to refuse \u201cthe fixed permeant equality of the binary opposition,\u201d and to deconstruct the terms of sexual differences.\u00a0 She also calls for us to \u201creplace the notion that social power is unified.\u201d She then states her definition of gender: the social relationships between the sexes, and it is the primary way of signifying relationships of power. (1067) With multiple views on gender, which is the \u201ccorrect\u201d approach? There is no right or wrong way to view gender, it ultimately depends on your viewpoint in life. While each has their own way of viewing gender the theory that applies to us most today is Lacanian. This idea of learned behavior is what makes up our society today. Young children have easily learned to use electronics. With this in mind, the youth of today was sponge up any viewpoint you feed into their minds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Gender a Useful Category Joan Scott discusses the word gender. Scott analyses where the term came from, in what context it has been used, and the different meanings it holds. First we must understand what the dictionary definition of gender is: this is to label something or someone masculine or feminine meaning the male […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1724,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions\/1724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}