Making Gendered People

The author discusses how gender influences our daily lives, bodies, identities, and sexualities. Throughout the discussion, the author tries to define what exactly gender is and to introduce different theories about how gender relates to each topic. One of my favorite things about this piece is that culture is also taken into account. This is very important because the author acknowledges gender as a socially constructed concept. Therefore, seeing the differences in gender expectations and gender roles between societies is a good way of proving this point.

One topic discussed was homosexuality, including “another pattern of male-to-male sexuality” and “development of gay sexuality on the North American model.” While this discussion intrigued me, I was unsure whether I misunderstood the author’s intent. Was he really saying that the way homosexuality is acted out is cultural, versus biological? I think that in many ways this is sensible and goes along with the idea that heterosexuality is acted out according to societal “rules.” Still, it would be interesting to discuss how others in the class feel about this idea, especially about what we should take away from the reality of different sexual customs in other countries and the fact that developing nations especially model their behaviors after Western norms. This was a theme seen more than once, as when the author discussed general changes in sexuality (and, I would argue, also in gender roles and identities), as countries experience capitalist development.