Premium Essay

The Gender Trap

In:

Submitted By boyswife
Words 1907
Pages 8
Kia Villarreal
“The Gender Trap”
Book Review
California State University, Bakersfield
Kristen Gibson
October 14, 2015

Gender issues have recently hit the surface pretty hard and has made life changing impacts, nationally. Some political topics have been on same-sex marriage and restrooms for transgendered students. The nation is divided in regards to gender issues. The recent awareness has forced the government to step in and back up laws that are for and against these issues. Analyzing our lives on a daily basis seems easy, but after reading The Gender Trap: Parents and Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls by Emily Kane, I didn't realize how much I actually gender my children and how it could affect them in the future. Interviews are not easy to get. I believe Kane did a great job with the participants she had. Kane argued that parents are the ones who construct their children and although their parenting is safe they have the ability to stay away from the pitfall of the gender trap. The bigger picture? It can demolish a lifelong practice that gender injustice takes on. The strong notion is assuming because your child is a female she will recognize herself as a girl, or if it is a male he will recognize himself as a boy and if he or she doesn't, some parents feel disappointed as Haley's dad did from one of the YouTube video's in one of the lectures. He felt that he left his “son” down and was disappointed in himself because Haley did not recognize herself as a boy. The research that Kane completed was clever and eye opening. Kane managed to take the assumptions that people have about boys and girls and created a large overview with her findings about society's impressions on gender. Throughout Kane's interviews she easily locates the “gender trap,” and is able to recognize how the parent is gendering their child and notices the different ways they do

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Turning Goys Into Girls By Michelle Cottle Summary

...A Summary of and Reaction to “Turning Goys into Girls” by Michelle Cottle In Michelle Cottle’s essay “Turning Goys into Girls” (published May, 1998), Cottle describes how men’s magazines and other factors are increasing the male beauty standard to the towering, unrealistic female standard and the male beauty standard’s effect on gender equality. Men are buying more and doing more to meet the new standard for physical appearance because marketers have almost capped the women consumer market, so men are the new target. Cottle understands that reason women and men are compelled to do what they can to look good is rooted in companies creating imaginary consumer needs, and insecurities so the companies can make money, yet she embraces the gender politics of the situation: men are being targeted and falling into the same trap beauty standard trap....

Words: 555 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Oedipus

...feminism was very complicated in early 20th century, and Trifles by Susan Glaspell comes out not only for entertainment to this day but also it’s a message to the world about gender roles in expect actions. The story took place in the kitchen, which was the domain of Mrs. Wright and the women, whereas the men were not so familiar. The background of the story focuses on one side, the women, and it is known for inequality of gender through history. By using the bird cage and the bird are symbolisms, and the way protecting their friend Mrs. Wright from being charged with murder, which is the guilty between of feminism and the world dominated by men. Trifles by Susan Glaspell represents the problem of gender discrimination in terms of crime and guilt. The birdcage represents a falling marriage, and it is a first motive in establishing guilt. The birdcage is a physical trap to keep the bird or ant kind of animals, and they are not free and loneliness. As the same Mrs. Wright was trapped in her marriage, and could not escape it. Whatever she does everything and couldn’t keep her free, and that will become a strong motive to push her make up a guilt. The birdcage’s door, which represents her troubled marriage to Mr. Wright, is broken. We can compare Mrs. Wright to a wild animals who just want to escape the trap as same as her marriage from Mr. Wright. Whenever the door open, it allowed Mrs. Wright to become a free woman. At that point in time, the cage’s door is locked, which is made...

Words: 1172 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Jekyll And Mr Hyde Archetypes

...Jekyll and Rapunzel both set standards of the word "distress" for their audience.Written as a fairytale for little boys and girls, Rapunzel bestows a gender neutral situation for the archetype in capture but affixes a solution that is femininely passive. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a "book intended for young male readers"(Dan and Shou 2012), shows what is thought to be a more masculine view of the damsel in distress. Boys, the target audience for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are encouraged to find solutions for the anguish they are in. Dr. Jekyll portrays this message when he "sent out for a fresh supply and mixed the draught" (Stevenson 63) to stop turning into Mr. Hyde. Girls on the contrary, the gender majorly influenced by Rapunzel, are encouraged to find a man who can relieve their distress for them. Women in literature, including Rapunzel, "seem to be designed to be submissive to men"(Dan and Shou 2012). The damsel is expected to submit the male that saves her from her situation. Male characters, like the honorable Dr. Jekyll, demonstrate the breaking of difficult barriers and experimentation that could potentially create a situation that causes...

Words: 1180 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Miss

...feminist themes. “While reconceiving theatre in a number of important ways, Churchill's work demonstrates the value and increasing potential of theatrical representation for feminist-socialist empowerment.” * Her early work developed Bertolt Brecht's modernist dramatic and theatrical techniques of 'Epic theatre' to explore issues of gender and sexuality. “Churchill challenges audiences to join their imaginations with hers in seeking answers to the difficult questions posed by her plays. She does not ask audiences to suspend disbelief or surrender to the playwright's point of view. Instead, by encouraging imaginative reciprocity, her plays empower the audience to question and see new possibilities in what has previously been accepted.” * Churchill was of the sixties generation (born in 1938), then a second-wave feminist, a socialist, anti-war and anti-colonial. Plays: Top Girls (1980), Vinegar Tom (1976), Traps (1976), Fen (1982) Literature Review FOR: - The ways in which Caryl Churchill uses the techniques of Bertolt Brecht- Brecht wanted to reveal truth and the effect of politics within his theatre. Not allowing his audience to fall into a trap or become emerged within the characters and their story, but to simply show a message. - The 1980s were synonymous with the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, and with the political doctrine of monetarism. It is important to understand the extent to which the famously titled ‘Iron Lady’, who declared...

Words: 463 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Blade Runner

...manipulates our thoughts to draw out the secret hunt for thrill audiences all have hidden within. There is something innovative about a film that can achieve “classic” status, and a legacy that remains 30 years after. By doing exactly this, Blade Runner has claimed the title of being ‘untouchable’, therefore any re-make would fall well short of the mark. It seems that Blade Runner was a film of revolution, as the feminists of 1982 bowed down at the knees of Ridley Scott. To have dominant female replicants depicted in a ‘one punch could kill’ representation in the film seemed like a massive statement to men. With Pris doing backflips over to a powerless Rick, attempting to trap and kill him with the force of her womanly thighs, it created an fanatic uproar with the women who thought ‘it may just be really cool to trap a man with the very body parts that lure him in in the first place’. However, what some of those women may’ve overlooked in the midst of their excitement, were the contradictive...

Words: 762 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

To Kill A Mockingbird Gender Roles Essay

...Resisting Gender Roles “We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.” Said Gloria Steinem. In Maycomb County a small fictional town, it shows a realistic reflection of 1930’s America. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Author Harper Lee introduces more complex characters by deconstructing stereotypical gender roles of the time period. This can be seen through a young tomboy named Scout, a feminized boy named Dill, and a respected housekeeper named Calpurnia. Scout is a very unusual little girl. While women are expected to be quiet and polite, Scout is quite the opposite. She doesn’t mind getting dirty or loud. And she will stop at nothing to make sure her voice is heard. "Scout, I'm tellin' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home—I declare to the Lord you're gettin' more like a girl every day!" (Lee42) When Scouts older brother Jem uses Scouts gender as an insult, the reader begins to feel conflict Scout is having with in...

Words: 433 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

What Are Gender Roles In To Kill A Mockingbird

...Society has a collection of rules. One of those rules are the way a person should look, dress, act, etc. this is known as gender roles. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has heaps of them. From Aunt Alexandra’s view of how a lady should look/act, to Scout saying that boys don’t cook. Scout is a character that defies these gender roles. Aunt Alexandra and Scout do not see eye to eye. Aunt Alexandra has her own idea of how a lady should look and act, and so does Scout. Alexandra is known as a lady to the women of Maycomb, she dresses nicely, and she hosts neighborhood tea parties. “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I [Scout] could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a...

Words: 520 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Transcendentalism In Civil Disobedience

...whether it’s the equality between genders or between races. An important transcendentalist writer named Henry David Thoreau once went to jail because he refused to pay a poll tax that contributed to the addition of slavery in the United States of America. As stated in his essay titled Civil Disobedience, he states “If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. “While he wrote about men, this concept applies to women as well as all genders.  In the status quo, the world doesn’t treat women and the LGBTQ...

Words: 788 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Termite Resisitence in Utopia

... However ‘risk’ has not surpassed problems of inequality and distribution of goods, it has intensified them. For Marxist theoreticians the situation has became ambivalent; on the one hand income inequalities have remained unaltered, however the importance of the social class system seems to have been significantly reduced. He spoke of a new kind of capitalism; ‘capitalism without class,’ focusing more on the capitalism of the individual, the result is the problems of the system have lessened politically and transformed into a ‘novel of personal experimentation’ (Elliot, 2002: 7) allowing the ‘risk’ personal failure. Gender, Beck (1992) argued has also altered within society, there has been a breakdown of the strict stereotypical ideologies. This is primarily reflected through the increasing acceptance of divorce within society, which Beck argues is the ‘trap door’ through which women fall into ‘new poverty’ as their support and in essence stability is being reduced, and as a result; ‘risk’ has become part of ‘family life’. Equality therefore, is challenged by ‘risk’ because as a result of more decision making within the family, there has become more of a need for the correct balance of their desires of autonomy and self-expression, with their need for dependence and emotional stability...

Words: 506 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Hyper-Masculinity In The 1950s

...The television shows of the 1950s may not have shown violence to boys but it shows that subordination of women and hyper-masculinity are normal, which is the exact mindset that can lead to violent tendencies. The gender roles presented in the popular culture of the 1950s, if viewed enough by young boys, could have led to the subordination and violence against women, even in the home. While hyper-masculinity correlates with violent behaviors, there is also support for the same. correlative between these rigid gender roles and violence against women, specifically. Stephanie Coontz describes the households of the 1950s in her book titled The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. She describes the rates of unhappy marriages that would likely have led to divorce, had that option been acceptable and accessible at the time, and she presents us with shocking information about abuse in 1950s households. Coontz theorizes that the pressure for perfection in the postwar home was too much pressure for each family member to handle and that this time period brought about sexual abuse, incest, alcoholism, and wife...

Words: 713 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Economics

...Term paper On Microcredit ECO -242 Principles of Macroeconomics Prepared for Janifar Alam Lecturer School of business Prepared By Group 1 Sec: B Semester: Summer-2013 31th July 2013 To Janifar Alam Lecturer School of business University of Information Technology and Science (UITS) Subject: Submitted the Term paper of ECO-242 Dear Madam It is indeed a great pleasure for us to be able to hand over the result of our hardship of the group Term paper on Microcredit.This report is the result of the knowledge. This has been acquired from the respective course. We tried our level best for preparing this report. The information of this report is mainly based on our knowledge and Internet information. We fervently hope that you will find this plan worth reading. Please feel free for any query or clarification that you would like us explain. Hope you will appreciate our hard work and excuse the minor errors. Thanking you for your cooperation. Sincerely Group 1 Name&ID Signetures Rahat a jan 12310577 Jinia Afrin 12410291 Abdia Sultana 12310290 Jahidul Islam 12310377 Obaidur Rahman 123210572 Acknowledgement First of all we want to give thanks to almighty Allah for giving us the opportunity to complete...

Words: 3871 - Pages: 16

Free Essay

Helpld

...G&L (print) issn 1747–6321 G&L (online) issn 1747–633X Gender and Language Review You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation. Deborah Tannen (2006) New York: Ballantine Books, pp. 272 Reviewed by Ashley M. Williams Deborah Tannen, as Michael Billig (2000: 129) noted in his review of her 1998 book The Argument Culture, has a particular knack for writing best-sellers that ‘can outstrip the celebrity biographies, cookery books and sex manuals that dominate the non-fiction book trade’. Indeed, Tannen’s latest addition to her oeuvre meant for popular consumption, You’re Wearing That? a New York Times bestseller, is no different. Focusing on mother-adult daughter conversations and the tensions that can arise from these relationships, Tannen’s goal is to help readers understand and overcome these problems. In addressing her readers, assumed to be women, she writes that: our deepest wish is to be understood and approved of by our mothers and daughters. We can get closer to that goal by listening to the ways we talk to each other, and by learning to talk to each other in new ways (p. 32). In privileging mother-daughter relationships, Tannen often mentions that these relationships are like any other, only more so – and thus the tensions, disagreements and arguments involved are more intense, personal, and potentially damaging. As in her previous popular works, her evidence of the difficulties in these relationships draws...

Words: 1734 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Marriage Brings Us Together

...inculcated in the American culture for years on end. As seen in the two movies “The Parent Trap” of 1961 and its remake “The Parent Trap” of 1998, the subject of divorce remains prevalent and the storyline remains the same. However, it is worth noting that a marital union is vital for families to be cemented together as opposed to separation and divorce. The two movies talk of two twins who met at a holiday camp. Their parents were divorced and each lived with either parent in separate places. None had seen the other and it is only a situation which makes them notice the remarkable resemblance they both shared and after they shared about their lives, they both came to know that they were twin sisters and that their parents had divorced. The remake of “The Parent Trap” a 1961 film shows that little has changed in the American society concerning child custody, and divorce issues. The holistic issue of divorce as seen in the movie has assumed the form of convenience. In the event of some form of misunderstanding and “irreconcilable” differences, most American couples who are married take the shorter option out- divorce. This is irrespective of the kind of damage such arrangements will have on their children. Like in the movie “The Parent Trap”, the divorce agreement was seemingly set so in an attempt of achieving some social goals like enhancing some form of equality between both genders, improving the family lives related to women, and...

Words: 1780 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Organizational Behavior Terminology and Concepts Paper

...have different perceptions of the culture of the organization. This is particularly true concerning the different insights between the upper and lower levels of the organization. For example, the Chief Executive Officer may view the organization as being highly focused, well organized and even rather formal. On the other hand, a secretary might view the organization as being mystified, incompetent and, sometimes, even impolite. Establishing and maintaining a healthy organization culture is very important because this will lead to the success of each organization. In the late 1980’s IBM was one of the most successful companies. They did not even necessarily have a very bad organizational culture, but they did tumble into a number of traps that led them to be stationary. They concentrated in programing certain number of lines for a more memory finished...

Words: 697 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Socioautobiography

...worldviews differing from that of the collective. To study the social variables that mold identity and construct worldview is to study how our species has created our reality. Learning about the way identities and worldviews are shaped is the first step necessary in altering the formation of those identities and worldviews in order to change our thinking; to create a better and more equal reality. In some cases, such as my own, the formation of an individual’s identity is influenced by a collection of social variables typical of those within their society, as well as variables considered atypical. An absence of organized religion, Caucasian racial categorization, a culture comprised of scattered American ideals and values, an ascribed female gender role, and an upbringing within the middle class are the primary sociable variables that have laid the foundation of my identity and ultimately created my societal view. Depending on an individual’s level of devotedness, religion is often the primary social variable shaping identity and forming ones worldview....

Words: 2772 - Pages: 12