Casey Clune

HR: Artifacts

Final Reflection

Going into Dr. Hinks Biology of Gender course, I had no idea about the substantial role that gender has in regards to culture. Growing up, everyone is taught the difference between male and female. Coming from an Irish Roman Catholic family nothing has been stressed to me more than gender roles. The men hunt and fish. The women clean and cook. The interesting thing is that, even from an early age, I defied the gender roles for my family. Even though my family is personally more patriarchal in nature, I was always faster than my male cousins, I always hunted, fished, fed the animals, rode the four wheelers. This never appeared odd to me. It way normal in my perception of everyday life. As children, we rarely question gender roles until other people do. What Biology of Gender taught me is how very different the idea of gender is regarded throughout the world and how the definition of gender is not a concrete notion but is subject to discussion and debate.

When many people think of gender gaps they think of poor, uneducated, barbaric countries where women must remain inside of the house unless accompanied by someone and to do laundry must find a local river and rock. People envision places like Cambodia where children are regularly sold into prostitution because females are seen as expendable or they picture poor areas in Africa where women get married at young ages and typically have the job of mother for the duration of their lives. What surprised me wasn’t the other country’s lack of female equality but actually the United States lack of female equality. I had originally pictured America as being in the lead in regards to gender equality but that was not the case as is seen within my Third Artifact in which I reflect upon the fact that, “Norway was recently ranked number 1 in the survey for “State of the World’s Mother’s”, and furthermore, “Norway ranked second on the list for “The Global Gender Gap Index(Artifact Three)”. Within our class concerning the Global Gender Gap we became aware of the fact that America wasn’t even in the top 10. Granted we were not as low as some countries, particularly those in the Middle East, but overall the fact that the great United States still suffers from a lack of gender equality explains why there are still issues raging concerning equal pay, equal treatment, gender identity issues, and maternity leave.

         Throughout the semester, Dr. Hinks continually placed emphasis upon the fact that male and female genitalia are very similar in both structure and design. For example, there is similar tissue within the head of the penis as the clitoris, the skin of the scrotum and the lips of the female vagina. Why then is there so much discord between the sexes when, in reality, we are not that different at all? The conclusion that I reached was that gender is not the issue but it is the human perception of gender. When we were given the task of being assigned different cultures and reading an article about them, I came across the Yanomamo tribe. A brutally patriarchal society (Artifact 2), they thrive through warfare, generally using women as an almost currency to make deals and seal bonds. Women are held almost hostage within their society, minus a few freedoms such being allowed to engage in certain extramarital affairs. It is very clear that the role of women within this culture is to clean and reproduce. This is very different in relation to another culture that we looked into located in China. The Mosuo of China (Artifact 2), a matriarchal society in which daughters are actually preferred to sons, is a culture that is home to the concept of “Walking Marriage”. Marriage in its traditional form is seen as binding and problematic to the women of Mosuo, so the women in this culture rejoice in the freedom to basically participate in one night stands with men and seek pleasure rather than commitment. Within many cultures around the world where parents hassle their children to wed and marry, the Mosuo are the opposite, sparking anger and disappointment when their children do wish to marry their partner. This is very different from most cultures, even American culture, in which there is still a notion of getting married to one person and living a life of monogamy(or at least trying to). Though women are typically seen as inferior to men in strength and often intellect, even considered to be traditionally “little men”(Article 5) not too long ago within American culture, it is interesting to see that a lot of the time the perception of women actually seems to be one of the main components involved in shaping the culture. Places such as the Middle East and Africa, where women are highly secluded and prohibited, tend to be in either a state of violent or suffer from lack of education and resources.

Overall, what I learned from this class is that just in the way one’s color, economic background, race, religion or sexual orientation should not factor into the defining characteristic of the individual, gender is no different. Like ever other man-made form of identification, the concept of gender was designed as a method to distinguish and often prohibit rights, nothing more. We live in a society today where we are not slaves merely to out appearance but are allowed to be who we feel we truly are. As I wrote within my research paper on the issues of Intersex and gender expectations, “Perhaps one day, finally in the history of mankind, the day will come when it is no longer his or her, black or white, straight or gay, XX or XY. Maybe the day will come when people are just people.” Even though I myself am biologically female, I do not see that as being either a weakness or strength. I am a human that has a soul, my genitals should not prohibit me or make me better than anyone else. I think people need to understand that we only live but so long and at the end of the day there are certain things that matter and there are certain things that do not. Since the creation of man-kind there has been a fluctuation between the matriarchal and patriarchal, wars between Gods and Goddesses. Peace will be obtained when gender is no longer a divide or defining feature within society but is free to be applied to those who wish to have it applied.

Works Cites:

Artifact 2

Artifact 3

Artifact 5

Research Paper