218X Reflective Essay

Christian Vaccaro

218X Biology of Gender

Dr. Hinks

20 June 2017

Reflective Essay

During the summer session registration, I was browsing through the course catalogue and stubble across a biology course I have never heard of before.  Being a biology major at the Virginia Military Institute for two years this came as a surprise to me and I began reading about what this “biology of gender” course was all about.  Something different stuck about to me about it and I knew that it would be different from any other biology course I have ever taken.  During the first week, I found that the topics, however discomforting or uncommon, definitely draw you into them whether you personally liked it or not, in my experience.  I found many topics much more interesting and intriguing than others, but none the less, I found all of them interesting and pertaining to the focus of the course itself.  As we began to talk about the different principles surrounding gender, and what gender actually meant, I found that our studies and research to be quite eye-opening.  I did not know of conditions and different changing times in our society to include such a wide spectrum of genders and identities that individuals can now identify with.  I learned that there are congenital defects surrounding a lot of the confused intersex conditions that often get misrepresented in broadcast media, or by the general public opinion without access to the full facts.  

In my time working on Artifact 1, I explored the different definitions of what sex is, in terms of determining the male of female sex.  Often times with birth we use the human anatomy of the external sex organs to determine if the full grown offspring is male or female.  That side of the token, has little questions surrounding the process and the determination, where the subjectivity lies, when that organism then becomes older, and begins to become conscious of their own thoughts, and start to take on their own personal individual identity.  That’s when the controversy begins, and people have been fighting battles over gender, and gender identification for years as it has grown to be a publically debated, and law changing debate.  Since the creation of a free democracy, where people are able to live freely, and express their religions and faiths freely, and express themselves to their own personal liking.  This has created the an ever-changing societal construct that is changing the way people view themselves and others over the past decade.  I state in my artifact 1 eportfolio post, “People are finding that with all of the new changes in modern society with gender and sexual identity that it makes a lot of other things associated with gender or sexuality have to change as well.  Many arguments and changes are being made to public restrooms and marriage.  These are examples of major more popular topics, but there are also changes in the world of children and educational institutions with the initiative to help pave the road of the present changes that are going on around the globe” (Artifact 1).  This was just the first of many issues and public debated topics that were introduced in this course.  This assignment definitely sparked my initial interest even more as my brain was hungry for the next topics that could lead to even bigger world changing events than the last one.

The second artifact or assignment that really stuck home with me was the video assignment asking for our analysis of the film, “Pornland”.  After viewing the film, and being presented the ins, outs, and behind the scenes happenings in the present porn industry and how it came to be was definitely intriguing, but what was uphauling was learning the work conditions and popular demands of the ponography industries audience, and how they portray sex to anybody that has access to a computer.  I learned that many porn mongols who are established in the industry, take advantage of the “free internet” audience and capitalize on the actors by ad revenue and user funneling.  In the artifact, I wrote, “Much of what is presented is a man doing as a he wants to a young submissive female who’s sole purpose is to please him and do as he wants.  As stated in the film, many “actors” play out scenes of fantasy where they are bridging the gap between imagination and reality.  The problem lies in two areas in my opinion.  The first being that, these female “actresses” are actually being physically and sexually abused in the making of these films.  Despite many warning messages, and disclaimers claiming that all participants are legal and did whatever not against their own will yada yada, in the video you see a young girl being beaten to a pulp or forcefully maneuvered to solely “take” or bend to the will of the sexual desires of the male actor” (Pornland artifact).  This passage directly reflects my finding and formulated opinion about the way the industry is run, and how it is geared toward this idea of fantasy sexual desires, and is promoting in many cases the abuse of women, violent and sexual abuse.  

The final assignment that had me contemplating the way our country works for hours upon completion of the work was the Global Gender Gap assignment.  I learned much about the disparities that exist not only on a global scale, where in certain areas, the common people are plagued by corruption of their own political governments or leaders.  Despite this overarching issue, we have many of the same issue affecting American to this very day.  There are many aspects of the gender gap that in most cases favor the men and hands the hard working, laboring, and nurturing women the short end of the stick.  Which ever department you choose to investigate, the result is typically the same, women come out on the crappier side of the deal.  The wage gap still exists and for no reason others than corporations and major companies just don’t care to change with the times.  Another issue, is that of equal benefits for women as well as, maternity and paternity leave.  An excerpt from my original article, “the wage gap.  This is an issue that continues to be a problem in the US and has been brought to global attention and been talked about for years now.  There are many countries that have many other overarching issues, in my opinion, that contribute to gender in equality more than any individual practice does or could.  Regardless, in my home country, the great United States of America, land of the free home of the brave, we still have gender wage gap issues?  This has seemed to always blow my mind as to how we can preach equality amongst all, but don’t even have our own ducks in a row.  According to the Global gender gap table, the United States ranks 26th overall in the area of “Economic participation and opportunity” (Global gender gap 2)…How could a country provide the highest level of equal opportunity for attaining an education rank 26th in economic opportunity?  Granted there are many other countries on the list that rank as a 1 for equal education opportunity, but those countries rank much higher than the US in overall global ranking, as well as economic opportunity” (Global Gender Gap artifact).  This quote fully encapsulates my argument and disgruntled mood towards the wage gap problem that is plaguing our country’s women.  It kills me to think that all of my female coworkers on average, make less than I do for the exact same work.  Nothing is different about our job other than the fact that she has a vagina and I have a penis, but for some reason, I get paid more.  If anything it made me feel somewhat guilty even though I had know impact or way of changing the way corporate capitalistic America works.  Until someone, and I believe it will take a man, stands up to the rest of the greedy people that are obstructing that justified argument for change, but time after time again, election after election, term after term, we continue to give greedy people the power, and we continue to stand by and watch as these people decide and dictate the way we live as Americans.

Throughout my time in this course, spectrum of things were presented for the class to learn and take in.  This included: educational films, power point presentations explaining and defining through definition and diagram, the anatomical structure of humans, and the defining characteristics of determining male and female, and how they differ and exist together.  This course also included articles, that outlined worldwide issues relevant to the biology of gender topic, as well as assignments calling for students own research to be conducted and opinions to be formulated and extrapolated upon in the form of electronic portfolio posts to personal blog sites where the informations is documented for time to come.  I like this method of work, because it was something new that I have not encountered in any class in the biology department, but also because it tie in the new age way of presenting and gathering information, and made us as students apply those new age technological skills will containing information about the subject of gender.  This course was very unique in its structure and content and would recommend it for anybody who is interested in expanding their knowledge on the once thought fully explored concept of gender.