Homophobia Essay Example For Students

Homophobia Essay There are many definitions of gender in society today, and there are manyreasons for these different definitions. To every person gender may have adifferent meaning depending on personal experiences or depending on how theychoose to view it. I tend to lean towards the more typical definition of gender. I see gender as a way of categorizing people by their actions and or physicalappearance. Gender is an issue brought up a lot in todays society, and hasbeen an issue for many years. Issues such as whether or not women can do thesame jobs as well as men, or whether or not women are as smart as men comes up alot in discussions about gender. In my opinion anyone can do anything they settheir minds to whether they be male or female. It is obvious that men and womenare different physically, but there is no scientific evidence that says that menare smarter or more superior than women in anyway. This image of women beinginferior is slowly disappearing and will hopefully someday be non-existent. I ama very sensitive person and people may attribute that to me being of the femalegender, but in reality it doesnt have to be that way. People are branded asfeminine or masculine by their actions, their emotions, and their physicaltraits. I find myself defining gender along with society. I myself hav e statedmany times how for instance, women body builders have very masculine builds. Ihave also made many other similar comments conforming to the way societystereotypes femininity and masculinity. I have never sat back and tried to thinkof what it would be like if women typically were very muscular like abodybuilder. Would the bodybuilding men be considered very femininelooking? Society stereotypes people in this way because it is a way tocategorize and define people. By saying a woman is masculine it is insinuatingthat their physical build is not that of the typical female. Societystypical female is definitely evolving, and has come along way but has a long wayto go still. Femininity to me is a way to state that a female is very oldfashioned. If someone said to me, she looks so girlie my first thoughtwould be the girl in question is wearing some little pink dress with lace orsomething frilly. I think this, because I dont think of a modern woman whensomeone refers to someone as fem inine. I also usually think of femininity as away to describe someone is wearing or how they are acting. A very feminineperson to me would be very reserved with very old-fashioned morals, and I mayrefer to someone of that description as being girlie as well. So, in myopinion if someone said that I was a girlie person. I wouldnt take it as acomplement because it really isnt the ideal definition for a woman of the newmillenium. And as a woman I see this as a step in the right direction, it showshow much we have grown throughout history. We as women have become a moreimportant role in society, and we can now say being weak and quiet is astereotype of the past. We should be proud to say we are changing for the timesrather than being insulted when we are associated with the female of the past. On the contrary men are proud of how they were the rulers of the house andthe decision-makers in the community. Therefore to men being consideredmasculine generally isnt taken offensively. I view masculinity as a verydomineering and strong trait, both physically and emotionally. Physical traitsoften included in the societys brand of masculinity are, large,powerful, and muscular. Seeing someone as masculine in my mind is notinsinuating anything bad about that person, though it is not uncommon for peopleto link together being masculine with being very rowdy or unruly. For the mostpart masculinity and femininity are used to describe physical attributes ratherthan anything else. Unlike how it was in the past, where as there used to be setstandards for how a woman could act and look, and for how males could act andlook. Now we are setting new standards, and who knows what femininity andmasculinity will be defined as in the future. Culture plays a large role in thedefinitions of masculinit y and femininity also; different cultures have setdifferent standards and different roles