Gender Roles
Sex is a biological given. Some animal species have one sex, some have two, and some have more than two. This is interesting to scientists perhaps, in terms of its physical construction. However, gender is what culture 'does' with these distinctions of physiology. Gender is how culture interprets the apparent biological differences between particular human bodies of different sexual anatomy. What does it mean, for instance, that a certain body may be capable of giving birth later in life, and another body may not? It is here, in the distinctions between bodies observed and imposed by our culture, where sociologists and theorists of gender identity find their theoretical interests aroused, poised for deconstructive action.
One of the most important theories posed by gender identity scholars is that the distinction of two sexes, male and female as well as the distinction of two genders, man and woman, is questionable. The existence of hermaphrodites and other bodies of indeterminate gender calls into question the bifurcation of gender as well as the division of 'sex' into male and female categories. Gender roles tend to be solidified fairly stringently in our culture along lines of male and female alone. But the existence of biological diversity as well as cultural diversity that occurs for cultural rather than physical reasons shows how arbitrary notions of both sex and gender can be. (Butler, 1990)
Even a book that attempts to analyze the construction of gender from a radical perspective, such as Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America, because of the fact it confines itself to the contemporary American experience, divides the female and male...
Yet in ages across human history, it was 'typical' for the same male sexual body, to cite just the ancient Athenian example, to pass through multiple gender roles. A young Greek man would go from being the passive sexual recipient of an older mentor's affection, before passing onto the role of husband and father. Then he himself would assume the male adult gendered role of one whom could enjoy multiple male and female sexual partners. Although not every body gendered 'male' in ancient Greece performed these sexual roles, this was what was culturally and physically typical of the aristocratic male-sexed gender in that culture -- in other words, gender was dependant upon age, class, and station in life as well as sexual physiology and arousal.
Even today, gender identity is not fixed, as individuals may feel as if their physical body and social roles do not encompass their true selves. It is possible to view those individuals who regard themselves as transgendered, of course, even from a feminist perspective as being so subsumed in notions of what it is to truly be a woman or a man, that socialization as to appropriate masculinity and femininity forces them to feel a conflict between outer (body) and inner self (gender identity). But regardless, the idea…
