Penelope Eckert is a linguistics and anthropology professor at Stanford University (736). Sally McConnell-Ginet is an emeritus linguistics professor at Cornell (736). They argue children learn gender by a certain age, and they assert that American culture is deeply rooted in the gender dichotomy in “Learning to Be Gendered”. We are born biologically male or female; that 's what our chromosomes say. Whether they are XX or XY we are born that way. However, biological sex and gender are different. Gender identity is something that a person feels and expresses. Gender identity is a representation of a gender trope that a person wants to see in the mirror and hope others see them as. Gender identity is not innate, it is set at an early age. We
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To answer that, we must define what society claims it means to be a man. There has to be more to the recipe then snips and snails and puppy dog tails. Eckert and McConnell explain that the first thing we want to know about a person, even a baby, is what sex it is, so we can start imposing gender on the baby. They write “The first thing people want to know about a baby is its sex, and conventions provides a myriad of props to reduce the necessity of asking-” (737) This explains that as soon as we find out the biological of sex a the child, we start using many different tools-- clothing, names, colors, actions, to express the gender of the child to the world. So what props do we use to determine if someone is a “man”? Men supposedly like sports, and the outdoors. Men are seen as aggressive and handy. Men have short hair, looser fitting dark colored clothing, and a more muscular build. Men have broad shoulders and a stiff walk. We have different expectations for men. We expect man to provide for a family. We want men to be less emotional, often telling young boys to stop crying like a girl. We expect them to be physically fit. This is all to say no male is born knowing any of this. This is all
To answer that, we must define what society claims it means to be a man. There has to be more to the recipe then snips and snails and puppy dog tails. Eckert and McConnell explain that the first thing we want to know about a person, even a baby, is what sex it is, so we can start imposing gender on the baby. They write “The first thing people want to know about a baby is its sex, and conventions provides a myriad of props to reduce the necessity of asking-” (737) This explains that as soon as we find out the biological of sex a the child, we start using many different tools-- clothing, names, colors, actions, to express the gender of the child to the world. So what props do we use to determine if someone is a “man”? Men supposedly like sports, and the outdoors. Men are seen as aggressive and handy. Men have short hair, looser fitting dark colored clothing, and a more muscular build. Men have broad shoulders and a stiff walk. We have different expectations for men. We expect man to provide for a family. We want men to be less emotional, often telling young boys to stop crying like a girl. We expect them to be physically fit. This is all to say no male is born knowing any of this. This is all