Summary Of In Defense Of Gender By Cyra Fadden

In her article, “In Defense of Gender”, Cyra McFadden argues that the extent of gender-neutrality to not offend people has gone too far in her community. For example, she mentions people referring to serving staff as waiters, or waitresses, as opposed to waitpersons. This type of categorization based on gender isn't sexist, or meant to be offensive. It's not implying that men or woman are superior at their profession. It's simply their title at their place of work.
I agree with her point completely. The extent to which people have gone to promote gender-neutrality is absurd. People have, and should have civil rights. McFadden says that she does not wish to offend anyone, or impede on their civil rights, but there isn't anything about …show more content…
From the very beginning until the end, McFadden uses very satirical, and humorous examples as a means of getting one's attention. In the introduction, she catches the reader's attention by altering common words, mailperson, doorperson to fit within a gender-neutral society, as well as referring to a common word like man as being archaic for "male person". She continues this in her conclusion, a very subtle jab at her new book, which she mentions how in her new rodeo book, she'll be writing about cowpersons, as opposed to cowboys.
“In Defense of Gender” is simply an argument against shoving individual beliefs down everyone's throats. The author is a proponent of civil rights, and to a certain extent, supports, or is at least accepting of striving to be gender-neutral. While she supports that, I would also claim that she doesn't support a feminist movement, and although a woman, wouldn't call herself a feminist.
McFadden applauds women who seek to have a gender-less title, she doesn't say they're wrong, only that she wishes there was a better way to achieve this goal than what is happening right now. In addition, the examples she gives throughout her piece, like altering the bible, are extreme; there's really no mention of any small or insignificant examples, which to me shows that she has no problem with personal beliefs, or preference, just that she doesn't agree with changing how society as a whole talks, or …show more content…
The youth in America today are extremely progressive, and very supportive of issues like gender-neutrality, and feminism, which also presents the biggest difficulty supporting my claim. It can be very challenging to shift someone's views once they are set in stone, and a majority of American youth, have very contrasting views to this piece. "In Defense of Gender" is a pro civil rights article, that says that individual freedoms have just gone a little too far, which is a very different opinion than most people who would read an essay about