The tendency to classify what we experience into categories and assign them with labels has always been an universal aspect of the human experience. We create concepts that we may make sense of the complex world around us. This allows us to process information efficiently and quickly, giving our lives order and sense. More than a component of cognition, such categorizations are also an evolutionary defense mechanism that allowed us to feel secure in our knowledge. Because what can be categorized and attached with labels are known and familiar to us, their applications separate what is familiar from what is foreign. In distancing ourselves from the unknown with categorization, we feel a sense of safety and security. National identity, gender,
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To understand how sexuality is socially constructed, one must understand how men are constructed as men, and women are constructed as women, by looking at the social construction of sex and gender, the exact qualifications of which despite having evolved over years, remain largely unchanged. Such qualifications, despite clarifying one’s role and creating a place for one in society, also ensures that one “could easily lose all that he had carefully built up if he did not take steps to safeguard it” (Garb, 60). In the nineteenth Century, the typical man was expected to behave in one of two ways. The bourgeois man was expected to be “dark, hairy, dry, hot and impetuous” and “demonstrate deep voices, a developed musculature, a ruddy complexion, a beard and possess the qualities of courage and generosity” (Garb, 60). The working-class possessed “taut muscularity, elongated arms and sinewy torsos” and used “their bodies to earn their livelihood” (Garb, 68). On the other hand, we see little distinction in expected behaviors between women of differing social status. They were expected to be “delicate, moist, smooth, white, timid and …show more content…
While creating categories with specific qualifications may grant us an easier understanding of the world and those who occupy it, it restricts freedom, limits one’s potentials, and restricts the scope of one’s relationships. We have come to rely on roles and labels to define ourselves because they are efficient and convenient. But in thinking, "I am this", we have lost ability to dignify ourselves by the simple "I am". Labels and categorizations have become a mantra of existence, rather than a condition of it -- and it is both entirely limiting and unimaginably destructive. Indeed, these labels have only been reinforced by conventional cultural expectations. Look at the paintings we have observed that were considered “acceptable” or “encouraged by convention”. In Landseer’s paintings of Queen Victoria, the queen and her horse are portrayed as a docile creatures subservient to exterior power. In contrast, in Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps, of Napoleon on his horse, the horse stands on two legs, with its muscles tensed—a full participant in the “heroics” with its rider. Consider this. Queen Victoria, as the second longest-reigning monarch in British history and a ruler whose reign was remembered for its innovations may have indeed surpassed the accomplishments of the to-be Emperor of France. Yet, she is portrayed as the abashed and powerless figure, with her face turned away and her horse slack, while
To understand how sexuality is socially constructed, one must understand how men are constructed as men, and women are constructed as women, by looking at the social construction of sex and gender, the exact qualifications of which despite having evolved over years, remain largely unchanged. Such qualifications, despite clarifying one’s role and creating a place for one in society, also ensures that one “could easily lose all that he had carefully built up if he did not take steps to safeguard it” (Garb, 60). In the nineteenth Century, the typical man was expected to behave in one of two ways. The bourgeois man was expected to be “dark, hairy, dry, hot and impetuous” and “demonstrate deep voices, a developed musculature, a ruddy complexion, a beard and possess the qualities of courage and generosity” (Garb, 60). The working-class possessed “taut muscularity, elongated arms and sinewy torsos” and used “their bodies to earn their livelihood” (Garb, 68). On the other hand, we see little distinction in expected behaviors between women of differing social status. They were expected to be “delicate, moist, smooth, white, timid and …show more content…
While creating categories with specific qualifications may grant us an easier understanding of the world and those who occupy it, it restricts freedom, limits one’s potentials, and restricts the scope of one’s relationships. We have come to rely on roles and labels to define ourselves because they are efficient and convenient. But in thinking, "I am this", we have lost ability to dignify ourselves by the simple "I am". Labels and categorizations have become a mantra of existence, rather than a condition of it -- and it is both entirely limiting and unimaginably destructive. Indeed, these labels have only been reinforced by conventional cultural expectations. Look at the paintings we have observed that were considered “acceptable” or “encouraged by convention”. In Landseer’s paintings of Queen Victoria, the queen and her horse are portrayed as a docile creatures subservient to exterior power. In contrast, in Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps, of Napoleon on his horse, the horse stands on two legs, with its muscles tensed—a full participant in the “heroics” with its rider. Consider this. Queen Victoria, as the second longest-reigning monarch in British history and a ruler whose reign was remembered for its innovations may have indeed surpassed the accomplishments of the to-be Emperor of France. Yet, she is portrayed as the abashed and powerless figure, with her face turned away and her horse slack, while