The book Assigned: Life with Gender produced by editors Lisa Wade, Douglas Hartmann, and Christopher Uggen is a collection of articles that talk about gender in the United States from a sociological viewpoint. The topics range from queer parenting to inequality to what the future can offer. A couple of topics I will discuss is gender and its social construction and how women’s bodies are viewed, specifically their breasts, compared to the bodies of men.
Gender is indeed socially constructed and a result of influences throughout an individual's development. Therefore, gender is a human production that is constantly being worked on by creating and recreating the behaviors through interaction with society (Lober 1994, 106). In other words, people …show more content…
The article, “Tits (The Story of My Man-Boobs)” is of a man who grew up with the condition, gynecomastia. The author talks on how when he was a kid he was bullied; people called him names like tits and grabbed his breasts without his permission. As a result, he was ashamed to take off his shirt in front of others. Eventually, when he got older he lost weight and then had to have surgeries to get rid of his breasts. He comments on how our culture is obsessed with the gender binary with what men are supposed to have and what women are supposed to have as far as physical appearances and the penalties that can come when that is not the case. However, the author has now learned to flaunt his body and challenge those who have a problem with it. Furthermore, the article, “Why Breastfeeding in Public is Taboo” discusses the many stories we hear on women being harassed and shamed when they breastfeed their babies in public. The author talked about the sociological standpoint of breastfeeding women where women and their breasts are seen as a sex object. In my opinion, I agree. I think that naked breasts are not taboo in our culture because people think breasts are wrong and bad, but because breasts are sexualized. In other words, we think that breasts should only exist as sexualized objects for male pleasure, which is why there is so much debate about women who breastfeed in public. The fact of the matter is, yes breasts are sexual objects, which is why they are able to be aroused during sexual encounters. Nonetheless, women’s breasts should not be synonymous with sex. If society is fine when breasts are exposed to make sells and for entertainment, then it should be fine when a woman is breastfeeding her child in public because breast are more than a representation of a woman’s sexuality. An opposite point that Lisa Wade makes in her article, “What Makes a Body Obscene?” is that, “It’s not simply that breasts are considered pornographic.
Gender is indeed socially constructed and a result of influences throughout an individual's development. Therefore, gender is a human production that is constantly being worked on by creating and recreating the behaviors through interaction with society (Lober 1994, 106). In other words, people …show more content…
The article, “Tits (The Story of My Man-Boobs)” is of a man who grew up with the condition, gynecomastia. The author talks on how when he was a kid he was bullied; people called him names like tits and grabbed his breasts without his permission. As a result, he was ashamed to take off his shirt in front of others. Eventually, when he got older he lost weight and then had to have surgeries to get rid of his breasts. He comments on how our culture is obsessed with the gender binary with what men are supposed to have and what women are supposed to have as far as physical appearances and the penalties that can come when that is not the case. However, the author has now learned to flaunt his body and challenge those who have a problem with it. Furthermore, the article, “Why Breastfeeding in Public is Taboo” discusses the many stories we hear on women being harassed and shamed when they breastfeed their babies in public. The author talked about the sociological standpoint of breastfeeding women where women and their breasts are seen as a sex object. In my opinion, I agree. I think that naked breasts are not taboo in our culture because people think breasts are wrong and bad, but because breasts are sexualized. In other words, we think that breasts should only exist as sexualized objects for male pleasure, which is why there is so much debate about women who breastfeed in public. The fact of the matter is, yes breasts are sexual objects, which is why they are able to be aroused during sexual encounters. Nonetheless, women’s breasts should not be synonymous with sex. If society is fine when breasts are exposed to make sells and for entertainment, then it should be fine when a woman is breastfeeding her child in public because breast are more than a representation of a woman’s sexuality. An opposite point that Lisa Wade makes in her article, “What Makes a Body Obscene?” is that, “It’s not simply that breasts are considered pornographic.