Composition studies

Division plays a common role within culture. Specific groups built by common identifiers segment the population into various groups and subcultures which align with those identifiers. Both through the idea of stereotyping, but also through intentional acts of self-identifying, divisions run rampant throughout society. Masculine or feminine, male or female, these categories make up one of the largest divisions within today’s society. Masculinity, a term which encompasses a variety of properties…

Shape related disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are not only results from poor body image, but they are also glamorized in the media. For instance, in the early 90s various fashion magazine highlighted grunge-inspired fashion where waif models were glamourized. The waifish models were categorized as models with extremely pale skin, dark circle eyes and angular bone structure The use of drugs such as heroin addiction was seen as glamorous, erotic and cool. This unhealthy image caught the…

According to actress, Emma Watson, she expresses her feelings about gender by stating, “It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two set of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are.” In recently news, there has been controversy over the gender roles and the controversy over gender identification of Bruce Jenner transitioning into Caitlyn Jenner. When born into the world, as one gender but can…

Social institutions are a key element to the structure of societies. They consist of people who came together for a common purpose, and are part of the social order of society. They set an example of what the behavior and expectations are for individuals in society. Having these institutions help decrease chaos and increase structure. Each institution involves different things, but is important part of our daily life. Education is a major social institution that impacts the lives of many people…

Is it Really Gender Difference? Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics, wrote the book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation in 1990. This book shows a chapter about Tannen’s observations of how most classroom dynamics are fundamentally male. She uses these observations of the classroom to describe how women and men behave in this environment. Her main focus being on just the two groups makes the things she observed seem very one-dimensional. Can behavior truly be…

Introduction I am interested in gender and to what extent people use it to define who they are and how they behave. This interest has grown as I have learned that it does not necessarily need to be used to define who someone is and I have become more aware of the complex theories and ideas that surround gender. I am particularly interested in how children understand gender and if they allow it to define who they are. It is widely acknowledged that children begin to create their own…

Gender is the cultural and social rendering of masculinity and femininity. Gender is thus a social structural phenomenon but is also produced, negotiated, and sustained at the level of everyday interaction. Gender does not exist on its own, independent of human interactions and relations. Typically, females are expected to exhibit feminine behaviours and males are expected to act in masculine ways. The stereotypical male is aggressive, competitive, active, instrumental, rational and strong. The…

In Bodies that Matter Judith Butler replies to the criticism of her earlier book Gender Trouble. She argues with the feminist thinkers who see the body as matter--a material body with a sexual specification. According to her the body does not exist beyond a cultural construction. It serves as a site for the feminist theory independently of such a pre-discursive definition. In her introduction she explains: For surely bodies live and die; eat and sleep; feel pain, pleasure; endure illness and…

are a set of ideas or rules about how each gender should behave. “Cross cultural studies reveal that are aware of gender roles by age two or three” (Gender and sociology) ; these gender norms begin as young as when children begin to play with toys. It is an unspoken rule that little girls play with dolls and have tea parties and little boys play with action figures and go outside to practice sports. In a recent study…

In the case study “That’s What I was Going to Do Anyway”, Dave, the restaurant owner, overhears Bill, a server, make a mistake by not following the booking confirmation procedure. What follows is a confrontation that is subjected to a self-fulfilling prophecy as a perception tool, error of polarized thinking, four misuses of language, and the C.O.N.T.R.O.L mode of talk. A “self-fulfilling prophecy” takes shape when we predict how others will behave, and we act towards them as if that were true…