Essentialism

I will discuss how Queer theory, Anti-racist Theory, and Radical Feminist Theory is portrayed in the Mean Girls. Firstly, Queer theory is shown. In the beginning of Mean Girls, we see some people that are home schooled. One boy says, “And on the 3rd day, God created the Remington bolt-action rifle; so that man could fight the dinosaurs … and the homosexuals” to which the others return with “Amen”. This is seen as stereotyping southern Americans and home-schooled children. These children have…

An essentialist approach to sexuality is based on the belief that how an individual understands and experiences their sexual identity is predetermined by their sex and gender. In this approach, sexuality is stable, predictable, and inherent because it is biologically acquired at birth (Rubin 1999:149). In his work, Seidman explain the theories of Judith Butler where society is organized into two distinct gender identities, male and female, which in turn influence ideas of sexual identity and…

* Write an essay about the theme of performance in Twelfth Night. Few things are as central to a discussion on the theme of performance in Twelfth Night than characterization – that is to say, the function of writing, conceptualizing, and interpreting the fictional personas in the play. Scholarly stances on the issue differ vastly, but the key pivot in this essay – its underlying assumption – shall be that the play’s framing of gender, via the lens of gender-bending, establishes a space in which…

critical to living in such diverse societies as the US, removing oneself from racial affiliation and distinction could prove problematic. It is undoubtedly important that individuals understand that race is socially constructed and lends itself to essentialism; however, it is equally important that we are not a color blind society. In Leslie G. Carrs published “Color-blind” Racism she argues that proponents of color blindness fail to see that a merit-based, race-free worldview often benefits…

masculinity that was not just as a singular existence but something that has multiple facets, and can vary within different parts of society. This approach put femininity at the center of opposition to masculinity, and often made determinism or essentialism claims of sex roles. Although this can be used to illustrate the constructed nature of both femininity and masculinity, and the cultural rewards surrounding the two (Lotz 37). It needs to be understood that the ideas of masculinity are not…

In this paper, I will explore the connection between the ideas of Stuart Hall, Uma Narayan and Edward Said. During discussion my classmates and I realized how the three writers discussed similar themes in their work and I thought it was quite interesting. The three writers talk about the Western media’s depiction of people who belong from different ethnic backgrounds. The reason I am interested in this topic is because it is prevalent even today since the media portrays such people in a…

This pertains to both the gender and the sex binary, and serves to perpetuate a heteronormative picture of the world in which men and women are seen as physical and social complements. This picture depends on widespread gender and sex “essentialism,” the belief that men and women have intrinsically different physiologies, intellects, and behaviours. (Thomas, June 06). For this reason, naturalizing “sex” is problematic. Scientific findings which purport to expose essential, inalienable truths…

Essentialism is a theory that argues that the behaviors of men are biologically determined through genetic predisposition (Kilmartin & Smiler, 2015). This argument states that men and women take on different gender roles due biology, and regardless of the social pressures, there is an innate need to behave a certain way. Social constructionism argues that masculinity is socially constructed and encourages men to behave in a particular manner in order to fit in with cultural expectations…

D. REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES 1. SCREAMING THROUGH SILENCE: THE VIOLENCE OF RACE IN “INDIAN CAMP” AND “THE DOCTOR AND THE DOCTOR’S WIFE” by Amy Strong, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996 The focus in this journal article will be on the lack of an Indian (rather than Africanist) presence, Amy explores the ways Hemingway negotiates the matter of "race" and racial difference in two short stories from In Our Time. Her work will center on two of Hemingway’s earliest short stories,…

Yet some people do not believe this is the case. Michael G. Lacy and Kent A. Ono, editors of “Critical Rhetorics of Race,” say, “He makes it seem as if we cannot escape race, and we cannot escape racism. He gets caught up in the notion of racial essentialism that he lambasts and gives us few, if any, alternatives to ‘you look different than me, therefore you are treated differently.’ ‘Biological conceptions of race,’ Stuart Hall tells us, ‘have greatly receded in importance.’” Lacy and Ono…