We scheduled this post and Part 1 in celebration of today, Women’s Equality Day, which commemorates U.S. women achieving the right to vote by the ratification in 1920 of the 19th amendment to the Constitution. Since then, notions of female and male continue to evolve, and new contestations emerged. — Ed.
By Christine R. Riddiough
Gender shapes our lives from their very beginning. In part 1 of this blog post, I described two characteristics of gender as defined in the mid-20th century:
- It is binary – you are defined as either female or male when you’re born – when the doctor, nurse or midwife wraps the baby in a pink or blue blanket.
- It is a personal characteristic – everybody has one gender, the one they’re born with and that defines who they are and how they should act throughout their lives.
In discussing the gender binary in part 1, I defined four dimensions of gender: biology, identity, expression, orientation. The assumption most people have had is that each of these dimensions should be aligned. Biological females are women, who dress and act femininely and who are attracted to and have relationships with men.
Source: Thinking About Gender – Part 2
