(Conceptualizing Gender-14a)
Keywords: Gender order, “gender-inauthentic” professions, relational concepts, dualistic relation
Introduction
The empirical research has documented the emergence of the following conclusions: there's no one thing that we can call femininity or masculinity. There are varieties of socially constructed femininities and masculinities within each society.
Femininity and masculinity are relational concepts, i.e., we can define them only in relation to each other and to women and men. In his classic book, Masculinities (1995), R. W. Connell says:
“ ‘Masculinity’, to the extent that the term can be briefly defined at all, is simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects of these practices in bodily experiences, personality and culture.“ (1)
This implies that in fact masculinity is what boys and men do, while femininity is the ‘Other’ of that. We cannot have a definite image of what boys and men actually do, as their doings are countless and diverse. (2)
Barrie Thorne contends that in the writings on boys, we notice a "Big Man bias" resembling the distortions in anthropological works that consider male elites as men in general. (3) In other words, we pass on to masculinity the attributes of dominant men in specific social situations.
Due to the raised consciousness of this fact, Connell and several other theorists speak of ‘dominant’ or ‘hegemonic’ and ‘subordinated’ masculinities, admitting that in all social categories there are several masculinities, with overlapping power gender relations.
The interactions between ‘different genders’, in that sense, take place in the interface between femininities and masculinities, among femininities, and among masculinities. These social interactions can take place both at the micro- or interpersonal level and at the macro- or institutional level.
Femininities and masculinities
Masculinities cannot exist without complementary femininities. In other words, masculinities and femininities always exist in a sphere of gender relations, which are primarily power relations in a male-dominated social system. Masculinities and femininities are different patterns of social practice and behaviour that are historically produced together in a process that amounts to a gender order. Gender order indicates hierarchical and power relations between men and women as well as between men.
In conventional language, femininities and masculinities do not connect to biological sex. In every culture, specific actions or behaviours are generally identified as feminine or masculine, regardless of their adoption by males or females.
Data about what men and women do, to a certain extent, form cultural ideas of feminine and masculine behaviours. A gender assessment of this type is likely to inhibit women or men from choosing “gender- inauthentic” professions, as W. Faulkner points out. (4)
People learn their femininities and masculinities from institutions, including educational centres, news, media, and advertisements, as well as their families, teachers and friends who all have their own messages on feminine and masculine behaviours. These messages can be found in a variety of settings, from public spaces such as streets, to workplaces and to homes. Although gender is felt to be an inner component of identity, femininities and masculinities are generated within the social institutions and in the course of our daily relations. (5)
The features of femininities and masculinities vary based on national culture, region, social class, religion, and other basic social factors.
There are markedly different connotations of femininity and masculinity in any specific society at any of its different historical times. Numerous significances of femininities and masculinity coexist at any chosen time, For instance, For instance, not all Canadians, Iranians, or South-Africans are the same. How geographic region, ethnicity, social class, sexuality, and age, all influence the creation of gender identity has been studied by sociologists.
Every one of these factors is transformed by the others, resulting in different lived experiences and definitions of gender in an individual. For instance, two Iranian males, one, a Kurdish old man who is a wealthy landowner with two wives and numerous grand-children living in Masjed-Soleyman, and the other, a young unemployed Tehrani man, brought up in an orphanage and living in a cabin off the Saveh Road, south of Tehran, would certainly have divergent views on masculinity.
Another example could be two Iranian females, one, a 20 year-old lesbian Iranian-American residing in Chicago and the other, a 60 year-old heterosexual and religious physician living in the city of Mashhad, Iran. Their views and lived experiences of being a woman are definitely dissimilar. Nevertheless, all of these individuals are profoundly influenced by their society’s gender norms and power structures.
Definitions of genders differ over four distinct dimensions. In other words, there are four different disciplines, which are implicated in comprehending femininities and masculinities.
Definition and appreciation criteria of femininities and masculinities differ cross-culturally. Certain cultures maintain that women are innately defenseless, passive and needy; other cultures urge women to be determined and aggressive. Certain cultures advise men to be harsh and demonstrate their masculinity by sexual achievement.
Others advocate a more laid-back description of masculinity, which includes emotional availability and serving the community's need. The ideal-type of masculinity in Iran compared to England is so very contrasting that it contradicts any conception that natural sex differences largely forms and establishes gender identity. The disparity between the above cultures' account of masculinity (or femininity) is a lot more notable than the disparities between women and men.
Characterizations of femininity and masculinity change significantly in every single culture over time. Research demonstrates that these characterizations have been modified in reaction to changes in the extent of urbanization and industrialization, with the advancement of new digital and reproductive technologies, and the society’s position in the global economic and geopolitical context.
The concept of “manhood” during the 13th century Mongolian rule of Iran was without a doubt different from what it meant during 1970’s under the late Pahlavi king.
The features of a person’s femininity or masculinity transform during her / his life span. Every man or woman adopts several forms of masculinity or femininity according to context, stage of his / her life, others’ expectations, etc. A woman could get involved in boxing, which is usually labelled as a “masculine” sport.
A series of developmental markers results in variance in an individual’s experience and demonstration of gender identity. Linear age and stages of life demand diverse performances of gender. In Western cultures, the challenges a man has to face in order to establish himself as a successful man changes as he grows older, as does the social institutions within which he has tried to perform his capabilities.
The meaning of masculinity for a young unmarried man is not the same as the one for a senior grandfather. Likewise, the definitions of femininity depend on similar differences. Pre-teens, mothers, and elderly women do not define femininity the same way as wage working women and retired ones.
The application of the terms femininities and masculinities indicates and endorses the remarkable choices that various groups of the same society, at the same time, make in depicting femininity and masculinity. While one major function of many social institutions is to produce wide-ranging differences between women and men, the fact remains that generally in some respects, these differences between women and men are not even as pronounced as the differences between women themselves or between men themselves.
Conclusion
Femininities and masculinities differ so drastically from culture to culture, in different historical periods of each society, among women and men of any one society, and over each person’s life span. In other words, one cannot define femininity or masculinity as fixed and universal personalities, possessed by all women and by all men.
Consequently, gender is a flexible, ever-shifting collection of behaviours and connotations, which are plural. By speaking of femininities and masculinities, one recognizes that femininity and masculinity indicate various things to various groups of people at various times.
Besides being constructed relative to each other, femininities and masculinities have a dualistic relation, that is, a relation in which the subordinate side is denied, instead of the two sides being in a relational equilibrium. So femininity is perceived as a lack of masculinity. (6)
To be continued.
Notes
1. Connell, R. W., 1995, Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press. P. 71
2. Connell, R. W., 2000. The Men and the Boys. Berkeley: University of California Press.
3. Thorne, Barrie. 1993. Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Jersey: Rutgers University press, . P. 98
4. Faulkner, Wendy. 2009. Doing Gender in Engineering Workplace Cultures: Part II - Gender In/Authenticity and the In/Visibility Paradox. Engineering Studies, 1 (3), 169-189.
5. Kimmel, Michael S. 2000. The Gendered Society. Oxford University Press, USA.
6. Kessler, Suzanne J. & Wendy McKenna, 1978. Gender: An Ethno-methodological Approach. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
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