Gender Troubles

der; pink for girls and blue for boys. If one stops to think, one wonders about the origin of this distinction; it must lie in the gender. Gender is not sex, gender is burdened with more requirements, such as: qualities, beliefs, and characteristics. These requirements are decided by a culture's norms. According to her book, Gender Troubles, Judith Butler, a "gender-theorist-turned-philosopher-of-nonviolence", as she puts it ("Judith Butler"), defines gender as a cultural construct with defining features that must be followed, which is distinct from sex, a biological attribute. However, the construct of gender leads to conflict for those portraying and repelling it. An example of such conflict surrounding gender is described by Nicholas Krist

There is no in-between when it comes to gender. As stated by Butler, gender is a binary, making it impossible to be a full person, able to experience all degrees of emotion or activity possible because of a mental segregation. In his Ted Talk, “Why I’m done trying to be ‘man enough’”, Justin Badoni, an actor, experiences the consequences of a prerequisite for gender.. Badoni admits, “A lot of us men are really good at making friends, and talking, just not about anything real” (00:06:00-00:06:15). In Badoni's experience, pretending to be masculine doesn’t allow him to appreciate the feminine way. This struggle makes it difficult to build meaningful relationships, for not only does this tarnish understanding of the opposite spectrum but tarnishes a sense for what is self. It is impossible to form real relationships if they are built on falsehoods. Relationships that are affected include: workforce, family, friendships, professional, all forms of network, but most notably, with one's self. It is this desensitization toward the opposite sex, ultimately a notion that there is an opposite sex that one must forgo from their being, that causes gender to prevail. Gender relies on segregation in the form of its categories, but these lead to becoming half a person that cannot understand their other half. In performing gender, one omits all

Again, by living in a lie, one cannot have a real relationship with them self. In other words, lying to one's self through gender's prerequisites distorts one's true desires for satisfaction from themselves. In their article, "Doing Gender", authors Candace West and Don H. Zimerman discuss gender as a routine in everyday life, elaborating on the perspectives of sex, gender, and sex categories. They describe, "When we view gender as an accomplishment, an achieved property of situated conduct, our attention shifts from matters internal to the individual and focuses on interactional and, ultimately, institutional arenas." Focusing on conforming to gender removes any sense of self; this is because the beliefs adopted from gender were not conceived personally or with consideration to unorthodox beliefs; gender does not consider beliefs outside of a culture and its norms, only giving its participants the knowledge of their culture's gender. When values are influenced, it occurs without full comprehension of what gender conformity entails; such as masculine boys and inept girls. Likewise, no one would purposely hurt themselves, but people do so, without understanding the risk. To conform is to forsake unique qualities: hobbies, quirks, desires, aspiration, etc. If a girl picks out a firetruck in the toy store, the girl must be scolded and forced into submission.