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Gender Identity And Female Identity

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Recommended: Nature vs nurture debate on gender identity

The second method that females attempt to use for constructing their gender identities is related to the biological aspect of their bodies. Females start employing their bodies as a signifier for their female identities by forming their personal awareness of their gender abilities and their sexual orientations. The biological manifestations that are ascribed to body allow human beings to shape their gender identities; they become aware of their gender roles and abilities that their bodies have including their sexualities. Human body in a certain way achieves a coherent unit of human identity. The body can be used as a tool for constructing gender roles and thus gender identities. For example, females at early age reveal their awareness of their …show more content…

1).At the age of fifteen, she becomes aware of her femininity and sexuality that she aims to use for constructing a full perception of her gender identity as a female. Melanie realizes that this new shape of the body assigned to her certain gender roles that contribute to her female identity: “She would follow with her finger the elegant structure of her rib-cage, where the heart fluttered under the flesh like a bird under a blanket” (Carter, p. 1). It is clear that the females at that age appear to be inquisitive about discovering their female identities that this new structure of body will provide them with, thus they start to validate it aiming to use as an identifier for their gender …show more content…

9). Melanie, being a young girl with little experience, limits her existence to her body; she totally relies on it to construct her gender identity, as if it is the only path that she can go through to find her gender identity. Thus, she takes care of her body because it seems to give her a sense of growth, “She was afraid that if she ate too much of it she would grow fat and nobody would ever love her and she would die virgin” (Carter, 1967, p. 3). Here, Melanie refers to her gender identity in terms of her female shape; attempting to use it as a signifier for her

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