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Social Construction Of Gender Identity

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It is a well known academic fact that gender identity is socially constructed, but unfortunately the mainstream notion is that gender is fixed and unmalleable.

Historically, gender identity has been defined by the terms that society has placed upon the genitalia that one is born with. From the moment that you are in utero, your parents seek out the gender of the unborn fetus and as soon as the ultrasound occurs, your immature body and consciousness becomes the locus of societal norms and customs. You are hammered with the idea that you have fallen into one of the two categories of the gender binary, either you are born with a penis, asserting you as male, or born with a vagina, making you the other, a womyn.

With the hetero-normative …show more content…

Grammatically and conceptually incorrect, the title Womyns Studies was problematic because it assumed that the studies performed under the discipline were for womyn and by womyn only (which at the time – being of the conception and coincidence of second wave feminism – it was). “In the literal sense the title of the discipline could be translated into subjects only studied by womyn, Womyns studies grammatically means the study of any topic whatever, from astronomy to zoology, as long as the study itself is performed by womyn…” (Bell and Rosenhan 1981 pg 541). When these definitions are thought of as the foundation of the discipline it becomes problematic assuming the only people that would have the interest and be available to study the discipline are self-identified as being womyn. Alternatively, Bell and Rosenhan present the argument that the terms that could possibly be used are Feminist Studies or Womyn Studies, “The term feminist studies makes it clear that this new scholarship is an area of involvement open to both men and women; moreover the term helps to define such scholarships as an ongoing critique of traditional assumptions” (Bell and Rosenhan 1981 pg 541). Defining this discipline through the term Feminist Studies explicitly and exclusively makes the discipline a political stance, and a specific lens through which the curriculum was created through. “It is avowedly political and runs the risk of allowing conservative scholars to ignore their own politics while focusing on ours. This risk is compounded by the lack of consensus about the definition of feminism either as a historical phenomenon or as a con-temporary ideology. Using the term "feminist studies" may invite semantic rather than substantive reaction.” (Bell and Rosenhan 1981 pg 540) Apart from the political stance that the term Feminist Studies

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