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Summary Of Brain Storm: The Flaws In The Science Of Sex Differences

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of social control. Modern understanding, terms, and science may help to simplify the complexity of human sexuality but also in this complexity creates boxes for in which people do not fit. These theories relate to the critical sexuality studies because it allows for the idea that human sexuality is more complex than the categories people place it in. The unique analysis this theory gives is that sexuality can only be understood on an individual basis, because social categories and scientific understanding cannot completely define it.
“Because the binaries are revealed to be cultural constructions or ideological fictions, the reality of sexed bodies and gender and sexual identities are fraught with incoherence and instability. In other words, …show more content…

The reason I really enjoyed this piece is because it argues against the fact that gender is predetermined. This theory of gender predetermination is called brain organization theory. “The idea that men and women act differently because they have distinctly male or female brains-,” (Jordan-Young, 2010). She disagrees with the idea that gender is predetermined by the hormones fetuses are exposed to in the womb. The theory she is against states that gender is created by these hormones because this hormone exposure leads to certain masculine and feminine differences in brain structure. This leads to different patterns, behaviors, and desires. There are many things I agree with her in her critique on of the idea of predetermined gender and sexual orientation. I think the easiest part to understand through a sociological lens is the fact that the scientists are confusing sex and gender. They believe that someone’s sex and the hormones they were exposed to, determine the gender they identify with and their sexual orientation. The author illuminates the social construction of sex and sexuality by stating that the sex/gender system, “-is a social effect, rather that the result of human biology,”

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In other words,

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To understand the linkage between sexuality and gender, it is important to reimagine the relationship between sexuality and gender and the rapport they hold with self-identification. Not long ago, sexuality was tied to procreation - becoming the core of one’s identity. Gender had always been tied to biological sex. However, a crisis of gender identity emerged and blurred the gender and sexuality binaries that had become commonplace social facts. A fluidity was created that allowed individuals to not feel the pressure of fitting inside distinct identification categories.

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1089 Words | 5 Pages

The overall tone she uses towards the notion is somewhat disgust and contempt. She describes the matter as “there are worrying signs that battle to put gender and sexuality at the forefront of all teaching and learning is going too far.” The use of scare quotes throughout the piece suggest that the words should not be taken at face value. It is often used to suggest disbelief or actual disagreement with the words as they are being used, as if the words don’t actually exist. Examples comprise “cisgenderism”, “heterosexism”, “transgender” and “gender dysphoria”, all of which are genuine words in the oxford dictionary.

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1174 Words | 5 Pages

The ignorance of society affects those individual who are categorized in sexual orientations. Furthermore, the confusion of the terms in society and the men acknowledging it, their sexual identity is questioned. Sexual identity being the awareness of ourselves as male or female and how we express our sexual values, attitudes, and feelings (Benokraitis

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392 Words | 2 Pages

Bednarska, Passing Last Summer; keyword: queer Keyword: Queer Bednarska does not directly define “queer” or “queerness,” but a few sentences hint to its definition. The second to last page, “I’m fully aware that my desires around the kind of sex I want could change over time, depending on the partner and the possibilities and the mutability of our own desires.” Main Argument: Bednarska gives an overview of the dynamic complex fluidity that gender and sexual attraction should have and those that exist outside the limited categories. Throughout, she explains that many people she knows that activities and interests change over time, just like emotions do.

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503 Words | 3 Pages

Part 1 There is a particular point of view found in certain recent Hollywood films that explores the varying spectrum of sexuality and the role representation plays in an individual’s life. In the traditional view of sexuality in society, sexuality has an established separation, homosexual or heterosexual. In The Monster and the Homosexual Benshoff mentions “how homosexuality is thought and felt by heterosexuals is part and parcel of the way the culture teaches them (and us) to think and feel about their heterosexuality,” (Benshoff 95). In this context the heterosexual view of a homosexual is based on preconceived notions that the audience have obtained from society.

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1721 Words | 7 Pages

Sexual essentialism refers to the belief that sex is a natural force that exists prior to social life and ultimately shapes behaviors. Rubin argues that sexual essentialism forms the basis for the judgment depicted by the circle, where categorizing certain sexual behaviors as “natural” and others as “unnatural” serves to justify the moral hierarchy. Sexual hierarchies, the other concept introduced by Rubin, describes the societal rankings that place some sexual practices over others. The Charmed Circle illustrates these hierarchies, outlining which practices are deemed okay and which are not, highlighting how social and cultural norms sustain discrimination. The diagram's exclusion of race neglects how racial dynamics intersect with sexual norms, adding another layer of complexity to the understanding of these social hierarchies.

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442 Words | 2 Pages

The example of this is African American in the 1900s who lived in a white neighborhood but they can’t identify with whites because the color of their skin. They cannot identify with blacks because he lives in a white neighborhood. They are alienated from their community and their “race”. People are alienated because of the double consciousness they do not know what to identify with. This can be said about sexuality where their double consciousness struggles to find their identity because of the norms that are in placed in their environment.

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475 Words | 2 Pages

People's way of thinking is strongly influenced by the patriarchal scheme of the culture in which they live, and their judgments deriving from this scheme are deeply embedded in their psyche. Gender roles within patriarchal society prescribe the hierarchical roles of men and women assumed to be “natural,” and labeled as “masculine” and “feminine” as if these categories were ontological. In this context, the heterosexual majority regards homosexuals as those who transgress traditional gender roles and thus violate the prescribed rules of the “proper” sexual behavior. It is being supposedly said that gender identity such as masculinity and femininity is not something inherent you born with but, a learned entity, a social construction. When John looks at his father’s penis in the bathroom, Gabriel beats up his son in order for John to become a “proper” man, and must not sexualized the male body.

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603 Words | 3 Pages

There has been an evaluation of sexual behavior over the past centuries, and it has demonstrated that there were acts that were considered taboo, homosexuality, bestiality and so on. Due to the emergence of most of the cultures, the history of sexual behavior shows an increase in the collective supervision of sexual abuse, moral codes were developed in the process. The sexual activity of some cultures have been “detailed in art, literature, poetry, mythology, and theater”(pg. 24). Even same-sex behavior was actually displayed in visual arts.

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1667 Words | 7 Pages

There are many approaches within psychology that study the influence of sex differences in human behaviours such as, behavioural, cognitive and biological approaches. There are many factors within each approach that contribute and influence the development of sex differences in human behaviours. Within biological psychology, there are many factors that combine to influence the difference between the sexes, such as genetics and hormones and brain structure and function. Research methods used by biological psychologists to investigate these differences involve methods such as animal and case studies, drug therapy, twin studies and scans (MRI, PET, CAT). Although there are many different approaches to studying sex differences, within each approach,

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816 Words | 4 Pages

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Although the bourgeois and capitalist society regarded sexuality to be taboo because it was not economically productive, sexuality was being studied in order to categorize sexual behaviors and label individuals, since “homosexual was now a species.” (“History of Sexuality” 43) With the medicalization of sexuality, the “machinery,” society’s social institutions produced discourses to constitute a controlled knowledge which affected the thoughts and behaviors about it in different contexts. However, the “true discourses” Foucault mentions, are not actually real or true as it would imply these discourses would stay constant even in different

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442 Words | 2 Pages

According to Barry Brummett (2014), Queer Theory is based heavily on feminism and the studies on gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. One of the most prominent figures of this theory is Judith Butler. In her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity(1999), she challenges society’s concept of gender identity and feminism, an activist drive for social equality for women. She brings up a social concept she calls “binary categories” which basically states that when every child is born, they are typically placed into one of two distinct categories: male or female, which, in turn, influences how the child is taught to behave for the rest of their life. The concept that in order to truly be deemed a man or woman, one must behave or avoid behaving in certain ways coupled with the idea that it is even necessary to create and abide by these categories are issues that Queer Theory wishes to dispute.

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1137 Words | 5 Pages

Genetically, a person is either born male or a female based on the basis of their reproductive functions. Sadly, being born out of the one can come as a disadvantage or advantage. In our society, being born the male holds the advantages. Historically and culturally, males are viewed as more dominant than females, thus sculpting the patriarchal societies of today. All this eventually leads to a major societal problem of today; sexism.

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