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Raina Mark
Professor Jon Beadle
English 115
17 September 2015
Progression I Prospectus
In the articles From Women, Men, and Society by Claire Renzetti and Daniel Curran,
and Are We Facing a Genderless Future by Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert, the main
common ideas discoursed within them are of gender issues in our society. The authors of these
articles are writing about this topic because this has been one of the top headlines in our society
today. Also, people need to be more aware of such issues as it affects laws in many countries and
many people we interact with can be facing issues related to gender. Another issue is how
everyone has different opinions on this topic and the way someone views gender.
The article From Women, Men, and Society talks about the various matters that makes
up a persons gender identity and their understanding of gender. They mention topics such as
growing up feminine or masculine, parent-child interactions, and toys and gender socialization.
Over time, when expectant parents are asked for their preference for a child: boy or girl, and
many have preferred the dominance of boys over girls. American parents are said to have
different expectations for their babies and the way they treat them really varies from parent to
parent just on the basis of the babys sex. For the most part, boys are expected to have masculine
features and habits, whereas girls are expected to have feminine features and habits. Clothing is
one of the main factors that parents use to express their childs gender. As we can see, boys are
usually dressed in dark or primary colors, such as red and blue (77). They are also dressed in
clothes which have sports or military affiliated designs. On the other hand, girls are usually

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dressed in pastels, especially pink and yellow (77). The designs that are typically on girls
dresses are flowers, hearts, and have bows or ruffles on them. Parent interaction is another
important subject when describing the way a child is raised; its a two way interaction as the
article states, a give-and-take between the parent and the child (78). Studies show that parents
communicate differently with sons and daughters. Perhaps, when talking to girls, parents show
more emotional words than they do with boys.
Toys and gender socialization is a huge part of our society that expects girls and boys to
be differentiated in. There is a remarkable difference between the types of toys in which girls and
boys play with. According to a study many years ago, researchers have found that there was a
contrasting difference between boys and girls rooms. Girls rooms were indicated with the
traditional conceptions of femininity, especially in terms of domesticity and motherhood (80).
The signs that portrayed this nature was the plenty of dolls and doll-houses, and also kitchen
related items. However, there were still a few of these things found in the boys rooms, but they
instead had athletic gears and military toys. We may not notice this often, but toys do play a huge
role in the way how someone interests and nature grow up to be. The article states that toys for
boys tend to encourage exploration, manipulation, invention, construction, competition, and
aggression. In contrast, girls toys typically rate high on manipulability, but also creativity,
nurturance, and attractiveness (82). This can often be described as a fatherly or motherly nature
respectively.
In the Are We Facing a Genderless Future article, Kantrowitz and Wingert focuses on a
current issue about people who do not identify with the gender assigned to them biologically.
They report on a person who identifies themselves as genderless. Norrie May-Welby, an
immigrant from Scotland who currently resides in Australia, is the worlds first legally

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genderless person. Registered male at birth, May-Welby began taking female hormones at 23
and had sex-change surgery to become a woman, but now doesnt take any hormones and
identifies as genderless (68). According to the article, it states that the controversy over the
APAs 1973 decision to modify the second edition of the DSM by declaring that homosexuality
could be considered a mental disorder only if it was disturbing to the patient (69). This simple
change of language used in relative to gender could help guide for a persons gender to be
expressed as male, female, in between, or otherwise. It also states that many scientists see
gender as a continuum and acknowledge that some people naturally fall in the middle (69). This
can mean that some people even after becoming transgender may not feel comfortable in who
they are and that many of them just feel as though they fall in between male and female. And
being genderless or gender-neutral isnt the same thing as being asexual (70). This is true as
being genderless or gender-neutral means that one is still attracted to men, women, both sexes, or
others who are gender-neutral, whereas asexual means one is not attracted to anyone.
The gender roles in our society today is a lot different than it has been in the previous
years and generations. It is constantly changing every day because of how different the world is
today compared to the past years. Especially for women, gender roles are changing
tremendously, but gender roles for men have not changed as much as it has for women. For
instance, women are seen doing many jobs that were strictly for men back in the day, but today
women take on jobs in the business, engineering, medical, and political field. Also, men are seen
cooking a lot more than they used to years ago. Its also common for women to wear pants, but if
a guy were to wear skirts people would find it very strange. This shows the differences in
societys expectations for boys and girls. People are more soft hearted with girls, but more
aggressive when it comes to boys. Just like it was mentioned in the article of how parents

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interactions with their children according to the gender, girls were talked to with more emotion
than boys.
Everyone in this world has different views on gender. It all depends on how someone is
raised, the people they are surrounded with, their family traditions or views, culture, and their
society. I was brought up in an Indian Christian family which has played a huge role on the
person I am today. My views on gender are very much associated with those of an average
Christian. Also, in Indian culture, whenever a girl and guy are friends, they automatically assume
there must be something going on as they find it weird for two people of the opposite sex to be
just friends. However, one of my childhood best friends was a guy, but now that we are older our
relatives and family friends would find it weird for us to be friends. My parents have always
been strict and overprotective over me having guy friends because they are so culturally washed
by the fact that having a guy friend can automatically mean that we are more than friends.
Another thing I have noticed from my own personal experience is the difference in the ways
boys and girls are treated. Girls are usually overprotected by parents and family, whereas boys
are given more freedom.
Gender is a huge factor in our society that shapes us into who we are. As the articles
Renzetti and Curran, and Kantrowitz and Wingert have discussed two different areas in gender,
we can say that gender plays a great amount of role in our world today. Some of the most
important factors which affect gender are parent-child interactions, and toys and gender
socialization. Everyone has their own opinion and views on their understanding of gender and
that can make a difference in what one stands for when it comes to the topic of gender, but most
of the time, society sets up a traditional expectation on the roles of gender and the way we want
someone to be.

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Works Cited
1. Groner, Rachel, and John F. OHara. Composing Gender: A Bedford Spotlight Reader.

Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. Print.