Rucker 1

Isaiah Rucker

Professor Corri Ditch

ENGL 115

Oct. 2, 2017

My Gender Performances (Project Space:Revised)

In traditional western society, most cultures put emphasis on separating certain behaviors

based on gender categorizations. Ive personally acted both as a conformist and a radical to these

behaviors and recorded my behaviors over the course of 7 days in my journal in environments

such as athletics, social venues, and in the classroom. With each location the behaviors varied

slightly yet still noticeably, for example, in athletics most of the athletes have toned bodies due to

a strenuous workload and during one of the drills I had felt somewhat weak and not as masculine

due to the women finishing faster and more efficiently than I had. While that would have made

me feel bad no matter what regardless of gender, the fact that the women finished ahead of me

me demoralized me for that day because I had felt that I was too inadequate of a man to not be

able to even keep up with the women. In social settings I had observed more bragging and

showing off, of which I am guilty of as well. During a pool match I was having with a female

friend, a sudden urge went through my mind not to sink the 8 ball in order to win. This type of

behavior is unlike my general as I hate to lose and I felt slightly frustrated after I had done it.

However, I had felt like I had accomplished something and that something was gaining the favor

of a female individual. One could say it was a sexually charged action or another could say that it

was just common sense to let the girl win. Males like me who have it so ingrained in their lives,

like the situation I previously described, that they do certain actions on instinct that will gain
 Rucker 2

them attraction from females and acceptance from males. Going along with this idea, I usually

try to make myself stand out more so as to attract attention from females. Its usually in these

groups where an individuals masculinity/femininity emit the most. This kind of behavior would

be best explained as a product of sexual attraction, though it could also be a product of one

cisgendered individual experimenting with their opposite sexs way of behaving. I think about

this cisgendered way of thinking as I hang out with a mixed gender group then I think to myself

what if I bring my legs closer together when I stand or what I spoke with a higher pitch

however, because I was raised a male I found it slightly disturbing whenever I did which leads

me to mention a crucial physical trait that defines me regarding an athletic event I had to

attended.

As Aaron Devor states in Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of

Genders society demands different gender performances (Devor, 35), on the first day of my

observations, a Welcome Back Party was held for athletes and the first thing that I had noticed

was that the men and women were segregated. As I sat down at a table and paid attention to the

way the men were acting and it was decent amount aggressive play such as small insults

circulating, moderate to moderately strong punches to each other, as well as speaking to each

other in a loud volume. I hardly took place in these series of events preferring to be more docile

and quiet much like a stereotypical women would, and being the Freshman in the group I knew I

hardly had a say in matters so I remained silent throughout the majority of the time. I dont wish

to call all women quiet however, the women were more calm and had lower voices yet could still

hear each other despite the loud noises made from the whole Banquet and I felt I could relate to

them more than the men in this situation so I believe that this was where my femininity showed
 Rucker 3

the most in. There were obvious physical differences in the men and the women as well in which

the men were on average more muscular and taller than the women which plays a key role in

their behaviors. However, it must be noted that Ruth Hubbard in her article, Rethinking

Womens Biology, mentions that The impression that women are shorter than men is enhanced

by our social convention that when women and men pair off, it is considered to be preferable for

the man to be taller than the women.(Hubbard, 47), so the differences are primarily due to

individuals conforming to age old societal values therefore any differences seen would primarily

be due to mental rather than physical. My body type goes against what a mans body type

should be. While I am tall, I am hardly muscular and Im fairly fragile when it comes to taking

hits, in this I am definitely feminine as I exhibit fragility. There have been situations in my life

where I havent exhibited any gender specific behavior though, such as when hanging out with

my best friend last summer, were both opposite sexes but we never bothered to take each others

sexual attraction such as lesbian, bisexual, asexual and so on into account and so we behave in

very neutral way towards each other. By neutral I mean neither of us particularly comment on

our height, nor the way we look, and we even brag to each other which is typically a male trait so

if anything both of us are masculine.

My experiences over the course of these 7 days revealed to me that despite being raised

as a male in a predominantly male society I still exhibit feminine behaviors. This is most likely

due to current western society promoting more gender equality with more women becoming

more independent and the ever growing prominence of single parent households. With single

women families being 48.9% of women with children in the U.S, these children would naturally
 Rucker 4

take traits of their mother. However, my case is different in that Im more feminine because of

my deficiencies as a male like strength or emotional sensitivity.

 Rucker 5

Bibliography

Hubbard, Ruth. Chapter 9: Rethinking Women's Biology. The Politics of Women's Biology,

Rutgers Univ. Press, 1997.

Devor, Holly. Pg.43. Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality, Indiana Univ. Press,

1990.

Bureau, US Census. Data. Historical Marital Status Tables, 1 Nov. 2017,

www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/marital.html.