Question 1. Discuss in what ways “sex” and “gender” refer to similar and yet different phenomena.
Whereas many people understand the concept of gender and sex as something simple of distinguishing whether one is a woman or a man, the reality is more complicated than the common perception. Against the prevailing view, not everyone is either a woman or a man. Moreover, sex and gender refer to distinct and different attributes. However, the complexity of the concept is not a new phenomenon. For a long time, people have been born with a mix of female and male both psychology and biologically. What one may report as one's sex may be different from what they say as their gender. Many scholars have identified the difference between the two terms by pointing out that a person's sex is determined by many factors including anatomy, genetics or hormones. It is essential to look at sex as a spectrum rather than looking at it as distinct categories. On the other hand, gender is viewed as the social roles associated with the sex or one's identity based on the cultural or societal constructs. In some cases, the assigned sex of an individual may not align with the person's gender, and the person may be known as transgender. In other cases, one may be having a biological characteristic which may complicate one's sex assignment, and thus the person may be called an intersex.
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Question 6. Explain the following: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
Inspired by De Beauvoir's school of thought in her book The Second Sex, a woman is born and physically exists as a woman, but it is not the biological composition or the physical state of a woman that conducts her destiny. Instead, the societal construction and the roles given to her by the society shapes her becoming a woman. The development of sex organs, pregnancy, menstruation, and menopause do not have any significance in themselves, but in an oppressive and hostile society, they begin to fathom the meaning of being disadvantaged or burden species as women accept to become the secondly placed beings that the patriarchal society accords them.
Question 7. Discuss at least three examples of privilege and how they intersect (i.e., white, male).
Privilege refers to the authority or the entitlement of a person to perpetuate beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that support the structures of the oppressive powers. The political and social theories acknowledge the biases in institutions as a result of oppression of minorities and inequitable and unfair distribution of power. The three most recognized privileges include race, class, and sexuality.
Even with the growing demographics of a diverse population in the United States, the male whites subgroup is mostly overrepresented in almost all the domains of life. Being at the intersection of the most privileged subsets in the American society, the intersection of being both male and racially superior place the subgroup at a privileged position above everybody else. On the contrary, the females of color are most underrepresented in almost all domains in the United States. Two intersecting oppressions which affect females of color most directly are sexism and racism. The result is violence and long-standing discrimination. The societal construction places whites, males and the rich as the most privileged above the rest.
Question 8. Explain what “affect” is in the sense that Kathleen Stewart uses it.
Stewart defines affects as public feelings which begin and end in circulation. Stewart also notes that affects are the stuff of which intimate lives are made, drifting immersions which await for something to erupt. Going by Stewart's definition, affects do not wait for rationalization, classification or description for them to exert pressure.
Question 10. Explain how our situatedness in the world (i.e., our socio-economic location) informs our identities?
Socioeconomic factors play the significant role in determining one's identity. For example, one's level of education is an essential determinant of their social status in many societies. Job status, salaries, and even choice of partners are primarily based on one's level of education. One's location also plays a significant role in determining one's identity. People who find themselves in economically developed countries are more likely to become affluent than those in developing countries. God and family also determine personal identities in several ways. People would often identify themselves according to their beliefs such as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and many more. Adults always want to be determined using their families, while others love to identify themselves with their professionalism and social status more than the rest.
