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Men, Women and Gender

 

            The subject matter of men and women is timeless. From Adam and Eve, in Genesis 2:4-3:24 to John Gray's Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus published in 1992, men and women have lived in this perpetual state of battle. Since we live in a world that for a very long time up until recently, had only been observing of only two particular sexes; the male sex and female sex, there has forever been an ageless conflict and as one of my classmates so bluntly put it, "Men and women are eternal partners." Thus, meaning, we are everlastingly interconnected, we are spiritually intwined to each other and without man no woman, and without woman no man. .
             Gender on the other hand doesn't relate to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women. Gender describes the socially constructed roles, behaviors and activities given to each sex by our societal counterparts according to the World Health Organizations website. (www.who.int) In the following paragraphs I will distinguish the different roles men and women play in our society as well as how gender affects said roles. Katherine Hepburn a woman far beyond her years, once said, "I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and I ain't afraid of being alone." These words famously spoken by Hepburn characterized a woman who was well known for her fierce independence and spirited personality, during a time that it was unheard of for a woman to speak out with such voracity, especially about topics that would be considered taboo. In Hepburn's first two sentences about not living as a woman, but instead living as a man it is a clear indication of what women had to and still have to live up to in order to be seen as equal. In the society of the 1930's and still sometimes today, men were simply regarded as superior beings.


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