Author: Pamela Anastacio

Femininity, Masculinity and Gender roles

In this chapter, Johnson seems to explain how gender roles came about and the impact it has on societies. Regarding the separation between the two sexes and genders, he mentions that “it’s one thing to make a clear distinction and quite another to give it cosmic importance,”. I agree and I think that biological distinctions have been used and allowed societies throughout the years to overly separate the roles of men and women. I think that it’s completely valid and one thing to say that men and women are different because one gives birth while the other doesn’t but to go even further and say that women should be classified differently from men because they need to stay at home or care for the children because they carried the children is an exaggeration. Johnson also goes into femininity and masculinity and how that has shaped most of the world into becoming a patriarchal one. I think that categorizing certain traits as feminine or masculine is problematic. I agree with Johnson when he claims that categorizing one gender with a certain trait is incorrect since there are many roles that a certain person can play. For example, I myself am a daughter, older sister, aunt, student, and an employee. Some may say that I act “feminine” towards my mom because I listen to what she says. However, I act completely different with my coworkers since I know that being too obedient can allow them to take advantage of me. I act assertive because I know that’s the only way I can get my work done. Some may say that being assertive is a “masculine” trait but that doesn’t mean that only men can have these traits and it’s obvious that associating these traits to a certain gender is restrictive.

Insecurities all around

In Does size matter?, Lever brings to our attention the role of penis size in today’s society. Penis size is used as a measurement for one’s manhood, sexual power and masculinity. Evidently, this leads to the creation of many insecurities and underestimation of men by both men and women. These insecurities opened up a viable marketplace for products and procedures that can enhance men’s penis size. But are these insecurities accurate? Lever brought up statistics showing how around half of men surveyed are unsatisfied with their genital while around three-quarters of women surveyed are satisfied with their partner’s length. While the result still shows that there’s 25% of both men and women who are unsatisfied, I still think that’s normal because you can’t please everyone as everyone have different standards on what’s masculine or etc. While the focus of men’s masculinity and manhood is on the size of their penis, the society also has certain standards for women’s femininity and behavior. For example, fair skin ON WOMEN is something that’s been desired by people of different backgrounds. There are many products that commercializes bleaching of the skin in forms of creams, gels and what have you. Even fairy tales, like Snow White put emphasis on  skin fairness and how she’s the most beautiful in the land. Even though science have shown that expression of skin color is something that’s obtained from the coding of our genes, people today are still insecure about their skin color and this is because of the beauty industry and the media. The media plays such an important role on shaping the standards of ideal partners for everyone. Whether it’s penis size, skin color, hair types or any other physical attributes, if it’s something that the media can focus on, I think that it’ll form insecurities. These insecurities, though they may seem ridiculous, are valid and important in understanding the concerns of the people that live today that people in the future might learn about.