This document summarizes and discusses several readings related to sociology of gender from a class. It discusses how gender roles are socially constructed and enforced from a young age. It provides examples of how certain behaviors are deemed masculine or feminine. It also discusses several cases where individuals' gender identities were challenged or denied, such as Maria Patino being deemed not a woman by the IOC based on a medical test, and the case of John/Joan where a child was raised as the opposite gender without consent. It argues that gender is a personal identity rather than something defined by biology or society.

1. Sociology of Gender
Prof. Allison Better
Kira E. Brannigan
May 27, 2014
The Worse Thing A Man Can Be Called - Is A Woman
“ Stop being a little bitch.” “ You're such a cunt.” “ You throw like a little girl.” These aren't just
the audience comebacks on any day of the Jerry Springer set – They're statements made on a daily basis
by people adhering to the socially agreed upon structure of gender. Both men and women as acting
members of society, have created and uphold a rather outdated social totem pole that reinforces the
biblical idea of female inferiority. Women and Men alike, are quick to blame society for the way we
view gender and the inequalities that come with ovaries, yet are slow at grasping the reality that WE are
society. This totem pole of injustice has now been institutionalized in our pay disparities, the double
standard placed on the frequency of our sexual activities (or lack thereof), and our secondary
educational prospects. Women all over have been referred to as bitch or cunt – or worse, feminazi when
she stands up for the rights that are freely given to her male counterparts. Everyday for many women
serve as a reminder that no matter what she accomplishes in her relentless pursuit to have it all- she is
still a woman.
In this class, we have learned that gender and sex are not interchangeable, they are very rarely
concrete as one would be lead to believe. Dar Williams hints at this in his 1993 song When I Was A
Boy. What I love about the song, is that it very much discusses a major factor in why gender is socially
constructed. My understanding is that the child is experiencing life as both children, the girl needing to
be walked home for her protection, and the boy who climbs everything and seldom cries. She touches
upon the obvious gender issues that young children face, and how there are different things expected of

2. male and female children. Boys are rambunctious and energetic whereas girls are docile and need men
to take care of and protect them. She touches on many instances of supposed gender roles such as in the
line “I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike”. The usage of small boy and yet
using the possessive “her” makes it very clear that she chooses to use the image of a boy to symbolize
that bike riding is perceived as something boys do, but use her in a way to show that it is actually a
little girl's bike. Also, Dar touched upon the oversexualizing of women and the fighting spirit that
resists persecution. “I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike, Riding topless, yeah,
I never cared who saw. My neighbor came outside to say, 'Get your shirt,' I said 'No way, it's the last
time I'm not breaking any law.'” Throughout the course of this semester, I have become increasingly
aware of the subtle instances where even children are conditioned to believe the fallacies of their given
gender, but it isn't just children that are expected to follow their assigned gender approved behaviors.
Maria Patino probably woke up that morning and performed the same routine as she always did.
Brushed her teeth and hair, rubbed the crust from her eyes, and brewed her coffee – black, 3 sugars.
Got dressed in anticipation of her going to the Olympics, and have what she suspected was a routine
physical... only to find what she thought was a concrete (her gender), was suddenly in jeopardy by the
International Olympic Committee. Maria lived her life as a woman, completely self assured by her
femininity, only to hear by the IOC that she was not a woman. Why was the IOC and some ridiculous
“scientific” test a definitive claim to whether a woman is actually a woman? In Maria's eyes, she WAS
a woman. If the IOC was really concerned with a categorically male competitor having an unfair
advantage when competing against female competitors, I'd like to bring up the one known instance of a
man portraying a woman in his Olympic games – his deceptive “advantage” didn't win him a medal, he
placed 4th
. The reality is, much like the IOC, society loves placing people into categories in an attempt
to figure out where we all fit on our socially constructed totem pole. Society also attributes certain
characteristics of what is feminine and what is masculine, and who should act accordingly. The IOC
decided that Maria was a man based off the backing of some test, but they didn't take into account how

3. Maria felt. How Maria identified. Maria had lived her entire life thus far as a woman, and that was all
to be negated because of some test? All Maria wanted to do was jump some hurtles – she didn't expect
the IOC to add a few of their own.
Much like Maria, John from the “John/Joan” story knew quite a bit about losing everything you
have – by what is or isn't in your pants. John and his identical twin brother were both born genetically
male to loving and well-intentioned parents in Canada. However when a botched circumcision left
John's penis burned off, his parents – at the suggestion of Dr. Money (the irony of his name would be
comical if he weren't such a scumbag of a human being), they decided to raise him as a girl. Dr. Money
had done extensive work with Transsexuals, and with the whole idea of being transgender as new and
under explored as it was, Money seemed quite the perfect candidate to help this family adapt to a
lifestyle that they were not prepared for. For a while, the parents believed Dr. Money had been a
godsend to their family. He had found a way to make their precious son, their precious little girl. One
contingency of the procedure was that Joan must never be made aware that she was in fact born a boy.
She must at all times believe herself to be (and I hate this term) a “natural born” woman, otherwise the
delicacy and accuracy of their experiment would be in jeopardy. Dr. Money continued to treat his
favorite little experiment by visiting with the twins to make sure his intended results would be in favor
of his proposed hypothesis that children were capable of being taught their gender and sex.
All of this happiness was quickly shot down when it became apparent that Joan was not
comfortable fitting into the typical “female” gender roles that had been given to her. She enjoyed
playing with her brothers trucks as opposed to dolls. When Joan had a homework assignment asking
for answers to simple questions, her responses were not what you might expect from a young child. A
particularly interesting yet alarming one is when she responded to “My mother and I _______” with
“have nothing in common.” Dr. Money began to see all his hard work and effort stat to slowly slip
away - and he had to work fast in order to salvage what was left of his experiment. He began to
pressure a young child whom he had coerced into believing was a girl, to have additional procedures to

4. make her a woman and reinforced what she already knew – that she was not like other children. His
master plan into the medical books was slipping away but Money held tightly to his fame. Money
forced her and her brother to undress and take explicit and suggestive pictures together in sexual
positions. These files are still in existence. The children were informed of Joan’s real identity and they
stopped seeing Money. Joan and her brother were told the real story and Joan began to transition to
manhood. Eventually, both siblings end up committing suicide due to the extensive damage done to
them in these visits with Money. For the love of fame and notoriety, Money ruined an entire family. He
died still believing in his cause towards a gender bending and sex altered child success story.
Agnes felt as though she was a woman, and Garfinkel insisted she play the part. What Garfinkel
failed to realize is that Agnes was not auditioning for the role of “Woman” in a Broadway play, this was
who she felt she really was. This was the gender she really identified with. Garfinkel treated Agnes as a
guinea pig in his attempts to help her assimilate to the female gender. This reading in particular really
resonates with “one is not born, but becomes a woman”, a quote from Simone de
Beauvoir. I was brought up to think that women come in all shapes, sizes and mannerisms ( you
know, like ALL human beings). The fact that Garfinkel felt he could train Agnes to not just emulate,
but also embody all that being a woman is, makes it seem as though there is some secret formula of
femininity that Newton and Einstein just miscalculated. Swinging walk + mild demeanor + sex appeal
= Woman. All women are different and differing levels of femininity do not make some women more
womanly than their less likely counterparts. Agnes was to practice being a woman because she was at a
disadvantage than women who were born with, as Garfinkel put it, “born with genetically correct
credentials.” I still have a hard time grasping the idea that my naturally given ovaries somehow give me
more womanly attributes, and therefore more say in what constitutes a woman. I’d argue that in certain
heels, WOMEN don’t even walk the way he presumed women should walk. Also, I don’t remember
learning to walk like a woman when I was a toddler - I simply remember learning to walk. When you
compare this reading to the video Paris Is Burning, it creates a nice contrast. In Paris Is Burning, men

5. identify and live their lives as women but with a sense of pride. Cautious, yes. But I do not sense an air
of shame that reads in Agnes’ story. Both indicate a real disbelief in one’s natural born identity,
favoring a chosen and innate feeling of femininity. The fact that he would even suggest a level of
inferiority between transgendered women and natural born women is part of the issue. Gender should
be like religion – a personal choice, not a societal demand. ( I mean that to say that neither really are
without societal persecution.)
In another one of our readings, The Medical Construction of Gender: Case Management of
Intersexed Infants, we once again see that a woman's sex is not always concrete and often determined
by scientists and white men. Babies with both genitalia or having neither as discernible indicators, have
their “real, natural, biological gender, usually referred to as 'sex'.” This article reinforces that there is
severely blurred line between sex and gender. Sex is scientific. Gender is social. Ideally, the two would
be independent of each other, but society loves associating them with each other concurrently. In this
article, the length of a baby's penis or clitoris are indicators of intersexed babies. A too long clitoris,
according to the article means that a female baby will be raised as a male. Once again, women get the
er, short end of the stick.
Bathrooms don’t normally incite fear in people (unless of course it was half price margarita and
taco night at the local bar). For most people, it is a necessary good and serves its desired function. For
many however, the bathroom can be cause for secret and a shameful link to one’s undesired sex. I never
really wondered much about bathrooms. I probably use the more to fix my hair than anything else. But,
then I read an article by Judith Halberstam that made me much more aware of the kind of issues that
can arise by the image of two stick figures tossed on two different and equally “outing” doors. I never
really understood how something as simple as a bathroom could reinforce what I consider an outdated
dichotomous gender specific society. For instance, if a biological woman who identifies as a man and is
aesthetically portrayed as a man, then walking into a male restroom may not cause quite as much
anguish or hassle as it would for a woman who identifies as a woman but who is not as visually

6. declarative or convincing. For those whom are not yet comfortable revealing their identity (either
chosen or biological), just entering a bathroom at all can be a declarative statement in and of itself.
Luckily, Kingsborough does it’s best to be as open and incorporative as possible with its unsexed single
occupancy bathrooms across campus. In having gender neutral bathrooms, it signals that these
bathrooms can alleviate at least a little anxiety for people whom are worried about being comfortable
and secure. It does beg a question though – if you can biologically male and identify your gender as
female, are either really permanent? And is it reasonable to guide children to behave in ways often
associated with their gender when they are too young to understand why they can't play with a barbie if
they have a penis?
Race also plays a role in how the play their gender. In a reading I found particularly gendered
and racially focused, We Don't Sleep Around Like White Girls Do, Filipina women discuss the
differences between the White women they consider American and the women of their native land.
According to the reading, Filipina women like many women raised Catholic are expected to stay chaste
until after marriage. Women's sexuality is controlled in a very obvious way because of religious beliefs
as well as cultural and social norms. Gender is very socially constructed when we consider how much
virginity is symbolic of a woman's obedience to her parents and her faith as well as to her future
husband. It appears as though women who are able to refrain from sexual activity are doing so as to
appease their parents, and is a sign of the obedience she will exhibit as a wife. Gender is absolutely
socially constructed in this culture and is evident in the way obedience and sexuality are encouraged
and influenced heavily by religion and cultural standards of femininity. However, this culture is not
alone in it's thoughts of gender.
Women in America are victims of the gender role paradox. If we behave as feminists, we lose
our identity as feminine for being “combative” - a nice way of saying we stand up for ourselves. If we
allow men to take care of the financial responsibilities while we fulfill the role of Mother and
homemaker , we are seen as regressive to the Feminist movement even though we may being doing so

7. by choice. Commercials for douche and shaving companies tell women that we are dirty, unhygienic,
and need to “mow the lawn” (also, riddled with racial undertones). In a douche commercial, a man who
accidentally uses his wife's douche as body wash, actively works to try and regain his masculinity that
may have been lost due to a ph-balanced body wash targeted for a woman's vagina. Needless to
reinforce, I absolutely believe gender is socially constructed, and we are society. Work needs to be done
by both men and women to remove the stigmas and expectations held for men and women. I'll end with
a quote I once read that seems like a good synopsis of this essay - “Woman is my slave name”.