Gender and Identity

I have never taken the time to actually think about what gender and identity means to me until I took this class, which is ENG 259: Gender, Images, and Rhetoric. While growing up, I had always categorized gender as being either male or female, because that is what I was told, but now that I am grown, I come to learn that there are other genders besides male and female. When speaking of identity, I would say a person’s identity is the distinctiveness of the gender they represent.


I had to read an essay by Judith Lorber called “Night to his Day”: The Social Construction of Gender. I agree with her that the construction of gender starts at birth. After each birth of all my children, I could not wait until the doctor told me what my newborn’s gender was, so at the first sight of the genitalia it was going to be a boy or a girl. A lot of people may not be aware that babies born are not always male or female, and their gender is unknown, so what happens when it is unclear what the sexual category is? I am not sure; therefore I would guess hormone tests are done, and the decision of labeling the gender is left up to the parents, which would be to categorize the newborn’s gender as male, female, or other.

When talking about gender and identity, I feel a person’s identity is usually based on their sexual characteristics. Identifying a person by their clothing and mannerisms can fool anyone into believing their identity. On the other hand, there are people who clearly identify themselves as a particular sex and truly portray the mannerisms of that sexual category even without wearing the clothing; it could be that it is who they are inside that makes them that way, and if this is the case, I would say they are justly portraying their natural born identity.

I agree with a lot of things in the essay that I read; such as society places a role in conforming gender roles, and these roles changes all the time, so what use to be the—NORM for gender roles 10 years ago may not be the norm now. In the past, women stayed home and took care of the children and kept the house because that was their role, but now there are men choosing to stay home to rear the children, cook, and clean while their wives bring home the bacon. Even though this is one of the new gender roles in this society, I still can’t quite embrace it. Another thing that I agree with is the classification of gender; I am guilty of classifying my sons and my daughters, as well as a lot of people I know. I dressed my daughters in—PINK and got their ears pierced to proclaim their gender as female, and for my sons they did not wear the pastel colors; they wore anything that made a statement that they were boys, and I did all this because I was in control of their identity. News flash!!! Once my kids discovered their own identity in grade school, my boys begged to have a pierced ear because it was cool, and my daughters hated anything that was pink and frilly.

I believe by taking this class it will heighten my perception about the different types of gender, and help me to understand how people identify themselves as another gender besides male or female.

First Time

Hi, this is my first time blogging; I have to keep a journal of my readings in my ENG 259 class, which use to be called Images of Women in Literature, but it is now called Gender, Images, and Rhetoric. Well, wish me luck because my first blog is due next week, so I better get started on what I think about “Night to his Day”: The Social Construction of Gender by Judith Lorber.