The Concept of Race and Gender - Essay Example

That is why gender is not natural because it can be modified, recreated, and protested against. Sex is natural. One culture will define an actual man who beats up his wife, while another culture will consider a person a man considering his height and voice. Some cultures define a woman as a person bearing children, while others represent a woman with delicate stature. These are all the gender roles that every culture assigns to men and women, thus associating these roles with one gender. Generally speaking, as in all cultures, the male gender is associated with functions like going out for jobs, playing games, joining clubs, and becoming politicians; In contrast, the female gender is associated with roles like running a house, bearing children, raising them, doing grocery, serving the family, and the like.

Thus, we assign specific roles to one gender and call it man or woman. Biologists talk about gamete size when defining sex, but culture talks about power and freedom while talking about men; and about frailty, sex and cowardliness while talking about women. This distinction of gender is defined by society depending upon societal roles. Women are slightly flexible in that they are open about men’s roles in society and are ready to accept them. Why this perception arose goes back to the history of feminism, which has motivated women to come out of their stereotypic personalities and stand equal to men. The reverse is not possible, nor will men let it happen. They are obnoxious toward reverse gender roles. Stephen (2002, 50) gives an example from Latin America. He states, "As the Spanish explored northern Mexico, which later became the American Southwest, they found same-sex sexual interaction among men and men who seemed to be dressed like women.” This shows that gender can be adopted. Also, Kulick (1997, 574) describes in his paper how Latin American society generates diverse arrangements of gender, consisting of men and not-men instead of men and women. Hence, gender and gender roles are changeable, which is the main difference between sex and gender. So, gender is not natural.

Now, let’s talk about race not being natural. Races do not exist because there is no biological category of races. It is also, like gender, a theory constructed by society. Someone belonging to a specific geographical location, with features resembling the people of that geography, belongs to a particular race defined by culture. But those features could have been changed if someone was raised in a location different from his ancestors. Hence, race cannot be passed on to the next generation because it is not based on biological facts. Goldstein (1999, 564) also states that race is determined by phenotype and context. The idea of race not being natural is challenging to understand when compared to gender. Simple is that race is defined by geographical distinctions, which are not defined by nature. Races only make divisions of otherwise disordered biological patterns, as separating these natural patterns makes it easy to allocate resources between populations. In the film “Blacks in Latin America”, we know that blacks in Latin America are a mix of many ancestors, Africans, Indians, and Europeans. Hence, it is wrong to consider them only Latinos (Louis Gates Jr. 2011).

To conclude, sex is defined by Nature, while gender roles are determined by society. Gender roles define what males and females are expected to do. Males are generally associated with positive stereotypes and are supposed to go out, do sports and have fun along with their jobs. Females are often related to negative stereotypes and are restricted inside their homes. These society-driven roles make gender unnatural. Similarly, the race is supernatural because it is not based on the biological characteristics of individuals but only serves to make easily manageable separations of populations. So, race and gender are society-driven characteristics of individuals and are not natural.