I will admit, there were many parts of the reading by Asta where I found myself confused. I feel a lot of the other works that we read were debating on whether or not gender is something we are born with or if it is more pushed on us by society. There was a debate, but I felt a lot of the pieces we read said gender was more of a social construct rather than something that we just are. I felt that Asta was arguing the opposite of that. That we are what we are. It is not that people cannot identify as something else or anything like that, but a person is what others deem them to be. It is all about popularity and the way that you are perceived by others. On page 29 she talks about a married couple. If there is some legal matter involved in their marriage that does not make it official, then they are not a married couple. They can act like one, call themselves married, and whatever else, but it does not actually make them a married couple. I think that is Asta's main point. We can choose to do what we want and how we identify but that cannot change the way we are perceived and will be treated. I may have interpreted this reading incorrectly but this is what I got from it.
I think it's interesting cause I feel this piece differs from what we have read. A lot of it has been the debate on whether or not gender is a social construct or whatnot. Here, I do not think Asta is even up for debate. They even tell us that the conferralist framework works for all social categories. This piece just felt very different from what we have read so far. The ideas of what gender is seemed to not matter that much because it is as if it doesn't matter. It is the way that others perceive us that is important. It is in those ways that we will be treated in a certain way. Whether that treatment comes from traditional gender roles or anything like that is not the point here, but rather that how we are treated is dependant on the way that we are perceived and that is what is important. As I said, I struggled a little bit with this reading. These are the main points that I got from it, which could be completely wrong but this was my line of thinking.
ReplyDeleteHi Bri,
I felt the same way when reading Asta’s work. It was definitely a very different perspective than that of which we have been studying and discussing this past semester. It is good to expose ourselves to varying arguments and viewpoints to broaden our knowledge about topics so better educate ourselves in choosing which one we adhere to.
Hi Bri,
ReplyDeleteI also found Asta's work to be challenging, but interestingly, I interpreted the text slightly differently. I took it that Asta was arguing in favor of her "Conferalist Framework," and in doing so she actually does argue that gender is socially constructed. I understood her explanation to mean that when a quality is "conferred" under this framework, that means that that quality is not intrinsic to a person, but is instead judged, deemed, and “conferred” by others onto a person based on physical and external characteristics and properties. On the other hand, she explains that when a quality is "constituted," as opposed to "conferred," that quality is something that is intrinsic to a person, and is independent of the perceptions of others. I was under the impression that Asta believes that gender, as well as some of the other social groups in our society, fall under the category of “conferred traits” and are therefore not intrinsic to people. This, from what I interpreted, indicates that such traits are in fact socially constructed, because they are based on the judgments and perceptions of others. Gender, just like social popularity, in Asta’s view, are socially constructed categories based only on the perceptions of others. The way I see it, the fact that Asta views gender as something that exists only in the way we are perceived, and is not something intrinsic to us, is the very thing that makes it socially constructed, because to be socially constructed means to be formed by social forces, and the perceptions and judgements of others are, in many ways, social forces.