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Abigail Reed
Professor Beadle
English 115
September 12, 2015
Progression 1 Essay
A common idea in the articles Rethinking Womens Biology, written Ruth Hubbard and
Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender, written by Aaron Devor is an
underlying issue that we have had for years: Gender equality. The articles point out many
interesting facts concerning the idea of gender roles and the difference between masculinity and
femininity. The first article talks about the common idea of gender equality from a biological
point and the second article looks at societal views of gender equality and what roles are
considered to be masculine and feminine.
What a child likes and even the way a child acts is all dependent upon what their parents
put into their head. When babies are born they dont know the difference between a girl toy and
boy toy, they only know that it is a toy. Ruth Hubbard, a professor emerita of biology at Harvard
University, wrote One isnt born a woman (or man) one becomes one (Hubbard 46). When
thinking about this statement it can be proven true, childrens decisions are only guided by
parents who want them to grow up a certain way and play with certain toys and gadgets. As said
by Aaron Devor, As children, and later adults, the rules of membership in society, they come to
see themselves in terms they have learned from the people around them (Devor 35).They grow
up thinking that pink is a girl color and blue is a boy color and they do not know any better.

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The society we live in now should take part of the blame because they only allow people
to check two boxes when they identify themselves: female and male. Female and male has to do
with the sex of a person which is completely biological. There are many boxes that people could
check that has to do with how they identify themselves. Aaron Devor makes a point that Many
North and South American native peoples had a legitimate social category for persons who
wished to live according to the gender role of another sex (Devor 36). Our society has big issue
with acceptance and we havent been able to create a middle for these people who dont know
how to identify themselves.
Women are getting paid less and treated more sensitive just because of the way that the
world views women. Women are often seen as less than men because of their feminine
characteristics. Men are seen as more masculine which includes being tall and strong. Many
people agree but in reality women are not that different from men. When it comes to average
height men are only three to five inches taller than women. A lot of the height difference has to
do with diet and growth patterns. Women stop growing a couple years before men which is why
men typically become taller and the women are shorter. A common misconception is men tend to
be stronger than women. Men are stronger than women most of the time because they are put
into sports that focus on upper body strength. For example, football and baseball focus on the
arm strength. Hubbard explains an interesting point by explaining Both girls and girls and boys
tend to run a lot, and hopscotch and skipping rope are considered girls games (Hubbard 46).
Women are never expected to do that much physically so they tend to have all their muscle in
their legs.

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The only thing that separates women and men biologically is the reproductive organs that
they possess. Ruth Hubbard states I want to stress that we need have no ideological investment
in whether women and men exhibit biological differences, aside from the obvious ones involved
in procreation (Hubbard 50). Everything else that is inside a man and womans body is all the
same. People forget that humans are all so much alike that they end up treating each sex like
they are completely different species. Society basically bosses people around and gives them
gender-based roles dependent upon their sex. When it comes to gender women can be stronger
and taller than men and it shouldnt be seen as abnormal but that is what society makes it out to
be. If a person does not fit certain characteristics and personalities then they feel bad about
themselves and that is why an other needs to be created, that way people can fill in whatever
they would like.
Some may argue that women and men should be treated as two different species because
for some reason they believe that they are completely different. When it comes to attitudes and
how each sex reacts to situations it is true that a women reacts with a sense of maternity. This
sense of maternity is built into them because they dont know any better. If a woman has had to
stay home and care for the kids she is not going to react in the same way a father would because
the father may not be as close to the kids as the woman is. The woman will most like act more
emotional and attached the man would act unattached and unconcerned. This scenario would not
have to be this way if women were the ones who were working and the men were the ones who
stay at home. That being said a maternal instinct is thus built into women.
Another pressing issue as to why women are discriminated against is because most of the
time women are seen only as a reproductive species. One of the top things that pops into a

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persons head when thinking about the differences between man and a woman is women can get
pregnant and have babies. A result of women being seen as reproductive species is they have
more pressure on them to take care of their bodies which opens the door to body shaming.
Women take a lot more criticism than guys when it comes to how many calories they intake or
how often the work out.
Everyone knows what the picture perfect family looks like with a mom that stays at
home and does all the cleaning and taking care of the kids and the dad that is dressed in nice
business attire and has normal work hours that way he can be back in time for dinner that the
wife prepared. This is a clear example of the common misconceptions that people make. People
dont actually take time to realize that this is the society that we used to live in and it shouldnt
be seen as normal anymore. Women are starting to step up to the plate a lot more and a lot of
families just have one parent. For example, my three sisters and I grew up in what a traditional
family used to be until eight years ago when my parents got a divorce and my mom won custody
of us. The whole dynamic of our family shifted. She became the sole caregiver and provider of
the house because my dad wasnt paying child support. On top of being the bread winner she
was still the mom and the one who had to be there emotionally for us. My perspective changed
about what gender roles really were and I learned that just because tasks seem to be more
feminine or masculine than the other doesnt mean that the other sex is not capable of doing
those tasks.
In a perfect world people would be allowed to be who they want without being shamed or
ignored in society and there would be no roles based on gender because everyone would be
allowed to do what they want. Society puts a big emphasis about what is okay to do and not okay

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to do based on the sex of a person. A woman should be able to be a mechanic or a fisherman

without being seen as just another odd case. Trying to make a society be accepting of gender
equality will take a long time because the American society has been this way for hundreds of
years. Although we still have problems with gender equality I believe we are very slowly
transitioning into acceptance.

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Works Cited
Devor, Aaron. Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender. Composing
Gender (2013). 35-43.
Hubbard, Ruth. Rethinking Womens Biology. Composing Gender (2013). 46-52.

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Summary of the LRC

I received a lot of help with my essay when I went to the learning resource center. I was
confused on how to organize some of my thoughts and also how to add in some more resources.
My tutor was really helpful and walked me through how piece together everything I was trying
to say but also make it into a really nicely flowing essay. I worked on my counter argument with
him also because I learned that I needed to expand on it that way I didnt have a huge amount of
information from just one point of view. I also got help on referencing articles and organizing my
paragraphs to make more sense. He helped me find a good ratio of what should be referenced
and what should be just my words.
I also got help on the second part of the prompt which helped a lot also because I
normally have a hard time trying to tie in my own experiences and my own life without trying to
sound biased and without going on for too long. My tutor also helped me out with my word
choices and told me that instead of always writing out the article title I could just say the first
article or second. He caught a few mechanical errors I had made on my first draft, one of them
being that I forgot to introduce the authors in the first paragraph when I introduced the articles. I
thought that the learning resource center was a lot of help to me and my tutor gave me great
feedback.