Class: MA Semester 3,2020

Dept : English

Paper: Elective: Gender.

Teacher: Bandana Sharma.

An Introduction to Gender Studies; Basic Concepts.

The terms sex and gender are often used as interchangeable concepts, but they are different in
meaning. The sex of a person is decided by Nature and when a child is born it takes no time to know
whether it is a boy or a girl. But the gender of a person is “constructed” by society ; it is society that
decides what a man or a woman should do or not do, what their roles in society shall be,what their
status shall be, what they shall wear, etc ,etc.

Society also decides what the abilities of men or women are and who is the superior between the two.
For example, in earlier times, in the West, especially, women were considered to inferior in intelligence
to men, even stupid. Men were considered to be mentally and physically stronger, and women were
considered to be weak in all aspects. On the basis of these baseless ,unsubstantiated notions women
were treated as the second sex ,or the inferior of the two sexes. This is the cause behind gender bias
and injustice against women.

Gender studies are playing a a significant role in making society aware of the faulty notions against
women.This field of study is, however, relatively new. Interest in anthropology grew after World War
1.The reknowned scholar of anthropology, Margaret Mead,made studies of several cultures in the East
and found that gender notions were different there to that of the West. She found in the East
matrilineal societies in which matriarchy prevailed. The senior female members of the family were
dominant figures in the family and the men obeyed them. We have some such societies in India,in the
North East and in some parts of Kerala.

Mead’s observations made scholars re-think about gender roles and status. They found that ideas about
gender are not fixed ,they are fluid and subject to change. Nor are they universal. They may differ from
region to region and class to class and religion to religion,etc,etc. You may have noticed that women
from Indian villages smoke beedies without any sense of shame; women in the cities would be put to
shame for doing the same. There are things that are taboo in one social class are quite acceptable in
another.Scholars have been working on these ideas and have made significant contributions, So have
writers and feminist writers.

George Bernard Shaw, writing in the Victorian Age, always presented strong women in his plays. Reason:
his father was a good-for-nothing drunkard ; Shaw’s mother, a very confident and able woman, gave
music lessons to run her family’s expenses. And, of course, the complete responsibility of the family
was on her. Long before Gender Studies began ,Shaw had written in the Epilogue to Pygmalion that
intelligence and strength are not distributed by nature on the basis of gender.(pls look up the Epilogue
and quote ).
The feminist writer,Simone de Beavoir wrote that women are not born women, it is society that turns
them into “women” asking them to behave ,dress, think in a particular manner. Judith Butler, a very
influential scholar,says that there is no essential womanhood or manhood inherent in our bodies.It is by
performing certain acts again and over again that it assumes gender.