Brody PHIL 285 Blog

The book of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity  was really valuable to me in learning more about transgender people. Specifically in chapter 10 titled Experiential Gender, Julia Serano gave an impressive look at what the whole transition is like for someone whose gender identity is more like a puzzle than a concrete example of manhood/womanhood. Speaking from personal experience, the transgender community is something that I haven't really come to understand because I haven't tried to understand them. This short chapter spoke the truth from Julia's personal experience and that is something that I can really appreciate.  When Julia speaks first of subconscious sex, she states, "Most people whose physical and subconscious sexes coincide generally fall rather seamlessly into womanhood or manhood; as a result, they take for granted the identity of woman or man"(216). While in Julia's conscious she felt that she was puzz...

Using the conferralist framework to understand social properties among people in society is an ongoing theme that I am starting to understand through different texts in this course. Specifically in this weeks reading of  Categories we Live By: The Construction of Sex, Gender, Race and other Social Categories by Asta. I am coming to understand the role of society in placing these properties on everyone whether it be sex, gender, popularity, beauty, and more. We live in a world where we are constantly seeking the attention and approval of those around us because they are the ones who ultimately shape the perception of who we are. It isn't an ideal situation and one that really flies under the radar, but by looking at the root causes we can come to further understand these social properties.  Asta believes that we are put into social categories institutionally through examples of student, citizen, legally married and so on. But we can also find ourselves thrown into categori...