Philosophy and Gender: Audrey Dubauskas

 In an article, Performance Acts and Gender Constitution, Judith Butler discusses how gender is formed through a series of acts that are renewed, revised, and consolidated through time. She mentions Beavoir's claim that woman is a "historical situation" that the body undergoes a cultural construction through conventions that proscribe one's acts or performances. To make these theories easier to comprehend, Butler compares it to theatrical versus reality. I found this comparison helpful when analyzing her text because it was easier for me to understand how her theory fully lays out. According to Butler, in the theatre, one can claim that it is "just an act" or that they are "playing pretend", and by claiming this they separate the act from reality. However, in reality, there are no claims or conventions that delimit the act causing some to be fearful or view the reality dangerous. She gives an example of a transvestite because on a stage, a transves...

     During day to day activities, we are placed in to social constructed categories, and these categories set parameters for how others interact with us. There are many different frameworks that have been presented on how to account for social properties, who has the authority, and how do these properties come about. The best framework is the conferrals framework. According to Asta, " The conferrals schema, when filled out, is a way to articulate the idea that we have a social property because of something about other people by saying that a social property is conferred upon us." This means that, in the conferrals framework, we have social properties because others bestow the property onto us. These conferred properties can either be institutional or communal. An institutional property is a property linked to one's status in a social structure; a good example would be being a queen or president. Therefore, social categories are placed onto us by people with standing, and...

 In the 2016-2017 term at Siena College, there was a student climate survey. The results showed that 100% of transgender students at Siena College experienced bias, harassment, and/ or discrimination. As a current student at Siena, I feel upset that these are the results of the survey because I love this school. However, I am not shocked that 100% of transgender students experienced bias, harassment, and/or discrimination. The reason I am not shocked is due to the fact that in every community, there are people who are not accepting. Unfortunately, sometimes the people, who are not accepting, are the most vocal. It is sad to know people can be mean and cruel towards others for simply being themselves. Everyone should be able to be who they are without being harassed or discriminated against.  I think that Siena should have a mandatory seminar discussing the topics of sexuality, gender , and accepting others. This seminar would be good for everyone, but especially those, who do ...

 In Patricia Collins's article, "It's All In the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation",  she discusses how the imagined  traditional family ideal is the embodiment of intersectionality within the United States. Intersectionality is the theory that the overlap or combination of social identities, such as gender and race, contributes to systematic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual. The term "family values" or "family ideal" is a type of intersectionality used in the United States, especially in politics. The common idealized family is a heterosexual couple who produce their own biological children; this type of family has a basic  authority structure with the father at the head of the table, making the money. The traditional family ideal constitutes power as an ideological construction and as a principle of social construction. Family ties into intersectionality partly due to how it consists of the relationship b...

 Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss philosopher during the 18th century, and heavily inspired the French Revolution. Even though he viewed men and women equal, Rousseau believed that women needed to be subordinate to men. Rousseau thought that education should focus on the development of moral traits, instead of facts and figures. The traits that women should obtain are the abilities to attract and keep husbands, manage the household and obey authority. For the 18th century, I believe that  his so-called "prescriptions of education" was based on the social constructs of how women should behave. During this time period, women depended on men for basic necessities, such as shelter and food.  A majority of women did not have jobs or earn money; therefore, they worked in the house and took care of the family, while the men were earning money. Rousseau's ideals for women's education aligns with gender roles during this time.  Today, Rousseau's philosophy of education fo...

 Many cultures have a variation on gender categories for social functions and roles. Although they consider humans as only having two sexes, they believe some humans express their gender in three. In Canada, the Inuit culture recognizes three genders for religious and cultural reasons. A Canadian anthropologist, Bernard Saladin d"Anglure, theorizes that the Inuit third gender is the practice of raising a portion of biological females to dress and act like boys, while a portion of boys are raised to dress and act like girls. D'Anglure believes that the two reasons for gender-swapping are due to economical reasons and "cosmological" reasons. Economically, some children are raised as an opposite gender when there is a gender imbalance in a family. The family will want an equal number of males and females to perform duties associated with the gender. For example, a biological boy may be raised as a girl if the family needs more help with cooking and cleaning. Cosmologica...