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Provide a 10 pages analysis while answering the following question: Evolving the Concept of Gender Identity

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Provide a 10 pages analysis while answering the following question: Evolving the Concept of Gender Identity. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. Women were not allowed to own property, vote in elections, and hold leading positions. Fortunately, the development of civilization and democratization of society resulted in women becoming more equal and free from many humiliating stereotypes. After a famous quote of Simona de Beauvoir “one is not born a woman, but rather becomes, a woman” feminists directed their critique to traditional women`s subordination to men which were built upon structuralists` theories and biological determinism (Beauvoir, 2011). Since then the discussions about sex as of cultural construct do not cease. It seems that it is impossible to argue with nature which divided men and women with the help of different chromosomes: XX for female and XY for male.

Scientific proof that female and male genders are conditioned and not as opposite as it seemed came with the research data from hormones study: it was revealed that both male and female contain hormones of both sexes Judith Butler, another important feminist writer, gave a new impact on feminism studies with her book “Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity”. Butler linked identity formation to social discourses and claimed that as long as authorities and regimes influence discourses formation the categories of sex and gender cannot be natural and essential to the full extent (Butler, 1999). She also emphasized the power of media in its ability to control, regulate, shape, and define gender identity. And it does sound reasonable. Media serves as the most powerful, all-encompassing, and complicated factor influencing social discourses created directly supported and regulated by regimes. In other words, media defines what we are talking about, how we are talking about it, and what we want eventually.

Media shapes our tastes, perceptions, opinions by shifting placing accents on some things, and bringing to attention other things. Media is impossible to avoid: in order to be up-to-date and timely a person must trace the events that unfold so fast around him to react properly. So the power of media is well-known to anybody and was undisputable before the appearance of the Internet for sure but it is difficult to deny that today people feel the most serious pressure because of the media (Ross, 2010).