gender and identity as theoritical concepts
‘Gender and Identity as theoretical concepts’
“The term gender is part of the attempt by contemporary feminists to stake claim to certain definitional ground, to insist on the inadequacy of existing bodies of theory for explaining persistent inequalities between women and men”. (Joan W. Scott, Gender: A useful category of historical analysis)
Feminist politics has enabled the rethinking of the previously taken –for-granted understandings of gender and its place in the social and the symbolic world. The interventions in thinking about gender have overturned previous certainties about the fixed order and meanings of gender. But before that we need to ask some crucial questions to lay out the field which later in the paper will be questioned, challenged and expanded. What is gender? What is identity? What helps in its formation? How does gender contributes to the identity formation? Why do we need identity? Why do people see themselves in terms of gender identity? Why the idea of masculinity and femininity is central to the self? These are some important questions that the title of the paper encapsulates. The difficulties with the application of the concept ‘gender’ are theoretical and political at the same time. It creates a boundary that hinders in the way of its proper utilization. Theory posits certain beliefs including gender roles that not notify women and men, how they behave, but rather sets certain code of conduct that tells them how should the behave. The foundation of the research paper (gender and identity as theoretical concepts) and the perception discussed is based on the pillars of Joan W. Scott’ essays ‘Gender: A useful category of Historical analysis’, Denise Riley’s, “Does sex have a history”, Susie Tharu and Tejaswini Niranjana’s, “problem for a contemporary theory of gender” and Judith Butler’s, ‘subjects of sex/gender/desire’. The premises laid by
“The term gender is part of the attempt by contemporary feminists to stake claim to certain definitional ground, to insist on the inadequacy of existing bodies of theory for explaining persistent inequalities between women and men”. (Joan W. Scott, Gender: A useful category of historical analysis)
Feminist politics has enabled the rethinking of the previously taken –for-granted understandings of gender and its place in the social and the symbolic world. The interventions in thinking about gender have overturned previous certainties about the fixed order and meanings of gender. But before that we need to ask some crucial questions to lay out the field which later in the paper will be questioned, challenged and expanded. What is gender? What is identity? What helps in its formation? How does gender contributes to the identity formation? Why do we need identity? Why do people see themselves in terms of gender identity? Why the idea of masculinity and femininity is central to the self? These are some important questions that the title of the paper encapsulates. The difficulties with the application of the concept ‘gender’ are theoretical and political at the same time. It creates a boundary that hinders in the way of its proper utilization. Theory posits certain beliefs including gender roles that not notify women and men, how they behave, but rather sets certain code of conduct that tells them how should the behave. The foundation of the research paper (gender and identity as theoretical concepts) and the perception discussed is based on the pillars of Joan W. Scott’ essays ‘Gender: A useful category of Historical analysis’, Denise Riley’s, “Does sex have a history”, Susie Tharu and Tejaswini Niranjana’s, “problem for a contemporary theory of gender” and Judith Butler’s, ‘subjects of sex/gender/desire’. The premises laid by