Sex: female Gender: fluid
Is gender and sex the same thing? Think about a typical day walking down the street. As you are walking you see females in dresses and men in suits. Do you automatically think that the female was born a female and vice versa? Throughout our lives everything around us has been entitled to a specific gender. Some examples are food, names, and cars. People have always used gender to identify these things. The small pink cars would be for women and the fast big cars would be for men. Society is comfortable with the binary. Society does not feel comfortable hearing that meat is for women and chocolate for men. The director of Yale’s Prevention Research Center Kat says that “Men and women have differences in physiology which might have to do with access to different kinds of food.” I think a lot of people believe this because this goes way back to historic times. However, in other places, research shows that men are the ones who crave the sweet foods more than women. The United States of America is one of the most gender-segregated cultures in the world. This means that people in the U.S are forced to eat certain foods that match their gender. Men who eat meat and drink beer do it to prove they are male. Individuals want to feel a sense of belonging.
Ruby Rose, a famous Australian DJ that casted on Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” does not identify as either male or female. She says “I am very gender fluid and feel more like I wake up everyday sort of gender neutral.” Society is not used to this and will not accept it. For centuries, in the U.S gender roles have always been female or male. Judith Butler is a philosopher who emphasizes performativity between the two genders. In her work “Bodies That Matter” she argues that gender and sex are different. The reasons she give to why individuals think they are the same is because that is the social norm. All individuals want to matter to others. She also proves that materiality has become something we see every day. She distinguishes sex from gender. Gender is the cultural meaning that we go by. Ruby Rose has been told that she was too pretty to be gay. This concludes that gay is ugly. Some individuals disapprove people like Ruby Rose because they are not living into cultural norms. If you want to be accepted as a certain gender you have to act a certain way. Gender is a performance and if one does not act to a certain standard you will not be identified.
Butler says “Sexual difference, however, is never simply a function of material difference which is not in some way both marked and formed by discursive practices.” This means that society always differentiates the body of both males and females. Gender and Sex are different from each other. Sex is biological and gender is the behavior. Ruby Rose is biologically female but always saw herself more of a male. In an interview Rose states “For the most part I definitely do not identify as any gender. I’m not a guy; I do not really feel like a woman, but obviously I was born one. So, I’m somewhere in the middle, which — in my perfect imagination — is like having the best of both sexes. I have a lot of characteristics that would normally be present in a guy and then less that would be present in a woman. But then sometimes I’ll put on a skirt — like today”. I agree to her way of thinking because there is freedom to what she is saying. If everyone thought this way there will be a lot less gender conflicts. Your biology has nothing to do with the way you identify yourself. She feels comfortable and happy being gender fluid. Rose is a role model to all the individuals feeling pressured to be a certain gender. Be whoever you want to be and accept who you are.
