Sunday, September 23, 2007

Activity #5 - Gender aptitude test

Kate Bornstein is a transsexual who wishes to dissolve the notion that there are only two genders and to push that the terms “gender” and “sex” should not be interchanged. Bornstein proves that she completely backs this idea, because she was born a man and has now changed to become a woman. She wrote the book My Gender Workbook in which s/he questions why we must set certain gender roles for males and females and the problems that occur because of the male/female dichotomy we have created. Instead of abiding by the rules of a certain gender, Bornstein has determined to remain genderless. S/he asks her readers to engage in activities that unveil gender roles that we all create, mindlessly or not. Then s/he asks us to question why we do this and why we abide by these rules. S/he describes that “…we rarely achieve personal fulfillment by mindlessly wandering through life, taking the path of least resistance and little or no responsibility for our actions. We need to question our assumptions and that includes our assumptions about sex and gender, if we’re going to understand those aspects of ourselves and others” (My Gender Workbook excerpt 1, pg 4/5). Many people may think Bornstein is just trying to break the rules or draw attention, but s/he is truly asking people to step back and reflect on society’s standards. Bornstein is trying to open our minds to different ideals.

After taking her gender aptitude test, I found that I was a gender novice. Basically, I am just beginning my exploration of breaking down the gender walls. I am not surprised at all with these results. I’m actually quite pleased. When I began the readings, I was completely confused. I’m still somewhat confused about why we cannot interchange sex and gender, but I am beginning to understand that they should not appear dependent upon each other. I was in the mindset that when people switched their genders it was because they wanted to feel like they truly belonged. Now I understand that the point is not to simply belong to one gender; it is to be able to find where one’s role is within the genders. Before beginning this class or even completing Bornstein’s readings, I probably would not have even understood why there should be more than two genders. Now, I’m beginning to question these ideals and I think this is what the results of my aptitude test prove.

By testing the product, we can find out how we feel about many of the gender aspects Bornstein discusses such as “assignment”, “role”, “identity”, and “attribution”. In the readings s/he describes how we can think of gender as a pyramid. “The higher up we go on the pyramid, the fewer people there are belonging to that preferred gender. The higher up we go, these fewer people have more and more power” (My Gender Workbook excerpt 2, pg 3/19). I also enjoy how Bornstein sometimes puts a “silly” spin on the answers in her test. It seems s/he is trying to make the topic more comfortable and easier to understand; therefore, we are more willing to be open-minded. One can learn his or her relationship to gender more than most people even want to think about. The test does have some limiting responses available so it may cause this relationship to be seen in a cloudy manner. It also does not tell you how you can work to improve your aptitude; however, it at least makes us aware of where we stand. I think this is what I’m learning most in this course. You must first put down your walls to become aware of your feelings, and then you can move forward to change them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this is a thoughtful response to an activity designed to make you feel uncomfortable