Gender and Race (S chapter 5 part II)

In Scherchner chapter 5 part II, she explains the underlying cause of gender roles/segregation. She argues that the body's raw parts (penis, vagina, height discrepancies, etc.) are all ONLY given meaning by social norms. For example, Society tells us that a penis is for a man and a vagina is for a woman. Society tells men to put on a tough guise and women to be submissive to some extent. This whole argument reminded me of the notion of language being arbitrary. This basically means that there is no natural correlation between a word and what that word represents. The correlation only occurs because of a language pioneer giving words representations. This makes me ask the question, "What if this social idea of gender did not exist?"

The chapter also brings up the concept of race. I personally do not believe that there is a proficient way to categorize race (or even humans as a whole). As stated in the article, race very variable. There is no distinct cut of point between these so-called races. Why is it that society tries to makes all of these classifications?