The codes of gender

This week I learned something new ,it's crazy cause I already thought I new what it was .It was something simple something I never paid no mind too ,but after I watched a documentary talking about gender and sex , the meaning and the difference of the 2 words ,things started to make sense.Now that I think about it  if someone  were to ask me the difference between gender and sex a couple of weeks ago I would have said they were the same thing.

Sex-is different biological characteristics at birth.Gender-is the cultural definitions given to the physical differences.This means we are born as our sexes than we take up traits of our predecessors who have the same sex as us . Sut Jhaly is the maker of this documentary and also a professor who has spent more than 25 years on this subject of gender and sex but most of his research is based of  books called Gender advertisement and  The presentation of self in everyday life by Erving Goffman ,these books talk how  male and females are portrayed in the media and especially in adverts. 

He's theory is gender is nothing natural but it is imprinted , because the western culture has rules or a code.In India the are people who are not male and not female  their inbetween these 2 genders and their estimated to a million of them they are called the Hijras .The western world has gay,bisexual, lesbians etc but their still not accepted fully in society as the hijras are.

He believes the most contributing factor is advertisements which Ervin Goffman called "commercial realism" this basically being sold fantasy from taking from our real lives.But it pushes the wrong stereotypes of masculinity and femininity.It pushes that women are weak, soft ,must relay on a man and sexually satisfy a man but for man it is different cause they are portrayed as in control ,strong ,active etc.

This documentary might change your views on certain aspects of day to day life depending on your beliefs and how open minded you are. Realization of inequality starts to dawn on you and makes you think of how the world works or how others are treated because of the things they cannot change.