The Australian Legend and Feminism :: essays research papers fc

The Australian subtitle And FeminismUntil recent years it has been believed that there ar two sexes, be male and female, and with these there are two genders, with these being masculinity and feminity. It may also be argued that sex is biology determined where as gender is socially and culturally constructed as studies of societies, both present and past, rent shown that there is no relationship between social roles and biological sex (Abercrombie, pitchers mound & Turner, 2000). With the introduction of post modernist feminist theories we have begun to question whether or not there are only two genders and how to classify transgender (Flax, 1990).It raise be argued that masculinity has socially and culturally been constructed as dominant at bottom the public world. In western countries, such as Australia, it is upon men that autonomy, falsify over the world and mastery of others (Porter, 1998, p. 27) has been placed. Parsons (Porter, 1998) suggested flipper alternativ e mystifys of positioned values which are structured as being either expressive or instrumental. Parsons (Porter, 1998) was of the principle that men embodied the instrumental values of affective neutrality (capable of reticent and impersonal interaction), self- orientation course (primary pursuit of own interests), universalism (making objective evaluations when interacting with others), achievement (ability to achieve set goals and related status) and specificity (interacting or working within a specific role). Parsons theorized that these five instrumental values were associated with western advanced societies (Porter, 1998).In Australia, women and children are seen to be subservient to the male superiority. Parsons (Porter, 1998) believed that women embodied the expressive values of affectivity (highly emotional), collective orientation (putting others interests before your own), particularism (responding differently towards different people), ascription (having status ascrib ed regardless of inwrought qualities), and diffuseness (role covers a wide range of interests and is non-specific). To Parsons these roles were seen to belong to primitive rescript and in modern times were to be associated with women and private life (Porter, 1998).These roles have been reinforced through popular media, for modeling by the watchword which is the worlds shell selling and most distributed book (Guinness World Records). Within the bible the sacred scripture "man" may be found 5,335 times in 4,536 verses whilst fair sex may be found 379 times in 347 verses (Christ Unlimited Ministries, n.d.). Passages of the bible may also reinforce the notion of male superiority for example in Genesis 126-28 (Christ Unlimited Ministries, n.d.) which tells of god creating Adam in his own image and then creating for Adam a helper, Eve, whom God calls charr as she is created from the rib of man.