Karyn Samuel

My name is Karyn Samuel but many call me "Slim". I was born and raised in East Flatbush in Brooklyn and I wouldn't change that for the world. My neighborhood wasn't always the greatest environment but it sure as hell kept me grounded. My family is from Trinidad and Tobago and I must say I LOVE my culture. The music, the food, the family events are all part of what made me who I am. My passions are my family, music, poetry, and dance because those are the things that have saved my life over the years. There was a point in time where I became a product of my negative environment, but then I found poetry. I am in love with the art of expression and I really love the power of words. I am a comedian 95% of the time, but I have to admit that I love going out into the community and making a change in the lives of others. I love mentoring children that are at risk. I love mentoring and inspiring people because I know one day my story will do more than a few words of encouragement, but until I can get there, I will keep doing whatever it is that I do best.

What is the true definition of  the term "Gender"? No, I'm not talking about the dictionary's definition of the word, I'm talking about society's definition. Society has a way of misconstructing everything and imposing those misperceptions heavily into our way of thinking and acting. Originally, gender meant that we are either male or female, while
today it gets stereotyped to mean that females are soft and submissive and males are tough and dominant. However, according to Judith Butler, gender is performative. Using this as my motivation, I titled this webpage "Doing Gender." Judith Butler implies that our sex is performed based on the way society says it should be. These are just labels that tell us how we should act, what we should wear and say, and the things we should engage in based on our gender. In other words, we are stereotyped and categorized. In her writing about "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution," Butler (1988) argues "because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender creates the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all."

Gender is supposed to tell us how our people of our sex are supposed to act; therefore, we are not born males and females, we become them by practicing the acts that make up these gender roles. The rules of these actions seem to be created by a collective group of trend setters that have an understood agreement. In the same text, Butler (1988) states that "gender reality is real only to the extent that it is performed" (p. 527).  In other words, there is no such thing as a gender role or gender reality until we come to a place where we begin to perform those roles that are assigned to our gender by society.

Unfortunately, it is not only just men or just women that are stereotyped. Both are equally stereotyped on many levels.Women are known as the housewives and caretakers. They stay at home and make sure that the house is clean, that breakfast is prepared for their husbands as soon as they wake up, and that dinner is on the table as soon as they get home from work. If the couple has children, the wife is also responsible for taking care of them as well. The men, on the other hand, are the providers. They are the ones responsible for bringing home the money to keep the roof over the family's heads. Today, it often seems easier for women to do something that was traditionally labeled as "masculine," whether it is in the work field, in relationships, or simply in society. However, according to "Justice and Gender: Sex Discrimination and the Law" (1991), "women are still dramatically underrepresented in the highest positions of economic and political power and equally dramatically overrepresented in the lowest socioeconomic sectors" (p. 2). Gender will always be performative as long as people abide by the laws of these roles that permeate everything that we see and do.

References

Butler, J. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. 40(4), 519-531.

Ajinkya, J. (2012, March 7). Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/news/2012/03/07/11219/the-top-5-facts-about-women-in-our-criminal-justice-system/

L. Rhode, D. (1991). Justice and Gender: Sex Discrimination and the Law. 1-321.