Essentialism Based on Gender - Essay Example

Proponents of essentialism argue that the essence of a group does not change and in situations where people believe they change, they just had not discovered those essences. For instance, in the modern-day situation regarding homosexuals, the belief that homosexuals were initially heterosexuals who changed would be quashed by essentialists who argue that homosexuals had been homosexuals since they were born only that their ‘homosexualness’ had not been discovered.

In Newman’s book, ‘manufacturing identities’ essentialism in race is very evident, especially in the censuses that were conducted in the country. for instance, during censuses that were conducted before 1900, people were classified according to race depending on the type of blood they had; the five categories were blacks (colored), mulatto (people with some black blood), Chinese, Indian, and whites. Another example that Newman has brought forward is that society considers men to be more aggressive and less nurturing just because they are men while women are soft and adapted by nature to nurturing just because they are women.

In the modern case scenario, the situation has not been different with essentialism being evident in our daily lives. For instance, the race that an individual belongs to has been used to determine the characteristics that belong to members of that group, this is widely the reason behind cases of racial profiling in the world. For instance in America, violence was associated with blacks therefore if any black man was violent it was believed that the reason for him being violent is the ‘blackness’ in him. Essentialism based on gender has also been rampant in the military and other employment opportunities for instance engineering where it is believed that a man will make a good engineer or a military man simply because he is a man.

Essentialism based on class is also common especially in economic environments, for instance, good managers are believed to be good managers because they come from a certain class, which has the characteristic of producing good managers. For instance, a friend of mine who had gone to a medical school and trained as a nurse was told he could not qualify to become a good nurse in a home for the aged because he was not a woman it is believed that women make good nurses for the aged because they are women. My uncle who has trained as a banker was also denied an opportunity to serve as branch manager of a bank simply because he did not come from a certain class, which was believed to produce excellent bankers.

Essentialism, which believes that people act the way they do because of their essence in them, identifies gender, class, race, and sexuality as among the groups that individuals. This essentialism, which has been there since the civilization of humankind has existed up to date with some characteristics being assigned to individuals just because they belong to a certain group. Read More