The Technology of Gender - Assignment Example

The Technology of GenderDifferent theories of differences between people on the basis of sex have surfaced from time to time. Various connotations of gender are proposed in the literature, each depicting not only the individualistic thinking of the theorist, but also the cultural influences and gender roles prevailing in a certain society. The cultural conceptions of men and women comprise a gender system, a system of meanings, and a symbolic system within each culture which identifies the link between sex and cultural contents.

Politics and economy influence the sex-gender system in every culture. Over the passage of time, with greater representation of women in the workforce, gender has become confined to family matters and insensitivity toward gender is found in the social framework. The technology of gender is the term used to refer to those sets of cultural practices which play a role in making a body gendered. This course’s theoretical basis is the conceptualization and articulation of the human body within particular discourses of culture that include but are not limited to religion, law, medicine, and economy.

These discourses are based on the deepest cultural ideologies and belief systems and jointly form a framework that dictates particular ways in which men and women should think, behave, and interact with one another and with the environment. Four propositions made in the article when mentioned chronologically in decreasing order of self-evidence include; gender is a representation, this representation is the construction of gender, the process of gender construction is as efficient today as it was in the past, and the deconstruction of gender affects its construction.

In this article, the author has complimented upon the perception of ideology as being without outside. The author suggests that there does exist an outside to ideology, “a place from where ideology can be seen for what it is – mystification, imaginary relation, wool over one’s eyes; and that place is…scientific knowledge” (de Lauretis). I would like to second the author in this because science does provide explanation for a phenomenon on the basis of objective reasoning and logic. Characterization of the subject of feminism by the movement as ideological representation in and out of the gender is a back and forth movement between gender representation and what is made unrepresentable by the gender.

This is a thought-provoking article discussing and analyzing several feminist theories of ideology, their strengths and weak points, areas of thinking, and critical analysis. While I agree to most of the things that have been argued for in the article, I have a different opinion on the representation and identification of gender in the social platforms. I agree to the writer in her statement that a radical change in feminist consciousness has taken place over the last few decades; “the shift in feminist consciousness has been taking place during this decade may be said to have begun…with 1981…the shift in feminist consciousness…is best characterized by the awareness and the effort to work through feminism’s complicity with ideology, both ideology in general…[and] heterosexism” (de Lauretis 10-11).

In popular culture, women have become more vocal and critical about the rights granted to them by the society. Works Cited:De Lauretis, Teresa. “The Technology of Gender.” N.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. .