On Gender, Sex, and Homophobia

Because my last lecture was cancelled due to an illness, I thought I offer my thoughts on the lecture before that, the one on sex and gender. I doubt that social conservatives will like this so move on if you are. But if you are gay, lesbian, transgender, or so forth, you will find the next few words of mine reassuring and welcoming. First...

Sex and Gender are DIFFERENT!

Many of us (including me) tend to use the words "sex" and "gender" interchangeably. Yet those terms (like "mass" and "weight," believe it or not) are quite different in meaning.

Sex is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as the two main categories of many living creatures (including humans) as defined by their reproductive organs. It's absolutely true that there are only two sexes, male and female. 

On the other hand, gender is identified as the social, cultural, behavioural and psychological traits of humans. It's quite fluid and occasionally vague, especially with the case androgyny. Or put in simple wording, GENDER IS BEHAVIOUR!

Also worthy of clarification is the fact that there is absolutely no fluid connection between gender stereotypes and one's sex. I learned that we learn about how to act from our parents, teachers and anyone else we interact with. In a sense, we are conditioned to perform in a certain way based on the ideologies we live around (the hegemony I talked about a few posts ago).

Did you know that there are actually nine genders?

Stereotypes

So why do we mix sex and gender? it's because we tend to associate one's behaviour with their sex. For example, a girl will play with dolls and a boy will want to head out to watch Star Wars.

We have specific behavioural associations with certain sexes. Masculinity tends to be associated with strength and power. Femininity is associated with grace and beauty. In the past, men and women all acted with their unique behaviours and no behaviour criss-crossed with another, until recently.

Leftovers

Then who's gonna stop them from swapping roles? Hey, there's a huge cult following for the animates series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and a good chunk of that fan base is male. Let me remind you that show is intended for the all-girl demographic that plays with My Little Pony toys.

Some of these stereotypes can get negative. Women are often denied a spot in male executive and engineering jobs because of the fact women aren't usually associated with such jobs. 1 in 3 Canadian women will be assaulted in Canada in their lifetime. It's even worse for transgender people, who often don't have a washroom they can go to. Gay people are often left alone, isolated from the rest.

Worse, there has been experiments among social conservatives to force such outliers to comply with the rest. That has been a problem when it comes to dealing with those that identify themselves within the LGBTQ community. Popular culture often rejects the idea of gays and lesbians. not only does this allow for bullying, but it also means that bystanders may not even try to intervene against such harassment.

The concept of gender is seen as a spectrum, a fluid position, not just two set categories in the case of sex. People will perform their gender roles based on their opinions and what the feel is right. As a result, we have these gender alignments that seem outlandish to some, and possibly you, but we're going have to respect that.

Gays have been around for quite a while. The area around Church and Wellesley in Toronto, was where a Briton that was homosexual but didn't want to face issues of being gay lived there. Today, we know what happens there. It's the gay village and it's where the big gay pride parade rolls into town.

The huge pride movement surfaces from the fact that the LGBTQ community is proud of their gender, and they're not afraid to show that.

I hope you're confused after reading this, and for a good reason. The LGBTQ community wants all to know that they're human, just like us. The thing is that sex and gender, although used interchangeably, are in fact two completely different things, and that by breaking the misconception, we can respect the fact that gays and transgendered individuals do exist.

Discourse, Text, and the University

As a university student, I’ve been asked to participate in a conversation on society and its underpinnings. The whole concept of the university has been based on the idea that we will be talking about ideas and spreading information. So how does discourse actually work? And how do we know what they mean?

Discourse is based on communications, language, symbols and signs. Signs indicate the presence or occurrence of anything else, such as an image of a man or a woman indicating a washroom. Symbols stand in for something else.

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols as well as their interpretations. In this context, a word could be considered a sign, since it's in place of the actual object.

Now, signs and symbols are arbitrary and therefore have different meanings in different contexts. They became what they mean by random. This makes sense, because there are so many languages
out there and we can therefore call glue in more than a thousand ways, including the French "colle."

Signs therefore, only make sense when they are in place within a set system. Signs can also have different meanings when placed in different contexts. The swastika could be a holy symbol of good luck in India, and it could be a unholy symbol among German Jews as the insignia of the Nazis.

The idea of signs and symbols being arbitrary also leads to the fact that hey can be shaped by ideologies, as in the case of the Nazi's above. These ideologies and viewpoints can change the meaning of a symbol immediately.

Now, let's talk about text. It is based on semiotics as I just mentioned. They are "linguistic structures" made up of words and phrases woven together into understandable statements.

There's another term, and it's "Text" with a capital T to boot. It stands for all text that has ever been written. Don't confuse the two.

The two are related with work, which is essentially a piece of literary expression, like a story. Work has a set meaning. That mans it has to make sense.  That "Buffalo" one is perhaps so confusing.

As our language changes, so does our work, and it can change the meaning of it as well. Text is a social space for discussion, as in academic discourse.

Also notable is the death of the author. With multiple reader interpretations, its up to the reader to determine the text. Therefore, the role of the author is now meaningless as the author no longer conveys meaning.

And that's the beauty of the university. It allows us to interpret the meaning of what's discussed each and every day by every one of us. We see text and we must determine what it actually means, and how others will see it. In fact, this applies to anything the university engages in. From here, we can fix society by lifting prejudices on one another.

This is just one of the many ways we can see the importance of the university. There are countless many others. But you can see here that all centres on one thing, the issue of discourse. It is the whole base of the concept  of the university.

Ideology and Mass Media: Lack of Diversity?

The media industry. Everyone cares about it nowadays. The rise of Netflix and other online offerings such as YouTube and the Huffington Post has resulted in significant transformation of the industry, including the ongoing "death of the newspaper", ongoing declining ratings of TV networks as people look elsewhere for stuff to watch, and most notably, mergers. In both the U.S. and Canada, merger activity related to media is at all-time highs thanks to relaxed regulations in the wake of fragmentation that resulted from the Internet.

Yet, it's important to know that despite all of this madness and uncertainty, the main goal of mass media hasn't changed at all. It still is to entertain, educate, and inform. But perhaps the biggest impact of media is on cultural diffusion and as a result, the spread of certain ideologies. This has led to some significant consequences on society, but let me begin by explaining the concept of ideologies.

An ideology is basically a belief. And a belief that can be debated. To one, it's 100 percent true, and to others, it's arbitrary, or in other words, complete bulls**t. As a result, both sides can claim theirs is the truth.

Ideologies are with us all the time. Whatever is valued in our society we ourselves value. We often see them, ore are presented to them, as natural, obvious, and common sense. Ideologies can change our mindset too. That is the case of a conservative teen taking a liberal arts course at university. Even education isn't safe from ideologies. What we learn may depend on the beliefs of others.

Of course, ideologies vary by place and can change over time. Be very careful when showing the peace gesture in the U.K., as it may resemble a rude and explicit gesture of same meaning to flipping the bird! In the past, the Catholic church did all of its service, an all texts were to be kept in, Latin, with required interpretation from an educated clergy. Today in Canada, Mass is celebrated in English.

Ideologies play a huge role in politics. This is the case when an ideology becomes a hegemony. A hegemony is when a certain ideology is dominant throughout a certain population, often thanks to diffusion through a medium. From here, we have the rise of political parties, ruling on the fact their ideologies will improve their state.

And this is where the media industry comes in. Although politics is shaped by media and vice versa, media also hits culture, and perhaps this is where the most profound effects occur. This industry essentially makes its cash off of selling culture, or for the purposes of this post, the hegemonic ideal.

This is called cultural hegemony, which is when a higher class spreads its culture onto other, lower classes, therefore forcing an acceptance of the status quo. This is how the culture industry, which includes mass media companies, helps to reinforce cultural norms. Let me tell you how using a recent viewing.

I remember watching a PBS documentary from media critic Douglas Rushkoff on how we teens are sold brands. Essentially, media companies and advertisers are on the lookout for new trends and they send these "cool hunters" out onto the street to search for new trends in teenage lifestyle. They then adopt these trends, or use them for their marketing purposes, such as Sprite and hip-hop as well as the world's most famous midriff, Britney Spears. This is bound to drive some people into resistance, or the underground of pop culture. Any resistance is eventually sold back to them as the hunt for cool rolls on, such as heavily profane rap metal, a genre I actually like.

Essentially culture, a major ideology, is being sold back to us by multinational corporations. Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, Twenty-First Century Fox, Comcast, and Sony among others all make money by reinforcing our cultural norms, and in many cases, spreading them in corporate cultural imperialism.

Because of this, big media can block out many independent, less dominant cultural acts. Usually smaller musical artists are often drowned out by major media's acceptance of big names. I found plenty of outstanding musicians performing at a local music festival in my area. None of them are affiliated with the big three record companies, instead opting for local independents. As a result, we don't see them appear on national TV or in a big-box music store. Only they could hope a major label discovers them and picks them up like Shawn Mendes or The Weeknd. And until recently, Canadian artists also had little success worldwide, due to American and British music. Only until Alanis Morissette and Celine Dion first come out that Canada would become hot mining grounds for musical talent, and even so only a lucky few get the international treatment. The same could be said for TV, since CTV predominantly airs U.S.-produced shows, although its owners, Bell Media, prides on its productions, including Orphan Black on Space, a massive American cable-TV hit airing on AMC's BBC America.

However, with so much cultural imperialism today, one must ask, how new talent will be found, and if that talent will be good. Since the media industry essentially is a never-ending cycle of cultural hegemony, diversity is a huge issue for the entire world to consider. But with the rise of YouTube, and issues arising from differences (i.e. Islamophobia), that could all change with many cultures rising up to express themselves. Let's hope there is change.

Is History Biased?

History is something we don't usually care about, especially to those in middle school who detest such a subject. However, to those who study it, it's quite an engaging topic. Yet, it seems, history could mean, well, "his story." We may be getting only one single viewpoint in the context of our studies, that of the victor. Let me explain.

In recent years, critical historians have risen in importance. These people have taken an approach called problematization which essentially finds new ways to criticize views. From this critical thought, we get new viewpoints on certain events.

Now, history is defined as simply a record of what happened in the past. The key word here is "record." Someone had to record it, and therefore, it will be in his or her viewpoint and opinion. This can, of course, be shaped by the context of events. Usually, the recorder is on the victor's side, and henceforth, that is the dominant history. For example, in communist China, the events of 1949 are strongly emphasized.

And sometimes, it isn't necessarily true either. Some individuals opt to cover up their views or make blatant lies, making history even less credible.

The issue of untold history happened here in Canada. The residential schools problem from the last century remained unknown until recent years, and not until an inquiry into the residential school system was conducted this year were their true horrors revealed. Among some of the casualties included families being broken apart, serialization, abuse and thousands of deaths. The worst part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's findings is that the main goal of the schools was to "kill the Indian in the child." And yes, they're appaling for a democracy.

Now, ethnocide is a serious concern for many. The residential schools were an excellent example of this. But colonialism always wins over the others, since Canada has a predominately Euro-Caucasian population, and only a teensy-weensy part of the circle graph are Canada's Aboriginals.

Fortunately, as in the case of the recent native issues, the traditional discourse of scholars has led to new views on history. Many will investigate the untold stories of the Holocaust, or seek to discover the cultures that many native people are trying to reconnect with.

Essentially, critical history is the history of those who have not been exposed in the wake of the dominant voice.

Many of the events that happened in the past still take a serious toll on people today. Aboriginal youth suicide rates are unusually high in Canada. In Quebec, there's an anti-British separatist organization who takes advantage of the formal Canadian head of state, the British monarch, as proof of a need to move on with separation from the rest of this country. If so, if we want a better future for everyone, we need to understand our past and try to avoid our mistakes, rather than let the "glorious past" cloud up our mind.

So the next time you open up a history textbook, please keep this in mind: they might be all LIES, LIES, LIES!

Student Spending, What's Up?

This post concerns the issue of student spending. It's up. And not everyone is happy about it. Of course, in the wake of such a concern, we must ask if we are spending too much on anything else. That is the point of two magazine articles, one in general Canadian newsmagazine Maclean's; the other in the Briarpatch, an independent magazine. Generation Spend discusses how youth spend their disposable income, and how it puts parents in serious debt. Generation Debt discusses how students must apply for financial assistance when heading off for university, and are burdened with debt from their educational expenses, which prohibit them from taking graduate programs.

The first article also discusses how students are actually pressured to spend with covert advertising and are fighting back (with the help of others, of course). Meanwhile, the second one focuses on students rallying for lower student expenses in the wake of rising tuition fees. Essentially, Maclean's here is focusing on impulsive spending, and Briarpatch is dealing with rising student expenses and their toll on education.

As the interesting thing here is that both deal with one thing, and that's spending, one must ask, what are Canadian students doing to save for post-secondary education. Why are youth spending like mad, while university expenses are going up? I do believe that teaching young people like me on saving is quite important, especially while tuition is high. But yes, tuition has to go down, and NOW! Hey, I'm in strong favour of lower tuition, so let's just hope the new Prime Minister, as someone who quite recently came out university, knows exactly what our problems are.

What Do We Know? Universities and The Sharing Of Knowledge

Many of us are all smart. We can claim that we know many things, especially those who know trivia. I do, mostly on railroading and computers. Everyone is strong and weak on certain facts and skills and that's OK, since we need diverse minds in order to run the world we live in today. Yet, it's possible to run into arguments over what is right or what is wrong. One part of this problem lies in the fact that "knowledge" is different in each and every person, based on their ideologies and the entire concept of "truth."

First, the basics. Knowledge is any information that is processed by the human mind. This means that we, the people, create knowledge.

The whole idea of knowledge is studied in "epistemology," or the study of knowledge (of course). Epistemologists have found that "knowledge" is not uniform. Our understanding is based on our experiences. We have different experiences, so each one of us will interpret things differently each way.

For example, in a dictatorship, they could make 2+2=Fish. I'm not giving any specifics here, but here, it's 2+2=4. But think about this: what if the people living under this regime are brainwashed? I remember watching

This is why the university exists. We need to discover and spread information known by intellectuals. Here, critical thinking that can shape how we view our world can occur. This makes us aware of limits to our claims and gives us a sense of what is known by humans. With this, we can evaluate our knowledge and rectify any errors and prejudices made in the course of gaining knowledge.

We used to believe that the world was flat, and that was accepted as the truth, so much so that anyone who objected was executed! Today, we know our planet Earth is round. But if it weren't for academic discourse, I could still believe Earth is flat too!

Without the university, we would probably live without the things we take for granted, such as computers, and governments would be allowed to run amok, destroying its own state. Progress of humankind has been made possible by research and discussion, or, the thought exchange. Knowledge, as a result, always changes.

Benefits of Medical Weed

In the normal discourse studied in humanities, it's often asked: "What is truth?" It's based on our ideologies. For example, one might state marijuana is bad because it indirectly drives society into chaos. Others may argue that there are plenty of health benefits, such as a relaxed state of mind. Discussing our ideologies is the point of essay writing. We're trying to prove a point here, and backing them up with legit proof. Here's an introduction to an essay on my thoughts on the issue of banning marijuana...

Mention marijuana to anyone and they think of being stoned on the street thanks to the often-illegally-sourced drug. They often view marijuana as a lethal and deadly substance that should not be consumed for the sake of their lives. Some say that the effects of marijuana are worse than tobacco. However, not everyone that smokes marijuana does so for the sake of being high (some people do needles and sniff glue, but the latter is rare). Some take marijuana as a medical prescription. (Anyone hear of prescription drug abuse?) On the contrary, those who smoke it tend to have relaxed minds. The truth is, many of those who want to smoke marijuana (outside of the addicted) do so because they may have issues regarding the mind (i.e., mental illness). Clinical studies have proven that marijuana can reduce stress and "rebalance" the brain. The government apparently recognizes this: they began to issue medical marijuana licences. We can see that although it has harmful effects on the human and society, it also can be helpful as a medical treatment. This essay will go over how marijuana benefits those with mental illness or disease of the nervous system and see that pot does in fact, when taken correctly, improve life.