Gender Identity

Recently I read an article about gender identity. In this article, the writer talked about the differences between gender and sex and the different theories about how we, as humans, recognize our gender. To make things more clear to understand, I have drawn and written out four diagrams. I think that they are easy to understand.










 



I never actually thought about the difference between sex and gender. To me they were always the same thing – until now.

The article (Stewart) clearly pointed out the difference. Sex is the biological term used to differentiate between a male and a female. Gender is the socially constructed idea shaped through our interactions with others in society that helps us determine whether we are masculine or feminine.

In today’s society I think that gender stereotyping has become less and less of an issue. I mean, back in the day of my grandparents women were given “women’s” jobs or expected to be a homemaker. Men were expected to work and make the money. Now, it is more socially acceptable for women to be in the workplace and they have a wider variety of occupations to choose from. However, it is still difficult for a woman to receive a promotion, or hired for a high ranked position as well as paid the same as a male worker.

For me, this sort of stereotyping has not yet been an issue. But I am a living example of gender stereotyping. Before I was born my parents knew that I was going to be a girl. They prepared a room for me of all things they considered feminine. My grandparents bought me a doll to play with. My parents decided on a name for me that identified me as a girl. Soon as I grew older I began to play with Barbies and I learned to braid hair and I wore clothes that identified my gender as feminine.

I remember one time when I was young and my younger brothers were really into baseball. They got on a team and started playing and they played really well. I mean, they were absolutely brilliant! My brothers were the best players on their teams. They also began to gain more and more of the attention of my parents – which I wanted. So, one day I went up to my mom and asked her if I could play baseball. I figured that since my brothers were good at it, I could become just as good. My mom told me no, baseball was for boys and that I probably wouldn’t be as good as they were – because they were boys. She told me I could play softball because it was a girl sport.

                As you know, my favorite television show is The Office. I find the topic of gender identity and gender stereotyping to easily applicable to this popular television show.  One of my favorite characters on this show is Pam Beesley. Take her for example. She is the secretary of the office. She is also a woman. Pam has a stereotypical desk job for a woman. Seriously, how many men do you know that are secretaries? It is also part of the comedy of the show that the producers and writers would put a woman in this position. Pam, then, falls victim to many of the office jokes concerning women – which also refer to gender.

                However, there is one exception to the rule in this show. We have Jan. Jan is Michael’s boss. She is a manager at corporate. She is also Michael’s girlfriend at one point in time. I personally think that he just likes her because she is in a position of power and he could potentially use her to get farther in his career at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

 Source: Stewart, et.al. Communication and Gender. p. 13-36.

Interpersonal Communication

Interpersonal communication: the way we communicate with others, be it our friends, family, significant other, or some random children that come up to us on the streets asking for a hug. In our text, Tubbs talks about norms – rules, whether implicit, or explicit, about behavior; rules from which we develop certain expectations about how people will act (p. 273). These norms give us certain roles in life such as a friend or sister, as well as our own person. This provides us with a conflict which the book calls “dialectic”. The dialectical approach is the pull between the need to feel separate from the other person, and the need to feel connected (p. 277).
This conflict, however, also determines how much information we are allowed to disclose – depending also on what role we are assuming. For example, if we take a look at the Johari Window, it shows how a person relates to other human beings and the amount of information disclosed to each (p. 283).

Tubbs also explains (p. 233) that the basis of human attraction, which involves the entire web of human relationships. Proximity, referring to our geographic closeness to one another, affects who you have a relationship with, and whether that relationship will continue. The text also points out that there are many different situations in which our relationships and communication with each other will affect attraction (p. 235). One of the most important things that we hope to get out of interpersonal relationships is confirmation, or some type of feeling that makes us feel better or wanted. Most of us would want others to know that we exist, rather than feel we don’t exist at all. So, in order to make ourselves feel wanted and to make others feel wanted is to develop a quality relationship by putting in the time to care for the other person. According to our text (p. 243-244) the quality of time and the desire to spend it most often defines how long the relationship will last. If you spend more time with someone, the breadth and depth of that relationship continues to grow, therefore making relationship maintenance key.


I went to an elementary school that only had one class per grade. By the time I reached fifth grade, we had all become great friends. Of course, there was always the occasional new kid but they always seemed to just jump right into the group – no problem. The reason why we all became good friends is because we were with each other every day. So we had to get along – for six whole years!
My best friend in elementary school was Jennifer. She and I always had play dates and sometimes even had sleepovers. I thought that we would be friends forever. The problem came, however, when we had to go to middle school. She went to Memorial, and I went to Patrick. We tried to keep in contact but our friendship soon dwindled down to nothing and has now come to the random facebook message once a year asking me how I’m doing or to say “Happy Birthday”.
The explanation of why we never stayed in touch is simple. Proximity. It is clearly explained in chapter eight of our text book (Tubbs) that our proximity, our geographic closeness, affects whether our relationships will continue. Jennifer and I still lived in the same town but when you are an 11, 12, or 13 year-old kid who does not own a cell phone and can’t drive, living in the same town does not necessarily mean we will stay friends. Our schools were on the opposite sides of town. We no longer spent nearly seven hours a day together five days a week. She made new friends and I made new friends. Therefore, our communication with each other was basically broken off.
Communication setting and time are all significant factors that play into having a relationship with someone. Thus Jennifer and I’s relationship had reached its final stage where we both parted ways. It was alright though, our relationship disengagement could probably be considered intrapsychic (p. 252) because we both knew that we needed to move on with our lives and go our separate ways.


One of my favorite TV shows of all time is NBC’s The Office. I absolutely love the characters on this show and I think it’s because they are all completely different, and each person has a different relationship with everyone. They each communicate in different ways. For example, Dwight Schrute, a salesman, has a dominant personality. He tends to want more power and is demanding of his colleagues. He also calls himself “Assistant to the Regional Manager” – mostly because he wants to be manager but can’t because that’s Michael’s job. Michael denies Dwight the job of assistant manager because one: Dwight would just go around telling everyone what to do and star firing people and two: because there is no assistant manager at Scranton Branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

According to the text, Dwight has many of the qualities and behaviors associated with high dominance such as coordinating, leading, initiating, and directing (p. 299). Michael Scott also reflects the same behaviors. So, the relationship between Michael and Dwight is symmetrically structured. Symmetrical structures are based on similarities – when both partners are dominant or both are submissive (p. 299). In this case, both are dominant.
The Triangular Theory of Love, developed by Robert Sternberg of Yale University, declares that love has three different components (p. 295): intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy, he says, involves closeness, bondedness, and connection while passion is a state of physical and psychological arousal (p. 295). Sternberg goes on to say that commitment involves both the decision to love someone as well as the long-term resolve to maintain the relationship. Roy and Pam from The Office represent a clear example of this theory. However, it is not a perfect triangle. The perfect triangle involves an equal amount of each component. But for Pam and Roy, there seems to be a lack of passion from on both sides and a lack of commitment on Roy’s part. It is clear that they have an intimate relationship because they are engaged. Because of that, there is some passion but probably not as much passion that Pam and Jim have for each other.

Jim is Pam’s office buddy. They do as friends do and support each other. Anyway, back to Pam and Roy. So, they have, for the most part, intimacy and passion. But for Roy, commitment may be an issue. Pam and Roy are engaged and Pam is completely devoted and committed to Roy. However, during lunch break on the day the “hot girl” comes in, Roy says that if he wasn’t dating Pam, he would totally go for the “hot girl”. Pam is deeply offended that he would say that. But they stay together out of habit – and because they are engaged even though Pam knows she should dump Roy for Jim.

Tubbs, S. L., & Moss, S. (2006). Human communication: Principles and contexts (11th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill

The History of Communication

Once upon a time there was the Athenian Government which struggled with violence for many many years. Finally the Athenians decided to come up with a solution to their problem which commanded that two changes take place. They created an adversary system, which was a system of justice in which a person was guilty until proven innocent, and a democracy. The democracy created a more stable system of government for the Athenians. Because of these changes, the people started to use their words as swords therefore making persuasion an imperative skill. Debate was now more popular than fencing-the nerds were now cooler than the jocks. That status-quo had been turned upside down.
The Athenians had now created a new problem and the biggest nerds on the planet saw their opportunity to invade. They were called Sophists. Sophists were the first teachers of communication who studied rhetoric, communication, persuasion, and taught people to speak their minds publicly. The first “king” of the sophist was a dude by the name of Corax. Corax agreed that argumentation and persuasion opened up a level of uncertainty in life. Then, Corax’s right hand man, Protagoras saw even deeper into his friends’ ideas and believed that the side who makes the stronger argument wins.
Soon after Corax died, a man named Gorgias came along and commanded the new group of Sophists. Gorgias was the Kennedy of the Sophists. He was young, hip, and dressed well. Gorgias was also very sociable, and showed the people that public speaking could be exciting and inspire change. He also added the need to adapt to his/her audience when speaking in public-such as the public forum (a place where individuals came to discuss issues). Gorgias’ friend Hippas also said that speakers need to be broadly knowledgeable about something and stay updated on the topic. After the time of Gorgias and Hippas, you Isocrates, the Great Sophist, brought all of the ideas of the Sophists together into the 4th century.
The next years would cause turmoil for many people because Isocrates discovered the hidden secret of the Sophists, in that if you can teach someone to communicate effectively, you can also teach them to communicate unethically. But, thankfully, Superman (Aristotle) came in to save the day! He created formal logic, using syllogisms which allowed people to make certain claims as long as they were grounded in universal principles. Aristotle served as a mediator for Rhetoric. He saw both sides and declared that it was an individuals’ ethics that would decide if Rhetoric was a good thing or bad thing. For Aristotle, rhetoric was the art of discovery and that all was available by means of persuasion in any given situation.
By this time Aristotle was the “King” of communication. He developed his ideas in threes. His first idea was that communication has a purpose, second, that there are three types of oratory (forensic, deliberative, and epideictic) Forensic oratory looks at the past for justice, deliberative oratory allows one to speak to influence future action, and finally, epideictic oratory was used for ceremonial and celebratory speaking. Also, that persuasion is accomplished through three different kinds of appeals: ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic). Arisotle also created five skills needed to communicate effectively: invention, disposition, style, memory, and deliberate.
After Aristotle, comes along John Locke. His definition of communication was that it is a great instrument that ties society together. He said that we use communication to make sense of our live and need to study it in order to know how to best use it.
Knowledge is our greatest possession and throughout history we can see a tug of war going on with our knowledge. All knowledge is stolen. We have stolen it from each other, have taken it back, and have stolen it again and again to obtain what we know today.


As I was reading through the history of communication in our text I thought about how interesting it was that these people even came up with such ideas such as communicating through public speaking and especially by persuasion. For me, it has always been common knowledge that I could use words to say things and get others to do what I want – or get something that I want.
When I was younger I first learned how to persuade my little brothers and my little sister to talk to my mom and get her to let us go to swimming or go to the park. But as I got older, I used the art of persuasion on them and got them to let me play with their toys or give me money so that I could buy some candy at the local gas station a few blocks away. Ethos, pathos, and logos became my three best friends.


One of the most interesting aspects of the history of communication was the fact that we used information as a weapon and stole knowledge from each other all those years ago. In a way, it was kind of a good thing because it allowed for the spread of knowledge. In today’s society, a person can acquire knowledge just about anywhere. The internet opened up great resources as an information super highway. A person is able to access any document they want. Back during the fourth and fifth centuries, libraries were just being created and books still had to be translated. Some information still had yet to be written down because of oral tradition.
In my opinion though, the best part about reading about the development of communication was reading about the Christian crusaders that captured the library at Alexandria. That seems like a really nerdy thing to do. Who would feel victorious capturing a library? Seriously?
But it definitely reminded me of the movie National Treasure. In this movie, Nicholas Cage plays a guy named Ben Gates. Gates’ family had a history with history. For years his family has been part of a group trying to find a certain treasure – lost in the pages of history. So, along the way there are clues that he must find in order to lead him to where the treasure is. Eventually, it leads him and his friends to thousands of lost and sacred artifacts – including the scrolls from the library of Alexandria.

Dues, M.,& Brown, M. (2001). Boxing Plato's Shadow: An Introduction to the study of human communication (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Communication Model

The picture you see above illustrates what comes to my mind when I think of the word “communication”. It is my model of communication – where you will find a variety of different ways in which we communicate with eachother.

My model of communication demonstrates how I communicate and the people around me communicate daily through different channels. For example, you will see the young boy on the computer, texting, and listening to music. Most young adults have a profile on a social network such as Facebook, and use that to communicate with their friends – the same goes for texting and the use of cell phones. Not only does this show nonverbal ways of communicating (through email, facebook, texts, etc.), it also shows the verbal communication between people. In my model it is the mother talking to the father. Also, even though it is only an illustration of communication, you can still see the unintentional nonverbal communication by the expressions on their faces. Even if the thought bubble was not above the father’s head you could still interpret that the father is annoyed with what the mother has to say and through his facial expression he would rather be doing something more constructive with his time. You see that there could have even been a miscommunication between the two. In this picture you can also see the communication of the media into the home through the television, radio, magazines and newspaper found thrown in the trash.