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'''DEBRIEF ON WHAT IS GENDER? Looking Beyond the social construction Narrative: a Paper by Enock David Kabonge BA(SS) MAKERERE UNIVERSITY'''

'''NOTE: This knowledge in this paper was partly derived from a lecture given by Prof Grace Bantebya I attended in my third year first semester in the Feminist perspectives on sustainable Development class. (Core) 2021'''

What is gender? It is only narrowly to define gender as a mere social construction of roles, attributes and expectations but on a broader side it is much more than that although it doesn't dismiss the narrative in its own right. From a broader perspective, gender is internalized where by it becomes ones reflex, it is felt as one feels when they are treated as a woman or man as this treatment is heterogenous.

Gender is applied as earlier stated we treat men and women differently e.g in sports women have their own side of sports and so does men.

Gender is also practiced as societal institutions set different roles and expectations for both men and women and each is expected to stay in their lane.

Gender is enjoyed by men in patriarchal communities  and not enjoyed by women in such communities. Gender in such communities is also tolerated as we see acts that portray masculinity are protected by the law and society however much they violate women and girls rights such as rape is tolerated as the blame is put on the dress code of the woman or girl rather than the rapist. Read Dr Alice Migliorelli ‘s “Semantics of rape  - socio-semiotic and Linguistic analysis of media Female portraits in Rape cases” who quotes a statement that was put forward by the Italian media on Genovese who was a rape convict. “We agree Genovese deserves condemnation for raping but he still deserves a pinch of admiration. He fucked a girl for 20 hours, my record is six gross minutes.” This statement rather praises the man’s sexuality than condemning him for his act, he becomes a hero.

Gender is also relational in terms of men and women, rural vs urban, young vs old, and it changes as it is not static.it changes over time. The kind of challenges a young woman back in 1789 faced is not the same young woman now face, the way gender relations where enforced back then has changed as patriarchy changes when gender equality is achieved. When women attained suffrage rights, patriarchy presented new challenges amidst the political rights women have.

Gender is hierarchical where by we see in most cases its men who have the power to make decisions  and the imbalanced power relations only favor men.

Gender is institutional where by its structured in families, government, religion, culture, schools etc. We all know that these institutions are responsible for gender socialization.

Gender is contextual as it varies within and between cultures, ethnicity, class, race etc

Therefore if we are to define gender in a more broad way we need to unpack these relations and understand what defines them and then describe them.

'''This journal is dedicated to the SWGs class of 2018-2022 makerere university to you l say power and money are fruits of life but friends and family are roots of life. We can always manage without fruits but we can never stand without roots. ( Daniel Friday)'''

     

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