Gender and Power

Defining Gender and Power
Class Discussion
Group #3 – Observer B

Knowing that we all come from different backgrounds and with that different ideas and beliefs, we went into groups to try and define both gender and power. By doing this, you not only get your own perspective but are able to take in that of others and notice yourself either agreeing or disagreeing and search for the why. So far this is what I have heard from those in our group in terms of defining gender and power.

Gender is a representation of you, how you see yourself and are able to express that. It can be both conscious and subconscious but it is essentially a “label” that you buy into. You can’t talk about gender, without talking about sex, sex is what you physically are and gender is what society deems acceptable for that definition of sex, however narrow that may be. The most common and definite lines of gendering are feminism and masculinity. This is taught to you by your parents, society and teachers, and reinforced by your peers. It not only affects you on that scale of male or female but gendering will also affect the hobbies that you do and the environment that you create around you.

I asked the question how you stop something that is so engrained into you at birth and so “stuck.” My peer’s responded with it being a matter of noticing when you are judging and not allowing yourself to respond in a negative way, and figure out where these feelings come from. In other words becoming of aware of your surroundings and how they are affected by the way you grew up.

When we had to define power what came to our minds first was outspoken people that have the influence to make people see things their way. When people have power they generally have respect and are a figure that is role modeled. Power means that you have followers rather then following the crowd, you have the power to affect the minds and attitudes of the people, which as we have seen throughout history can be dangerous. Power could also be seen in privilege. When seen in privilege however, it is usually something that you are not conscious of, so it becomes necessary to become conscious. When people have power over them they are silenced, it then becomes the obligations of the people who have power to give power.

1. Note the gaps.
The first day of the discussion we all seemed to be pretty well rounded in terms of speaking or not speaking. When someone had thoughts that were said it seemed to go around in circles and branch off, not having just one person doing all the talking although some were more quiet then others. These people that were quieter though, spoke up when they found necessary and you could tell that they were engaged and listening.
2. The flow of the conversation and who organizes.
The note taker seemed to be the person who really organized and kept the conversation going. I think that this is partly because rather then just throwing out those thoughts, they are responsible for recording a definition that really makes sense. When we paused it was the note taker that moved us along and from there we all seem to build of each others ideas and not really disagreeing, just being open.
3. Clashing of Ideas
In terms of this clashing of ideas so far we haven’t reached any, if we have there were extremely subtle and explanations of where the person was coming from seemed to iron them out. If there have been things that have been disagreed on greatly then they have been kept silent. I think that we haven’t really clashed on ideas because we are brining up things that we have all observed in the class through those tools and not necessarily where they come from. It also could be that we come from semi similar backgrounds, of course we have differences but we understand where they come from.
4. Our goals as a team
We as a team trying to define gender and power must first off come to a consensus of what that might be. With that comes listening to each others ideas respectfully and if disagreeing trying to figure out where that comes from and why we are opposed to that idea. By doing that you are creating a safe environment for presenting ideas that are potentially very personal and a respect as a person.