Gender-February 10

The selected readings argued that gender is simply a social construct based on biology.  The construction of gender goes further than polarizing the sexes, but also creates both economic and political implications.  "The Traffic in Women" outlines the economic value of women perceived by a historical lens.  The institution of marriage allows for women's bodies to become an essential commodity for a group of people.  Selling a woman, under the guise of marriage, ties two groups together economically.  In this way, the brideswealth serves as a dowry.  In Iran, where marriage is absolutely essential for a woman, a man must offer a handsome price in order to marry a woman.  Not only that, but a male guardian overlooks the entire economic transaction of the woman's marriage.  According to Marxist theory, women account for the surplus capital in the form reproduction of labor when they are married.  It is in marriage that women's bodies become an economic entity.
Biology comprises the definition of a woman based in relationship to a man.  This relationship shows a deeply oppressive patriarchal tradition. Defining the two classes: woman and man, contributes the cycle of oppressive thought.  In getting away from the biological relationship between man and woman, we will end the heterosexual oppressive system at work.  Oppressive system serves to place men and women into roles.  Monique Wittig argues that lesbians do not fall into the role of women because they do not have the mimic a woman's relation to a man.  Furthermore, the traditional definition of woman inhibits a person from being herself, as understood by the poem "Masks of a Woman."  In the poem, the narrator reveals that she wears the mask of the Asian woman the man she has a relationship wants her to be, but that is not who she really is.