Female Gender: A Social Perspective In The Great Gatspy And Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

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The Female Gender: A Social Position

Women have been depicted in literature in many different ways for centuries. Many people have explored what it means to be a woman. Two novels of the 1920’s: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos, explore women in a very specific way. In looking at both books it is discovered that they form a unit. The social issues that the characters in each novel face are very much the same. They form a type of society that can be compared to Judith Butler’s essay, Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire. Sex and gender are often mistaken for meaning the same thing, but when looking at what create each one it is found that they are not.
According to Butler, “sex” is the biological anatomy of a person that is not controlled by anything other than nature. However, “gender” is the set of mannerisms and characteristics of the behavior of a person. Butler argues that there is no gender until society has had its intervention. She feels that without a society to direct people there would be no difference between genders. However hard it is to understand, Butler states that gender is not determined by sex, it is created by a culture (During 345). So, what does this mean about women? Is there a difference between those that were recognized as female and those as male? Of course there is. However, Butler thinks that a society formulates the differences in what is considered masculine and feminine and therefore determines who is a woman or a man by gender. This belief then leads to the
question of sex and how big a role it plays in the gender of a person. Butler feels that the body is an instrument of culture. She states, “Bodies cannot be said to have a signifiable existence prior to the mark of their gender; the question then emerges: To what extent does the body come into being in and through the mark(s) of gender?” (During 347) Society for...