Gender Anthropology

Gender Anthropology Introduction Biology explains the differences between men and women through their sex (biological classification). This is usually possible as women and men have different sexual organs and the disparity in the sexual organs of men and women explains the differences in both sexes. There are also individuals who have both the male and the female sex organs and they are referred to as hermaphrodites as they are neither males nor females. They usually possess a combination of both female and male traits even in their day to day lives.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Gender Anthropology specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Culture tries to explain what it really means to be a woman or a man in a certain community since different communities have different cultures. The term gender has been coined up over time to try and explain culturally constructed roles of women and men in a certain community. The presence of infants furt her contradicts the explanation of what gender is as children also have roles they are supposed to play in the society. Gender is dynamic and varies across different cultures of human societies. All these descriptions of what it means to be a woman or a man in a certain specific society changes over time and interactions with the environment are very important in this process, as right from childhood through middle age up to old age, gender roles keep on changing (Brettell Sargent, 2009). Perspectives to gender The exponential growth in technology leading to globalization has helped in exposing a bigger platform for the discussion of the critical factors that explain masculinity or femininity of individuals in the society, whether they are products of nature or culture. This has been possible as globalization has exposed diverse cultures to each other thus enabling cultural interactions beyond territorial borders. In most of the developed societies, they attribute sex to either mas culinity or femininity thus, they have constructed societal expectations of either a woman or a man mostly based on the tasks, duties and responsibilities expected of them to perform in that specific society, which is usually guided by the culture of that society. Despite this assertion, there has been a variation of masculine and feminine traits across cultures in different parts of the world. Infants at their tender age do not have expected cultural roles despite them either being males or females though they acquire them as they graduate from boyhood to manhood and as girls graduate to womanhood. Infants are not able to depict their masculinity or femininity; rather, they seem neutral individuals in the society (Counihan, 1999). The reliance of kids at early age to their parents, their optical, social capabilities and activity level cannot be adequately used in distinguishing their masculinity or femininity. Rather, these characteristics become more manifested in later developmen t stages of life, thus indicating the important role the environment plays in shaping and defining masculinity or femininity of an individual in a society.Advertising Looking for essay on anthropology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More If the biological sex of an individual determines their gender, then, it could be a very big distinction between infants of either sex. However, this is not the case as toddlers do not depict knowledge of whether they should be masculine or feminine. More so, there is no biological reason or structural evidence as to why they should be so. The terms sex and gender have been used as if they are synonyms despite there being a very big distinction between the two terms. Sex is the biological classification of a man or a woman whereas gender is the societal and cultural constructions of what it means to be a woman or a man in the community or society in question. Sex is a natural constructio n of individuals being of either male or female sex whereas gender is cultural construction of masculinity or femininity (Brettell Sargent, 2009), thus, the term gender is a product of culture and not of nature. Evidence that gender is a product of nature and culture In trying to show that gender is a cultural construction and that it is dynamic, Brettell and Sargent (2009) explored the situation in the United States of America and discovered that for a long time, it was taken that men were equal to masculinity and that women were equal to femininity. Women were considered to be the weaker sex that required protection from men. This made women to be kept away from combat as they were also considered to be sources of human reproduction that is critical for the survival of society. Women were viewed as symbols of femininity and childbearing. Human females are naturally expected to be the child bearers and care takers. However, this assertion has generated criticisms from scholars in the contemporary times who challenge its validity. The task of cooking and food preparation has also been taken to be a feminine task and thus, more often than not assigned to women while men are taken or considered to be the caretakers of their families in terms of them being their families’ breadwinners. On the other hand, men are thought to be more rational, critical thinkers and independent beings, capable of undertaking their activities without reliance on anyone.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Gender Anthropology specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More They are thought to be stronger and better than women both bodily and in their intellect. They are not expected to be hyper active in household chores such as bringing up of the children. As such, the parenting roles of men should be distinguished from those of women. The division and specialization of labor for men and women traditionally is done such that wom en engage in unpaid household chores while men take up the paid up work. Mothers are presumed to be the home laborers while husbands are expected to provide for the household through paid labor performed in the labor market. The roles and expectations that are linked with these discrepancies assist in construction and definition of gender roles despite the contemporary state of employment of both men and women outside their households. In trying to prove that nature has an upper hand in definition of a man and that of a woman, Brettell and Sargent (2009) terms gender roles for women and men as natural behaviors. In explaining why women ought not to be involved in combat, they argue that â€Å"women don’t have the physical and psychological strength† (p.89). They also add that women’s potential for conceiving and child bearing and consequent rearing makes them unfit for involvement in combat. The reasons given by the United States for barring women from taking up combat positions seems to point out a product of culture and socialization rather than biology. The assertion that men are more aggressive than women has no or has little evidence to support it hence its validity is usually put to question or debated mostly in developed societies which are more liberal in their view of life and its issues. The conception that women are deficient of the preferred extent of aggression seems to be a justification used/employed by the society as a whole to differentiate the roles and responsibilities of women and men (Counihan, 1999). On the other hand, if indeed women are less aggressive than men, they could also make good parents. In some cultures, such as the Aka fathers of Central African Republic, men are known to take up very active roles in bringing up the kids. This can be attributed probably to the dynamics of their societal structure.Advertising Looking for essay on anthropology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Men and women work interactively to provide for the community as they embrace communal mode of production. This enables the fathers to have more time to interact with their children and family unlike the case of most men in Western societies. From this, evidence speaks for itself that men can also take the responsibility of nurturing and rearing their children and that its just pressures from their cultures that make them to think that they naturally do not have the ability to do so (Counihan, 1999). Conclusion Brettell and Sargent (2009) have succeeded in explaining that the differences in masculinity and femininity can be explained through incorporation of the biological sex of an individual, plus the environment they are brought up in. We are persuaded that gender is a product of both nature and culture. The varied differences evident in gender roles across different cultures and societies show that gender description must incorporate both culture and nature. The gender assigned roles that men are more aggressive than women and that they fit better in combat unlike women, are just societal constructions by the military and the community at large to bar women from taking up positions in combat. It is thus evident that definition of one’s gender is a product of both nature and culture. Gender therefore varies across the diverse cultures and it is dynamic as it is subjective to changes in the environment. References Brettell, C., Sargent, C. (2009). Gender in cross-culture perspective. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Counihan, C. (1999). The anthropology of food and body: gender, meaning, and power. London: Routledge.

Handling Windows Messages the Delphi way

Handling Windows Messages the Delphi way Delphi, youve got message to handle! One of the keys to traditional Windows programming is handling the messages sent by Windows to applications. Simply put, a message is some information sent from one place to another. For the most part, Delphi makes message handling easy through its use of events, an event is usually generated in response to a Windows message being sent to an application. However, someday you may want to process some uncommon messages like: CM_MOUSEENTER which happens (is posted by Windows) when mouse cursor enters the client area of some component (or form). Handling messages on their own requires a few extra programming techniques, this article is here to help us find the right way through the message river and grap needed information. Strategies to Manipulate Windows Messages With Delphi Drag a Window: No title bar! How can you drag such a window? Its easy and fun: lets make a Delphi form move by clicking (and dragging) in its client area. The main idea is to get your hands on the wm_NCHitTest windows message.How to send information (String, Image, Record) between two Delphi applications (WM_CopyData): Learn how to send the WM_CopyData message between two Delphi applications to exchange information and make two applications communicate. The accompanying source code demonstrates how to send a string, record (complex data type) and even graphics to another application.Sticky Windows: This strategy allows you to dock your Delphi forms to the edges of your desktop screen.Monitoring Registry Changes: Need to get notified about changes to the attributes or contents of a specified Registry key? Then you are ready for this your Delphi code toolkit.Sending Messages to Non-Windowed Applications: This strategy is used to send messages (signals) to non-windowed applications by u sing AllocateHWND and DefWindowProc. You should understand what Delphi does in the background to intercept Windows messages, how can you write your own message handler for a windowed application and how to obtain a unique message identifier that you can safely use in your applications. There is also a small bug in the Delphi DeallocateHWND procedure that you can fix along the way. Controlling the Number of Application Instances: In this article youll learn how to run-once enable a Delphi application that can check for its previous (running) instance. Along the process, several techniques of implementing such a check will be discussed; as well as how to bring your already running application to the foreground, if a user tries to run it one more time. By the end of the article youll have a copy-to-go code to control the behavior of your applications multiple instances: with the option to limit the number of running instances.How to Handle System Time Change Using Delphi Code: If you need to react when system date time has changed you can handle the WM_TimeChange Windows message.How to Draw Custom Text on a Delphi Forms Caption Bar: If you want to add some custom text on the caption bar of a form, without changing the Caption property of the form you need to handle one special Windows message: WM_NCPAINT (along with WM_NCACTIVATE).How to Display Menu Item Hints: By (Windows) design, in Delphi applications, hints assigned to menu items do not get displayed in the popup tooltip window (when the mouse hovers over a menu). Get, Set, and Handle Display Device Modes (Screen Resolution and Color Depth): This strategy allows you to change the Windows display mode settings (resolution and color depth) from Delphi code. You can also handle the WM_DISPLAYCHANGE Windows message sent to all windows when the display resolution has changed.Get Current URL From IE: There is a Delphi tactic to retrieve the full URL of all opened Internet Explorer instances.Detecting and Preventing Windows Shut Down: You can use Delphi to programmatically cancel Windows shut down action.Display a Password Dialog: Suppose you have a data-critical type of application where you would not want a non-authored user to work with the data. What if you need to display a password dialog *before* the application is restored to make sure an authorized user is accessing it.Remove the Windows Constraint on Minimum Form Size: By Windows design, a form (window) has a size constraint that sets the minimum form height to the height of the caption bar and the width to 112 pixels (118 in XP theme). How to Detect a TPopupMenus OnClose (OnPopDown) Event: Unfortunately, the TPopupMenu does not expose an event you can handle that will fire when the menu gets closed - either after a user has selected an item from the menu or has activated some other UI element.Trapping Messages Sent to an Application: ...Delphi surfaces the OnMessage event for the Application object. The OnMessage event handler is supposed to allow you trap every message sent to your application...