Response papers are meant to be personal- combining your opinion, experience, or insight with what you learned. The purpose of these assignments is to provide insight into gendered communication theory and practice, to enhance your own ability to think critically about issues involving communication and gender, and to uncover your own taken-for-granted cultural and/or communicative assumptions in regard to gendered roles, behaviors, and relationships.

Papers will integrate ideas and theories from our text and class lectures. You must employ terminology and refer to readings in bold and italics in order to receive minimum credit. Do not give me definitions of terms or random quotes from the textbook that aren't integrated into your own ideas and experiences.

Note: These papers are reflective and analytic papers. This means you are making meaning from what you learn using your own past experiences. These are applications, meaning you apply what you learned by explicitly demonstrating it. These are critical exercises- asking you to challenge what you have learned, either from me or the text or in your home or other institutions and examine the underlying power dynamics.

PROMPT: 

Now that we have a basic understanding of the relationship between sex, gender, communication and culture, let’s examine our own experiences and apply course concepts to our perspectives. Use the textbook and supplemental articles to support your ideas.

Ultimately, your paper should answer this question: How did you learn gender and in what ways has your understanding of gender and sex been socially constructed (communicated)? Offer examples of significant messages or images that led you to the conclusions about gender/sex/sexuality you now have. What have they led you to believe about gender or sex roles/rights/behavior expectations? Below are some more questions to help spark ideas.

What theories do you relate to thus far in your gender or sexual identity development? In what ways do you “do” gender and how is that performance connected to other aspects of your identity/life?
How is your understanding of gender/sex/sexuality hegemonic or heteronormative (meaning limited or from a dominant viewpoint)? Using queer and/or multicultural approaches, how could you be looking at gender/sex/sexuality? How might you still struggle with challenging norms or roles? How can a critical lens and a focus on language help you/us to examine gender?