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<p>When writing an essay on gender, it might seem more intuitive to write about women and femininity. In fact, that is also where gender studies, as a discipline, originally began (also for important political reasons). However, since the concepts of femininity and masculinity are relational, it is also important to analytically discuss masculinity in order to avoid seeing it as 'natural' or 'the norm' and instead understanding it as part of a discourse.</p>

<p>Admittedly, this argument seems a bit daring...</p>

<p>Find the resulting essay here:###</p>

<p>Note: Writing about categories of difference is often tricky because you have to operate with commonly held stereotypes that you (likely, hopefully) don’t subscribe to yourself. This is particularly visible in this case where much of the argument, especially in this first body paragraph, evokes commonly held stereotypes about African Americans.</p>

<p>There are good reasons to have ‘race,’ 'racial,' and ‘black’ in single quotation marks to underscore that these terms refer to an entirely artificial category; Ultimately, this is a decision authors have to make for themselves as they write about a text. This author has decided to trust his readers’ understanding without the additional typographic emphasis.</p>