Introduction
Gender roles continue to play a significant role in different cultures throughout the world. These roles have changed over time to give a reflection of society’s opinion. Gender is regarded as an important component of social order (Correa 183). It has been constructed and maintained socially into femininity and masculinity through important social processes and experiences. “Smell +”, a project by Jimmy Loizeau and James Auger shows gender analysis and semiotics. The project reveals that gender, as a socially constructed societal component, plays a big role in gender analysis and semiotics.
According to Fryer (1), smells may evoke certain memories or moods that remind us of times, places and different people. Smells can also be reproduced, manipulated and combined to cause decision-making and creation of messages that may be evaluated by others. Smell is a social semiotic that has been applied in different social contexts especially those that related to gender-based roles and analyses (Fryer 1). Smell as a semiotic can be used to show how the socially constructed notion of gender can affect male-female relationships. For example, as noted in the Smell+ project by Loizeau and Auger (n.p.), the Desana Marriage in the Amazon region of South America is only permitted between individuals bearing different odors. It has also been proven through research that humans rely on body odor in choosing genetically appropriate mates. The behavior among the Desana underlines the fact that humans have the ability to identify various body odors and associate them with certain attributes. The Smell+ project (Loizeau and Auger n.p.) features a smell-suit with sealed pouches which encapsulate apocrine glands and channel body odors through tubes. The system allows two isolated individuals (male and female) to interact only through the olfactory sense and not visually. Semiotics based on gender can affect male-female relationships.
The Smell+ experiment underlines the important role that gender plays in semiotics and male-female relationships. This is because the experiment is based on gender differences, as socially constructed and how they affect semiotics of smell. The social notions of femininity and masculinity are promoted at the semiotic level (Correa 183). These social constructs affect the way people think about gender roles and how men and women relate to each other. Smell, as perceived by humans, sends particular meanings based on interpretation. This implies that through the semiotics of smell, humans can assign particular meanings to the odor. This can also affect the way males and females relate to each other. In the Smell+ experiment, a female and a male subject are used. They perceive the smells from each other and use their socially constructed notions to make a selection decision on their compatibility. Their interpretations of the body odors perceived produces a solution based on gender analysis.
Conclusion
Gender plays an important role in various cultures worldwide. It is an important component for social order because it is socially constructed. “Smell +”, a project by Jimmy Loizeau and James Auger underlines the importance of gender, a social notion, in gender analysis and semiotics. The semiotics of smell is used in the Desana Marriage in selection of odor-based compatibility of couples. This shows that humans have the ability to identify various body odors and associate them with certain attributes. In addition, the Smell+ experiment promotes socially constructed masculinity and femininity notions on the semiotic level by using them to solve a problem. The manner in which the odors are perceived is gender-based and interpreted also affects how men and women relate with each other.
Works Cited
Correa, Deodrin. "The Construction of Gender Identity: A Semiotic Analysis." Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Education Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research 6.1 (2009): 183-194 . Print.]
Fryer, Daniel. "Smell as Social Semiotic." Smell as Social Semiotic. Version 1. Daniel Fryer., 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.danielfryer.no/EN/Blog/Entries/2013/8/6_Smell_as_Social_Semiotic.html>.
Loizeau, Jimmy, and James Auger. "Auger Loizeau: Smell+." RSS. Version 1. Auger Loizeau: , 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=12>.
