Gender Inequality : A Sociological Standpoint

In the social realm of life men and women have to meet different standards brought on by different sanctions to certain actions. This shapes the way that the general populous’ mannerisms carry over to the perception of the public eye. Women are still seen as subordinate to the male population by many factors and in some circumstances act lesser due to the pressure put on by the influential factors of society brought on by an older way of thought, made apparent usually by the figures who shape the behaviour of the individual.

As Lorber explores in her essay “Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender, “most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life” (Lorber 1). This article was very intriguing because I thought of my gender as my sex but they are not the same. Lorber has tried to prove that gender has a different meaning that what is usually perceived of through ordinary connotation. Gender is the “role” we are given, or the role we give to ourselves. Throughout the article it is obvious that we are to act appropriately according to the norms and society has power over us to make us conform. As a member of a gender

Gender has been described as masculine or feminine characteristics that encompass gender identity sex as well as social roles (Nobelius 2004). According to sexologist John Money, there is a difference between gender as a role and the biologically of differences in sex (Udry 1994). Within scholarly disciplines, cultures and contexts, gender frequently has its own mean, contextual frame of reference and the manner in which it is used to describe a variety of issues and characteristics. The sociocultural codes, conventions and the suggested and literal rules that accompany the notion of gender are vast and diverse. There has been and continues to be much scholarly debate regarding the idea of gender and how it has been viewed historically; as well as changes in the grammatical use of the

Gender as a Social Construction This annotated bibliography is focused on research that supports the idea that gender has been socially constructed. Haslanger’s chapter offers an understanding of what is meant by the term ‘socially constructed’ and how gender can be defined from this viewpoint. Zimman complements Haslanger’s argument by explaining that it is our discourse that influences our perceptions of gender. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s chapter is helpful when explaining how gender is socially constructed by exploring how from birth we are treated and labeled according to whether we’ are male or female.

West and Zimmerman’s theory of “Doing Gender” defines sex and gender as two separate entities within this binary society. Sex refers to the biological characteristics that are typically attributed to males and females. Gender is the status of the individual performing the activities that are commonly associated with masculinity and femininity. These traits are rigid in dictating the individual’s consistent performance of them. A gendered individual must execute the appropriate acts that are linked to masculinity or femininity respectively. It is a learned behavior that is taught at an early age through observation of society. Therefore, it is society that decides whether an action is attributed to masculinity or femininity. Gender is a socially constructed idea of thought that people unconsciously follow. The acts that constitute a particular gender can change based on the views of society within a generation. Certain activities and forms of appearance have shifted between males and females. As society evolves throughout history, the interactions between individuals and their gendered actions have changed. West and Zimmerman state, “When we view gender as an accomplishment, an achieved property of situated conduct, our attention shifts from matters internal to the individual and focuses on interactional and, ultimately, institutional arenas” (West and Zimmerman, 1987, page 126). Thus the performance of gender has developed passed the individual and is engrained within the

Every society around the world has traditional gender roles that are accepted as normal and are rarely even consciously thought about in any detail. The man’s role is often to provide for and protect the family, while the women’s role is to care for children and look after the duties of the home. Analyzing Judith Lorber’s Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender, will help understand the concept of “gender as a structure” and “gender as a social institution” along with demonstrating the significant differences that gender categories have for individuals and society.

The various cultures around the world all have this thing distinctively in common, and that is they all share their own expectations, especially when it comes to gender. It is well evident that there are set conformity standards with every culture, just as there are set standards with genders. There is no general way to characterize a man’s masculinity and a woman’s femininity just because a culture may influence certain expectations. With these cultural pressures we limit our identities drastically because we yearn to conform with the so called “norm” of the culture. We as people often tend to confuse biological characterics such as masculinity and femininity, and pressure them to become more of a social influence.

Gender is a social construct that consists of a set of social arrangements that are built around sex. Gender roles are sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one’s status as a male or female. According to Lorber, Gender is a social institution because these gender roles are being changed over time. Moreover, she defines gender roles as process of creating distinguishable social statuses for the assignment of rights and responsibilities. As a process, gender creates the social differences that define "woman" and "man." In social interaction throughout their lives, individuals learn what is expected, see what is expected, act and react in expected ways, and thus simultaneously construct and maintain the gender order. In this paper, I will discuss how the article untiled “"Night to His Day": The Social Construction of Gender helps clarify how gender roles is a social constitution.

“As a social institution, gender is a process of creating distinguishable social statuses for the assignment of rights and responsibilities.” This quote from Judith Lorber’s work, “Night and Day” brings up an interesting idea. Men and women are held in very different regard because of gender. It is drilled into our core at birth that our gender defines us. This causes a split in both behavior and treatment that we encounter in our everyday lives.

The topics of gender inequality become more and more popular in the society because a lot of reports show that many women are killed by bias on all over the world every year and women are hard to find a job in some places nowadays. Under this background, the “team” of feminist becomes stronger and stronger. In‘’ ‘I’ve been pondering whether you can be a part-feminist’: Young Australian Women’s Studies student discuss gender”, Kate Hughes presents the changing of students who has different gender perceptions . He mentions: “The background to this study is one Women’s Studies program which can be positioned as part of ‘new wave’ Women’s Studies.” That shows the women’s power has played an important role in people’s mind. In the article, people’s show thier ideas about ethnicity, equality, and freedom, but it doesn’t talk about the situation of the gender inequality and how people solve such questions from all over the world. How is the gender inequality affect people’s life? Are they being solved? What measures do people use to solve those problems? In this paper, I will discuss gender inequality issues and the different measures people use to fix up the questions.

Afterreading Judith Lorber article” Night to his day” the social construction of gender, I realized that we have been “doing gender” every day without us noticing. These “doing gender”activities have implement into our brain through life experience, parents and social life. In her article, she “denaturalized” gender into three different categories: “individual; society; and gender”.

The term gender refers to the characteristics of a person despite the person’s biological sex. Gender role, which is the focus of sociologists, is the anticipated attitude and behavior that a certain society connects with each sex. With this definition, gender is placed evenly in the sociocultural context. Events that previously occurred had a vital impact on gender roles. Due to this, the study of gender emerged as one of the significant disciplines in the field of sociology in the twentieth century. The gender issues were studied using various research and theory. The research on gender issues provided a testament that all social interactions that occur, and the institutions where they occur, are gendered in one way or the other. Sociologists explain gender roles with respect to various theoretical perspectives. The perspectives are the ways of perceiving social reality that guide the process of research and provide a method for understanding the data. The sociological perspectives on gender roles include functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interaction, and feminist sociological theory (pearsonhighered.com).

Gender inequality is a social problem that is widespread in society. It is referred to as the unfair treatment of individuals based on one 's gender. Historically, laws have opposed women to go to school, access certain jobs, and purchase property. Gender inequality has been experience through culture – honor-killing, sex-selective abortion, and society – occupation, gender roles, and education. The social expectations of men and women differ between cultures that are constructed socially and culturally. These expectations are displayed in roles, and behavior believed both by men and women and their interdependent relationships. Gender inequality can be further understood through the structure of sexism. Discrimination takes place in gender inequality for the reason that men and women are treated on the basis of gender alone (Amjad, R., Ashfaq, M., Kousar, R., Saghir, A., 2010).

Social status and structures have definitely shaped the construction and experience of gender inequality. Men and women are constantly analyzed, compared, and grouped together in society. The result of this yields discrepancies in how sexes are viewed by society. Throughout my examination and explanation of gender inequality, I concluded both men and women are victims to gender inequality.

As we are all birth equally throughout the world, there is still contingency that causes a barrier between human kinds. What barriers are we talking about that can’t be changed through our DNA? That is our gender. When each of us are born into the world, we are labeled as male or female due to our genetical DNA and different types of organs (WHO). Yet, society still isn’t as balance enough and there are still so much discrimination in gender in even today’s society.