Gender Social Construction

The gender of a person is the masculine or feminine attributes of that individual with respect to the psychological and biological role in society. (Magar, 2009) A gender role can be defined as the way that a person lives in society with respect to its lifestyle. It can be argued that over time the major differences between men and women’s gender roles have faded. In the past traditional roles have been based in their society by their biological orientation. (Magar, 2009) Gender roles can also be described as the behavior and attitudes that are expected of men and women in a society. (Faqs.org, 2011) Although different cultures impose different expectations, many cultures have the same basic gender roles.

Throughout this course, we have discussed how the differences in the social construction of gender, race, class, and sexuality have led to discrimination and inequality of those classified under a variety of these categories. Through understanding the significance of these social constructs on society it becomes apparent the intersectionality they have when it comes to understanding why certain groups may face discrimination or inequality. This paper examines gender inequality and how the social construction of gender makes it difficult for the pursuit of equality amongst genders.

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 roles have played a major part in society. According to the book “The Psyche of Feminism” “A gender role is a theoretical construct in the social sciences that refers to a set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate

Gender has been traditionally defined as male or female with the allocation of stereotypes and set gender roles assigned to men and women. However, in contemporary society the definition of gender has been altered, forming a societal divide between the concepts of gender and sex with the removal of gender roles. Gender is currently defined by a person’s form of self-identification and sex is based scientifically on biological factors. Culture is an intangible collection of a wide variety of societal customs including language and traditions. An assemblage of both concepts develop an individual’s personal expression of identity.

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.

Throughout many studies, researchers have said that gender develops from families, which is part of the social construction in children. According to Coltrane and Adams, Gender is defined as “To what it means to be a man or a woman in a specific time and place” (Coltrane and Adams). People in this world think that gender is automatically part of biological sex, but according to Coltrane and Adams, it is not a direct result of biological sex. The term is defined as “to refer relatively distinct biological differences between male and females such as genitals, hormones, and chromosomes” (Coltrane and Adams). For gender it is also social and it refers to how a person thinks that someone should look, act and feel (Coltrane and Adams). On the daily life, people will usually assume that a person “is” the gender that corresponds to his or her sex: females are feminine and males are masculine (Coltrane and Adams). In addition, gender also describes how the typical man and woman are supposed to present themselves. A man presenting himself as masculine and a woman presenting herself as feminine in particular cultures (Coltrane and Adams). In other words how women should act and how men should act.

Gender is considered an axis of social order. Its categorisation into masculinity and femininity is social constructed and maintained in everyday life (Clark and Page, 2005; Mackie, 1994). Gender identity is our innermost understanding of our self as ‘male’ or ‘female’. Most people develop a gender identity that matched their biological sex (their body). Gender identity can be affected by, and is different from one society to another, depending on the way the members of society evaluate the role of females and males. Our gender identity can be influenced from the ethnicity of the group, their cultural background, and family values. Gender like social class and race can be used to socially categorize people and even lead to prejudice and discrimination. From day –to-day, continuous production of gender has been called ‘doing gender’ (West and Zimmermann, 1987), meaning that gender is “made” by us in everyday lives in our interactions with others.

Secondly, humans have the same genetic makeup yet in different cultures/societies gender roles vary indicating greatly that these roles are socially constructed. Lastly, Bandura’s Social Learning Theory is the main driving force for gender roles being socially constructed, as gender roles are learnt from one another. Gender roles are usually constructed through the application of the two sex qualities, masculinity and femininity (masculinity being the qualities associated with men and femininity being the qualities associated with women). These two sex qualities are usually taught to children directly and indirectly through family, friends and other members of society. One direct way masculinity and femininity are taught to children is through schooling.

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.

The word gender can be described as the state of being male or female and is typically used to describe cultural differences as opposed to biological ones. Additionally, the definition of gender has continuously been a controversial issue due to its lack of clarity in regards to battling complicated social injustices. Furthermore, the construction of gender as a social category has recently been criticized for the lack of inclusiveness to women of color and the consistent habit to view both gender and race as restrictive divisions of experience and reasoning. Seeing those criticisms has led to the development of the term intersectionality which deals with various layers of subjection that women live with and addresses more than just the

“The social construction of gender comes out of the general school of thought entitled social constructionism. Social constructionism proposes that everything people "know" or see as "reality" is partially, if not entirely, socially situated. To say that something is socially constructed does not mitigate the power of the concept. These basic theories of social constructionism can be applied to any issue of study pertaining to human life, including gender. This is

There are attitudes and expectations made upon on these roles, and therefore it effects the behavior of the individual naturally. In the article by Schilt and Westbrook, it is emphasized that people who live their lives in a social gender, that is not the gender that they were assigned at birth, are disrupting the cultural expectations of gender identity. Two case studies were performed to see how gender normals react to mismatch gender identity and biological sex. West and Zimmerman explain how gender is performed in communications and interactions, and behaviors of people are evaluated based on socially accepted conceptions of gender. They identified and distinguished between sex and gender. Sex was agreed to be broken down as male or female. Thus it is based

The way society is taught to be socialized is salient and goes unnoticed, therefore it is valid to claim that gender is socially constructed through our everyday practices, whether we are aware of the construction or not. With socialization beginning the instant a child is born, the process is continuous through out adolescence and varies dramatically across the two genders. With guidance from institutions and arenas such as education, sports, music and the mass media gender seems to be coerced, as it comes with a scripted set of behaviors and attitudes. This essay argues that gender is socially constructed on an everyday basis. To further explain this thesis the essay will draw on early childhood socialization of masculinity and femininity,

The concept of gender has a strong social impact on me. When I was born, I was immediately assigned to a biological sex as a female with two X chromosomes. I was then socially classified as a girl in the society with feminine gender roles. Gender is defined as a social principle which attribute to the roles and expectations of males and females through the years of different societies (Phillips, 2005). Gender can be considered as behavioural, cultural and psychological traits