How Are Gender Roles Socially Constructed

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.

Gender roles describe the normative expectations of a culture group regarding the position that both sexes should hold in society. It also refers to the division of labor tasks, differences in behaviors, preferences, abilities; personalities that society expects of specific genders, (Kaiser, C. R., & Miller, C. T. 2009). It concerns the processes of how gender roles socialize and interact with each other in society as a whole and as an individual, (Stockard & Johnson, 1980; Thomas, 1986). Gender role deals with identity and at times are conceptualized as the acceptance and identification with social roles and behaviors associated with

The first main factor that is said to influence gender is biology. “Nature doesn’t give a flea’s hind leg for our social theories, fads, fashions, political ideologies and

Gender roles affect the way we view males and females in society. According to Public and Private Families an Introduction by Andrew J Cherlin, “sex” is described as the biological characteristics the distinguish the difference between man and woman such as their reproductive organs and hormones. “Gender” is described as the social and cultural characteristics that describe the difference between men and women. Gender roles in the United States have changed more for women than for men due to the asymmetry of gender change which is the bigger change in woman’s lives than males.

Equality between men and women is more than a matter of social justice .gender roles is a way of characterizing and labeling other in society. Gender roles include attitudes, actions, and personality traits associated with a gender within that culture. Gender roles determines over all how men and women should act, speak, dress, and think. Gender defines masculine and feminine roles on society. Social influence parents, teachers, peers, movies, television, music, books, and religion teach and reinforce gender roles.

“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

Gender roles are the standards set by a society for each of the genders. Most people will not have a problem with the gender roles established but they can be very harmful to some people. Basic gender roles consist of women being associated with the color pink and men being associated with blue. Roles like these set the norms for our society and determine in the long run what is acceptable and not.

We are taught Gender by our family members from a very young age. For example, girls receive pink gifts and boys receive blue gifts. Shaw & Lee said, “Gender is embedded in culture and the various forms of knowledge associated with a given community.” (Shaw&Lee, p.116.) For example, in one community it might be acceptable for a girl to play football, and in another community the members believe, girl

To be masculine is to have those personality traits. In contrast, femininity are traits such as, nurturing, empathetic, and expressive of emotions. In turn, one can express traits that of masculine and feminine, being androgynous. For example, I being a female, am not expressive of my emotions and tend to be assertive at times. That being the social construct of masculine and feminine does not pertain to each sex anymore. Androgyny is the fact that one can express both traits on the spectrum and not just being on one side. Overall, sex roles are reinforced by the socialization theory, that explains children are reinforced to be masculine or feminine. For example, when a boy does an action of out his role, plays with dolls, he is reinforced by parents or older adult figures that what he is doing does not make him masculine and take away the doll. In contrast, for girls playing with trucks is seen as not feminine. Research to support the social role theory found that individuals assigned a supervisor role were more dominant versus being the supervisee and being submissive. As well as the social learning theory which states children model behavior of the gender they are associated with. Boys watch their dad watch sports and fix cars, where as, girls watch their mom cook and clean. More than often, the parents teach them and want them to model after

I really enjoyed your post as you gave really good explanations and went straight to the point. I definitely agree with you I believe gender roles are set up by society. We can see this as when we grow up they tell us we can't play with trucks or dress like a superhero because that's for boys. But toys don't say they are made for a specific sex and we can see how society plays a role in this topic. Great post!

A teacher is an important key element in the educational system as well as a role model. Some teachers hold traditional gender stereotypes about their students’ views of what is expected of them. Many children develop social

In her paper on the biological differences in cognition between men and women, Doreen Kimura suggests that the social differences between genders arose out of biological necessity (Kimura 46). Even so, it is difficult to argue that social factors do play a large part in gender in society today. A closer look at both biological and social perspectives will reveal more about the processes that determine gender roles.

Gender roles play a huge part in society. Gender plays a role in shaping an individuals identify and beliefs. It also helps identify what is masculine and what is feminine. Certain tasks, duties, and jobs are classified by gender. However, gender appropriate behavior should not be enforced in our society for numerous reasons and can be seen on an individual level and be demonstrated by social learning theory and sex segregation.

Society has clearly defined boundaries between what is considered to be male or female. The development of an individual’s gender role is formed by interactions with those in close proximity. Society constantly tells us how we should look, act and live based on gender. Family, friends and the media have a tremendous impact on how these roles are formed and the expected behavior of each gender role.

Ever since the dawn of time, women and men have been associated with specific gender roles that can be seen controversial in the eyes of many. Traits and roles associated with a specific gender can be either innate or learned over time. Looking into the deeper concept of gender roles and stereotypes, it is clear that these fixed gender roles are not naturally born with, but rather taught, learned, or influenced by external forces.