How Does Social Change Affect Individuals And Society?

Sociology is the study of how social forces influence individuals living within a society. Any society is made of norms, values and beliefs that have the effect of constraining individuals’ thoughts and behaviors. Through understanding and sociological imagination, individuals can remove or at least lessen the social forces’ impacts that are causing the constraints.

In American culture in the 1950s, men were the predominant head of the household and women were expected to cook, care for their kids, and clean. This is an excellent example of gender roles, and how they control certain aspects of life. Gender roles are, according to multiple sources, the way people behave, what they do or say to express being a female or male. (“Gender Identity”; Blackstone; "Understanding Gender") They are forced upon an individual from the day they are born even in the most trivial of terms of putting baby boys in blue clothes and baby girls in pink. Throughout that person’s life from then on, they will face cultural expectations every day to act according to their sex. Gender roles can often be confusing and hurtful,many stores are moving away from assigning products to a specific gender, but not only can gender roles affect a person’s behavior, it can play a huge role in transgenderism.

Fifty years ago, nobody could ever have imagined how widely accepted transgender individuals would be in modern times. Countries all around the world had only ever known about the social distinction between men and women, which is known as ‘masculinity vs. Femininity’. However, now it is much more complex than that; as transgender and gender confused individuals are more widely accepted, it has become more of a case of sex vs. gender. “Sex is the biologically based distinction between men and women centring on sexual organs, while gender is the social and cultural rendering of masculinity and femininity.” (Oakley, 1972) And even though transgenders are accepted into society they still face inequalities such as not being accepted into a particular community, ostracised by families and friends,

The stereotypical labeling of genders can determine one person’s outlook on life. The judgment can make one feel like there is a set rubric to follow in order to remain in the lines regarding which gender they belong to. Such influences from peers or partners can alter

The sociology of gender is one of the largest subfields within sociology; sociological gender studies look at the social construction of gender and how gender interacts with other social structures within society (Crossman, 2016). It Is important that one understands the difference between sex and gender to understand the sociology of gender; unlike gender, sex is biologically determined and relates to the reproductive organs a person has. In order to separate gender and sex sociologists use different pronouns; when discussing gender, sociologists use the terms man/woman and when discussing sex sociologists will use the terms male/female (Crossman, 2016). Although most people fall into wither the category of male or female, some people are born with ‘sex organs’ that do not clearly fit into either of the two specific sex categories, these people are known as intersex (Ashley Crossman, 2016). Gender is described as a social classification based on one’s identity and how one presents themselves to the world; this identity relates to the way one behaves and interacts within society. Many sociologists view gender as a learned behaviour and look at gendered identities as being culturally produced which makes gendered identities socially constructed (Crossman,

A person’s sex is determined on the basis of three fundamental human physiognomies, chromosomes (XX for a female and XY for a male), gonads (ovaries for females and testes for males) and the obvious being genitals (vagina for a females and a penis for males). However socially, gender identity is formulated on the grounds of stereotypical roles from both

Gender is a complex socially constructed idea. Often people interchangeably use gender to refer to someone’s sex. This is not the case. Sex is the biological characteristics that makes someone a male, female or intersex. Gender however is made up of expression, identity, and sexual orientation. Gender identity is how one views themselves such as a woman, man or transgender. Gender identity does not correspond to the sex of that person. Gender expression is how one expresses their gender identity. This could be through a masculine , feminine or androgynous expression. In Western societies, although there has been a push for change in our gender system, the gender system as been a binary system. This binary system only believes that there are

In the documentary Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She, the prejudices towards transgender and intersex individuals, as well as the fear they experience because of these prejudices, are underlined. A transgender individual is one that identifies with a gender that is not associated with their biological sex. An intersexual individual, however, is one that is born with indefinite sexual anatomical characteristics, making it difficult to identify as a male or female (Croteau & Hoynes, 2013). In addition, this documentary emphasizes the impact of cultural expectations on sexual orientation and gender identification.

Activism by definition is “a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.” It is the ability of the people to do radical things in

Societal gender binary requires individuals to identify by either masculine or feminine traits (Kachel, Steffens & Niedlich, 2016). Once gender socialisation has occurred, assumptions and stereotypes follow (Holmes, Hughes & Julian, 2012, p.109). If one refutes their gender norm, sexism and discrimination typically manifests. Similarly, stereotypes affect the way people treat others. Using stereotypes to define a person is prejudice and often leads to incorrect assumptions based on the way they act, look or conduct themselves in society. Social reproduction can impact one’s life experiences through limitation and inhabitation of involvement. Allowing for the transmission of inequity from one generation to the next, social reproduction restricts personal beliefs and

“I am transgendered. I was born female, but my masculine gender expression is seen as a male…it’s the social contradiction between the two that defines

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.

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

Argued in Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003:15), living up to our gender is learning through a life-long process of socialization. Further supported in Kulick and Schieffelin (2006:352), one’s gender emerges over a lifetime through interactive process in which one accepts, rejects, or modifies the cultural and gender norms they are socialized in. These two arguments supported the idea of this essay’s research question in which cultural and social factors do contribute to gendering an individual, and in turn implicating the creation of a boundary that exclude transgenders from the society.

The gender binary describes a western social construct in which people are categorized based on gender; depending on the anatomy of an individual they are deemed either male or female and are thus expected to exhibit a feminine or masculine personality. As a social construct birthed in the western world, the intention of the gender binary is to create an understanding of the different individuals in our society in a way that discriminates against those considered female, those that do not identify with the binary or do not identify with the gender they are assigned at birth, and those that experience same-sex attraction. When considering the gender binary as a system of oppression, it is essential that one considers other institutions that oppress people – particularly ones in the west—to avoid a reductionist approach to the discrimination directly associated with the gender binary. To properly understand the gender binary, it is important to keep in mind that it was created to categorize people, while also working with and maintaining other systems of oppression as one itself.