Societal Norms And Practices Surrounding Gender Essay

Gender is actually a set of rules, customs and traditions assigned to people of a particular sex. Gender is not biological but sex is. Rather, according to Lorber, it is influenced by our society and our culture. By proving this claim, Judith Lorber has put forth the example of the man and this example is efficient in distinguishing “gender” as a practice than as an innate attribute.

Whether we consciously notice or not, doing gender is occurring everyday within our society. Every interaction we have with another individual is doing gender. Doing gender has become a part of our every day lives the same way without realizing it the same way we breathe air without really paying attention that we are breathing. The meaning behind this is that it is occurring unconsciously. Candace West and Don Zimmerman coined the term doing gender in an article they composed. West and Zimmerman argued that gender is something that humans created. As humans, we have the urge to categorize and define everything. If someone was not in favor of their gender role or did something that was not deemed correct for that gender, this person would be committing an act of social deviance. This paper will discuss what doing gender means along with other attributes of doing gender. These attributes includes what pushes us to do gender, why we do gender, the results of doing gender along with discussing what the boys in C.J. Pascoe’s article of Dude you’re a fag accomplished. This essay will discuss what doing gender is along with what causes us to do it and finally what doing it accomplishes.

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the male stigmatized ideology of gender as it pertains to parenting and domestic labour and how it relates to the course theme regarding the social construction of gender, more specifically that of hegemonic masculinity. First in Part I, I will define hegemonic masculinity and discuss the social construction theory developed by Raewyn W. Connell, as it relates to the structure of labour. I will also discuss the concept of “doing gender” outlined by Candice West and Don Zimmerman. Second in Part II, I will critically examine multiple author’s arguments about the socially constructed stigmas around stay at home dads, as it is seen to be tied to femininity. Finally, in Part III, I will analyze the implications of the social stigmas presented in the previous section. I will also examine how new forms of masculinity are being created as solutions to combat the binary system surrounding

The most commonly preached and accepted social path for an individual is to go through elementary and secondary school, and immediately follow that with some sort of a post-secondary education. We must take the skills we have learned in grade school and apply them, as we become adults. Schools where a student can receive a degree are regarded as the highest quality by society. We are lead to believe that the college or university campus is filled with equality and equal opportunity. In reality, college reaffirms the gender frames we have understood throughout our lives thus far and strengthens that reality even after we graduate. The gendered division of labor that we see in the workplace is

Because school is where students learn about culture, it follows that the activities therein should contribute to the understanding of their culture, as well as the culture of others, preparing them for a pluralistic world (Quebec Education, 2001, Section 1.2). This makes the project in question all the more relevant as it does the aforementioned. Additionally, by concentrating on gender norms, the project has the ability, and will to expose the intercultural nature of gender boundaries, how stereotypical images of gender pervade the world as a whole (Schieffelin, & Ochs, 1986). But more than just preparing its students theoretically, highlighting the multitude of diversification will work to arouse the feeling of harmony, that no matter their differences, they are all part of humanity. By doing so, the project, and school, will “act as agents of social cohesion by fostering a feeling of belonging,” contributing to a socially just society (Quebec Education, 2001, Section 1.2).

Heteronormartive notions of gender create challenges and issues that require a complex process of resolving gender inequalities. In particular, one of the challenges is resolving the inequalities that are reinforced by male and female gender norms. The notion of gender creates a dichotomy in male and female roles. Through socialization processes, we learn to identify specific behaviours as 'masculine' or 'feminine', and boys and girls are taught to perform and display these traits, which become a dominant part of their identities. Western society has constructed gender roles that promote and maintain notions of suitable behaviours and expectations. For instance, males and females are required to act a certain way according to their

At birth, an individual’s gender is chosen in a split second and is often based on the outward physical characteristics of their body (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009). This leaves little room for genders that fall outside of the standard societal binary. There is an emphasis on “doing one’s gender” in a manner that represents the structure of the

Gender identity is an important component of an individual’s sense of self. As a person matures they start to learn about their place in the wider world. According to sociology by John Scott and James Fulcher, gender socialisation refers to learned gender roles that we acquire from family, social media and school. It too teaches us of the social expectations linked with gender; the distinctions between sex and gender. Sex is based on the physical characteristics considered to distinguish between a male and a female, whereas, gender refers to the differences in how men and women in society are expected to behave and feel (sociology: James Fulcher and John Scott 2007). An example of gender socialisation would be that women should wear pink and men should wear

Individuals and society are deeply intertwined in an intimate and reciprocal relationship. Individuals are the imperative building blocks of society and concurrently hinge on society for their own existence. Few can argue against society’s pivotal role in shaping identities and creating norms that heavily influence and dictate how people behave. It goes without being said, one of society’s greatest creations, is gender. Yet many still rigidly perceive gender as a biological construction, or the bodily division between male and female. Connell (2009) proposed that gender is rather a socially constructed concept which is instituted subconsciously and performed on a daily basis. This essay will explicate Connell’s definition of gender through

Sociologists have long recognized that gender, unlike biological sex, is rooted in social beliefs and varies considerably across cultures. Proponents of structural-functional theory understand that gender is a state of being that is socially constructed and point to earlier societies that organized social roles based on the division of labor which allowed society to function at an optimal level. The development of gender identity is grounded in social norms, comprising accepted behaviors and rules that allow an individual to conform to a particular group. On a day to day basis, individuals display gender as “a performance, a stylized repetition of acts” (Lucal, p114) through culturally based mannerisms, appearance and behavior, all of

Out of all the fields offered to incoming freshmen in college, I chose engineering. To me, it was an easy choice; I excelled in my high school STEM classes and I’m a problem-solver, which is essentially what an engineer is, just on a bigger scale. In those classes, I took pride in the fact that I was one of few females, and never felt like my gender affected my performance or my opportunities. It wasn’t until my civil engineering class that I noticed a change. As one of only two girls in the class, I wasn’t treated as an equal by my male classmates. I was faced with both comments on my shorts, body, and personal life, and lessened workload because I “wasn’t cut out for the manual labor.” I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that I was treated differently though, since only 25 percent of the labor force in STEM fields are women, and only 18-20 percent of engineering students are women. The numbers were, and still are against me,

All humans are born with the idea of which gender they are, but each discovers their gender identity through the relations with who and what they grow up with and how society expects them to act. There is no way that individuals could learn what they believe in and behave as they want through natural influences. Overall, society has a much stronger impact on the way people act exclusively based on gender. Almost everyone in this world is born with some distinctive ability on how to perform about gender, but the way individuals are raised, interact with others and influenced by media is what impacts one's gender identity. This result of society’s permanently set gender roles prevents men and women from becoming the humans they want to be by

Gender roles are imposed from a variety of social influences. Formed during the socialization phases of childhood and adolescence, gender role issues influence people throughout their lives; conflict can arise when someone does not feel at ease with his or her or their gender role.

     For many years society has embraced the idea that the difference between men and women were biologically determined. Thou through traditions, media, and peers we act accordingly to how others view us. Each individual has pressure placed upon them based on their gender. Our sex is determined by genetics while our gender is programmed by social customs. Some theories interpret that a women is tender and a loving mother while on the other hand men are aggressive hunters and are the dominant one of the family. People who support this theory seems to believe that men and women are happier when fulfilling the roles nature determined for them. Women are to be nurturing and men are to be providers by

As evident from the generalized patterns found in differences in behaviour and outlook observed between the sexes, it may be tempting, as has been done in the past, to conclude that gender is an unavoidable aspect of human existence as determined purely from one 's genes. Indeed, human physiology is subject to sexual dimorphism; statistically significant differences in brain size and rate of maturation of specific substructures in the brain exist between males and females (Giedd, Castellanos, Rajapakese, Vaituzis, & Rapoport, 1997), yet these physical differences fail to explain how individuals form their concept of their own gender, and why they tend to conform to their perceived gender roles as defined by the society in which they live, when these roles are ever-changing. Thus, it is important to differentiate between the physical and nonphysical traits, and how the labels of femininity and masculinity should not confuse the two aspects. As defined by Unger (1979), “sex” would be used to refer to the biological differences in males and females, while “gender” describes socioculturally determined, nonphysiological traits which are arbitrarily designated as being appropriate for either females or males. With more recent awareness and interest in matters of gender nonconformity and individual gender identity, new research now explains how these concepts of gender are shaped by social influences (Perry