Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Social Construction of Gender
Social Construction of Gender
Gender Studies
1. Historicizing Constructionism
a. What does it mean to historicize constructivism?
It means that our realities are based on our experiences and interactions
with other people. We experience the world through our own opinions.
These opinions are constructed through a number of things such as
culture, mores, tradition, beliefs and values.2 So one person might
consider a dishwasher a necessity and the other might consider it a
luxury. This will be discussed in subsection 3 when we consider whether
sex is socially constructed or not.
1
These are our ideas or modes of what is real
2
These are collectively called a social agreement
2
In the late 1970s and 1980s problems regarding the recognition of homosexuality led to
widespread activism. The Gay Liberation Front was born in 1970 in Britain and it, along
with other campaigns such as Campaign for Homosexual Equality, began to work for
law reform.
Public policies in the mid 1980’s were selectively blind to the plight of gay men who had
contracted AIDS. It is estimated that 20,000 men died by 1987. This led to setting up of
in-formal and non governmental health centres by civilians. Like the women of the
second wave, these gay individuals were incensed by the casual attitude shown by the
government.
In such an atmosphere the idea of fluidity of gender was created. It led to the idea that
gay individuals were no different than others and that their sexuality did not mean
something was wrong with them. It was rather the heterosexual men and women who
were acting according to social constructs.
It is a set of ideas based around the fact that identities are not fixed and do not
determine who we are. It suggests that it is meaningless to talk in general about
'women' or any other group, as identities consist of many different elements. It is wrong
to think that people can be seen collectively on the basis of one shared characteristic
such as men, gay, lesbian. Queer theory proposes that we should deliberately challenge
all notions of fixed identity, in unconventional ways. It denies that heterosexuality is
normal or ‘natural’. Embodied in popular culture by Madonna.
3
Criticisms:
i. For most people, their sexual identity isn't fluid, it's constant.
ii. Queer theory focuses on cultural texts3 (rather than real life) where
it is easier to find sexual or gender ambiguities.
iii. Discrimination at home and at work, for everyday gay people, are
forgotten about in this approach as it reduces everyone to the same
fluid identity.
iv. By celebrating difference, queer politics makes the 'gay' or 'lesbian'
identity all too important. Other identities such as heterosexuality or
asexuality are ignored.
v. Queer theory celebrates pleasure and therefore puts too much
emphasis on sex.
Judith Butler’s book Gender Trouble (1990) made a profound contribution to the field.
She argued that gender is socially constructed. So male and female behaviors are
constructed and reinforced by media and culture4. Gender performativity theory also
suggests that sexuality is not assigned to one orientation or preference. Sexual identity
is fluid, a person can be heterosexual at one time and bisexual at another.
3
These are objects that reveal cultural meanings. Examples can be movies, songs, performers (such as
Madonna and David Bowie) and their personalities.
4
We can see examples where gender is seen to be socially constructed. Drag queens or the trend of
househusbands (men who stay at home to take care of their children) shows that gender is socially
constructed. Another example is that of Captain JAck Sparrow who uses make up and ses feminine
gestures. These cause Gender Trouble by showing people not acting in accordance with their assigned
gender roles.
4
○ Our identity is made up of a pile of (social and cultural)
things which we have previously expressed, or which have
been said about us. IT is made of certain expectations from
us.
○ There is not really an ‘inner self’.
○ Gender, like other aspects of identity, is a performance. If
you perform the requirements of one gender than you are
assigned that gender
○ People can therefore change if they perform the
characteristics of another gender. (If a heterosexual female
starts performing activities and adopts characteristics of a
heterosexual male then her identity changes.)
○ The binary5 divide between masculinity and femininity is a
social construct built on the binary divide between men and
women – which is also a social construction.
○ We should challenge the traditional views of masculinity,
femininity and sexuality by causing gender trouble
4. Critics:
i. Judith Butler's followers ignore real-life oppression and
instead support their optimistic worldview by gazing at
gender-blending movies and photography.
5
It is the classification of gender in to two opposite and distinct forms of masculine and feminine.
5
differences between men and women highlights the sexual differences
among both species
It can be said that to an extent sex is also socially constructed. It is true that the
distinctions between the sexes depend on 6 anatomical features, however let’s look at
all these in detail.
1. Chromosome make-up: XY (M) OR XX (F) (XXY Chromosomal variations = Klinefelter
Syndrome, XO Chromosomal variations = Turner Syndrome)
2. External genitals: Penis(M) OR Vagina (F) (Some people are born with ambiguous
genitalia and they are classified as intersex)
3. Internal genitalia: testes(M) OR Ovaries (F) (Internal genitalia of certain individuals may
not match their internal genitalia)
4. Gonads
5. Hormonal states [estrogen (F) and Testosterone (M)]
6. Secondary sex characteristics
Who determines when the size of the genitalia is sufficient for male? Not every genitalia is of
the same size. When is a male genitalia small enough to be categorised as a female genitalia?6
6
Phall-o-meters are used to classify children with ambiguous genitalia. Doctors make decisions regarding
such children and whether they should be classified as male or female. So sex is also socially determined
in such instances.
6
Competent Empathetic
Rational Sensitive
Assertive Passive
Independent Dependent
Aggressive Submissive
Strong-Headed Caring
Dominant Emotional
Active Passive
Tough Gentle
Kind Cruel
Verbal Analytical
Tactful Blunt
Ideas about masculinity and femininity are socially constructed. They vary across
different cultures and societies as well as history.7 Femininity and masculinity are based
upon, amongst other things, the social roles that women and men are expected to
perform in their lives.
Research at the Johns Hopkins Children Center has shown that gender identity is
almost entirely based on nature and is almost exclusively predetermined before the
7
Did you know President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wore frocks till he was six? It was a generally
accepted practice in those day s to dress boys in female clothes.
7
birth of the baby. Two studies conducted by William Reiner, a child and adolescent
psychiatrist and urologist, have confirmed that the amount of exposure to male
hormones and androgens in utero almost exclusively decides whether the child
identifies as masculine or feminine.
Reiner followed 14 children whose testicles and male hormone levels were completely
normal at birth, but who were born without a penis — 12 of the children were surgically
reconstructed to appear female. Today, all 12 of the children raised as females are
strongly male a-typical in their behaviors, attitudes, friends and play. This re-iterates that
perhaps gender may not totally be culturally constructed and certain aspects are a
result of nature.
However we can also argue that traits of masculinity or femininity may rest on cultural
factors.