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A Better Understanding: Race, Gender, and Sexuality 1. Reflecting directly on the cultural attitudes and sociocultural messages explained throughout this course, it is clear that race, gender, and sexuality are all socially constructed in one way or another. Contrary to popular belief, race is actually almost completely socially constructed, it is not biological. Further, a human’s DNA does not differentiate at all to create any specific race. However, society has categorized certain things, such as skin color, to determine the race of individuals. In simpler terms, there are not specific genes that parents pass on to their offspring that determine their race; society categorizes people into specific races when they are born based on their …show more content…
In reality, gender is not based on one’s genetic make-up or their reproductive organs. Expanding on this, an individual does not have any control over their assigned gender, but everyone has a gender identity, which is one’s internal sense of being male or female. From a sociocultural perspective, gender roles have the greatest influence on gender as a social construction. Gender roles are the attitudes, behaviors, rights, and responsibilities that particular cultural groups associate with each sex. In regards to gender, the social construction theory acknowledges the connection the topic has with power and meaning, and states that social interaction, or “language” controls how these things are portrayed to individuals. Similarly, sexuality is socially constructed in a sense that, one’s sexual orientation depends on what they are taught to be “socially acceptable”. For example, a person who is raised by homophobic parents would most likely be taught that every aspect of homosexuality is wrong, and therefore they would be influenced to be heterosexual. While many would like to believe that people are born with their sexual orientation, that is far from the truth. All in all, when looking at the big picture, it is clear that race, gender, …show more content…
Coming into this course, I had little to no familiarity with the social construction theory and its relation to race, gender, and sexuality. Over the past eight weeks, my mind has opened up in many different ways. Now looking at race, gender, and sexuality as social constructions I have a great understanding as to how much society plays a role in shaping the lives of countless individuals. Looking back, I believe that my life has been heavily impacted by social construction, both within my family and also my peers. However, looking at things from a new perspective, I am confident that I now have more control over what societal factors I choose to let influence my life. If there is one thing that I have learned throughout this course, it is to be skeptical; don’t always “go with the flow”, it’s natural to question things. In the end, society always influences people as much as they allow it
The reading also discussed the difference between sex and gender. While sex is biological, gender is socio-cultural, meaning it is a social construct. These constructs create stereotypes enforced by the culture. Gender roles are formed and become the "social roles that a person is expected to fulfill based upon his
The concept of race and what it means to people today varies from place to place. Despite the increase in global contacts, scientists are skeptical about the concept of race as a social construction. There is an ongoing debate about what “race” actually means and how is it used in terms of categorizing people. As the biological variations increase, differences among people of the same groups are visible. Over time people began to show more and more similarities in different ways. Race is only used in terms of the appearance of people and what they have in common biologically.
Gender roles are not the product of innate biology; They are formed based on the cultural and societal beliefs that surround an individual during their development. These factors play a very important role in gender identity, and often lead individuals to believe in stereotypical representations of gender identity such as gender roles. The way in which these cultures interpret the expression of gender identity heavily impacts the way an individual chooses to express themselves.
Sexuality is shaped by gender because gender in itself is a social construct. Sex is based on genetics, on whether or not you have a XX chromosome or a XY chromosome. Gender on the other hand is socially constructed. It’s how we perceive each other. For example, girls have long hair and wear pink but boys have short hair and are to be tough. Sexuality is further shaped by this because with gender, the world has only really ever had two categories, female and male, when really there could be more or there could be less.
Throughout the Race, Ethnicity, Class and Gender class, we discussed about race, ethnicity, class and gender and how they are involved in our lives today. I read different articles under each of the topics in the class, answered questions and discussed them in our follow-up class the week after. In each of our discussions, I’ve learned something new. Everywhere I go race, ethnicity, class and gender are all around me and there’s nothing I can do to change it, just accept it. Some people don’t know the difference between race and ethnicity, but I do. Race is biology and ethnicity is culture. Race is your physical appearance like what you look like such as skin color, your DNA, etc., and ethnicity is your language such as Spanish, Chinese, French, etc.
Race is something people thought was biologically based. However, scientists are starting to agree that race is something socially constructed, meaning that race is based on the different physical qualities that different societies view and use to group people into different groups which has many unfortunate consequences. Fields, Bernand and Mullainathan, and the video seen in lecture all further elaborate on how race is a social construction, how it segregates us, as well as what consequences this social construction has on society.
Much of society is based on, and influenced by, the ideas of sex and gender. While the two are dissimilar in many ways, they are often thought of as interchangeable and are in a way connected. While gender is the biological makeup of one’s physical body, including chromosomes, hormones, gonads, genitals, and a variety of secondary characteristics, such as facial hair or breasts, gender is a socially constructed concept that influences social roles and behavior. However, one must ask how society can function properly, when a factor which influences social structures so heavily is inaccurately represented.
The terms sex, gender and sexuality relate with one another, however, sociologists had to distinguish these terms because it has it’s own individual meaning. Sex is the biological identity of a person when they are first born, like being a male or female. Gender is the socially learned behaviors and expectations associated with men and women like being masculine or feminine. Gender can differentiate like being a man, woman, transgender, intersex, etcetera. Sexuality refers to desire, sexual preference, and sexual identity and behavior (1). Sexuality can differentiate as well like being homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, etcetera. Like all social identities, gender is socially constructed. In the Social Construction of Gender, this theory shows
Race, class, and gender hypothesis appear to survive struggle at diverse level encounters and usually face depletion in presenting a complete and inclusive theory of continuing discrimination that can give details or identify the altering patterns of race and gender dissimilarity in the United States from the past few decades.
The phenomenon of social construction causes participants of a particular culture or society to behave in a fabricated way, thus causing people to follow certain conventional gender roles. People have the habit of assuming that different things that occur within society are natural, when in fact, they are culturally constructed. For example, “From the day we are born, people’s reaction to us is largely determined by gender… the things that a baby girl will use like her blankets, bottles and cradle will primarily be pink. Similarly, the things of a baby boy will largely be blue” (TVP Editorial, Boy v/s Girl). Being a prime example of social construction, this is of importance because the sex of
What comes to mind when you hear about the LGBTQ community? The LGBTQ community, (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) is far from normal than most hetrosexuals, so why give them the same freedom and equality? Judging by how “famous” they’ve gotten while also having the right for gay marriage is as far as how much equality they’ll get and everyone, including the members of the LGBTQ community, will not mind at all and be happy with just having the rights for gay marriage and gaining some publicity.
Homosexuality has been the topic of constant conflict today. Homosexuality is defined as, a romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. In addition, homosexuality has been accepted more today, however, it is still frowned upon by many. Consequently, there are many challenges on the views of homosexuality. Some may think that this is an abnormal behavior, to have an attraction to the same sex. On the contrary, there are many who defend that the feelings that homosexual has, are feelings that are normal, not to mention, homosexuals believe that they were in fact born this way. Furthermore, in this essay, it will look at the challenges that are presented on this topic, and look at the conflict that is between society, homosexuals, and the church.
The relationship between sex and gender can be argued in many different lights. All of which complicated lights. Each individual beholds a sexual identity and a gender identity, with the argument of perceiving these identities however way they wish to perceive them. However, the impact of gender on our identities and on our bodies and how they play out is often taken for granted in various ways. Gender issues continue to be a hugely important topic within contemporary modern society. I intend to help the reader understand that femininities and masculinities is a social constructed concept and whether the binary categories of “male” and “female” are adequate concepts for understanding and organising contemporary social life with discussing the experiences of individuals and groups who have resisted these labels and forged new identities.
An important topic in psychology is gender and relationships and how they basically go hand in hand, with each other. Gender is a set of traits that are given to a male or female. Many people use the words masculine and feminine to characterize male and females. Relationships are a close association between two or more people that can last from a short period to a long period of time. There are different types of relationships as, well. A few of them are loved based, business, friendships, and more. This paper will analyze how gender effects relationships.
Sexual orientation is the preferred term used when referring to an individual's physical and or emotional attraction to the same and or opposite sex. Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual and pansexual are all sexual orientations. An individual's gender identity and expression is distinct from their sexual orientation. Throughout life as the individual explores the world around them, they are shaped by the unique experiences and influences that are imparted upon them. All people experience life subjectively therefore there is no monolithic way of viewing or defining one’s sexual identity, however, there are particular experiences that may shape and develop specific characteristics or tendencies that a group of people may share. Andrew Sullivan addresses this very issue in his 1995 book, Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality. In the prologue, titled “What is a Homosexual?” Sullivan ponders what exactly composes a homosexual life and why certain environmental factors are fundamental and exclusive to the homosexual experience. He sees self-control/subjugation as a crucial part of all human experience, however, he considers the homosexual (more broadly, the LGBTQ) experience to be unique in that early on they learn to make sexual/emotional distinctions out of a need for survival. They learn to function within the parameter of certain social rules in order to blend and eventually this becomes a sort of second nature that is hard to break.