The Social Construction Of Gender

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Gender is such a ubiquitous notion that humans assume gender is biological. However, gender is a notion that is made up in order to organize human life. It is created and recreated giving power to the dominant gender, creating an inferior gender and producing gender roles. There are many questionable perspectives such as how two genders are learned, how humans learn their own gender and others genders, how they learn to appropriately perform their gender and how gender roles are produced. In order to understand these perspectives, we must view gender as a social institution. Society bases gender on sex and applies a sex category to people in daily life by recognizing gender markers. Sex is the foundation to which gender is created. We must understand the difference between anatomical sex and gender in order to grasp the development of gender. First, I will be assessing existing perspectives on the social construction of gender. Next, I will analyze three case studies and explain how gender construction is applied in order to provide a clearer understanding of gender construction. Lastly, I will develop my own case study by analyzing the movie Mrs. Doubtfire and apply gender construction. SEX AND GENDER In order to grasp the concept of social construction of gender, it is essential to understand the difference between sex and gender. Biologically, there are only two reproductive genital organs that are determinants of sex: the vagina and the penis. Sex is established solely through biological structures; in other words, genitalia are the basis of sex. Once a sex category is determined, gender, a human categorization socially attached to sex, is assigned based on anatomy. Gender typically references social or cultural differen... ... middle of paper ... ...934520701820752. Kessler, Suzanne J, and McKenna. Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Kimmel, Michael S, Amy Aronson, and Michael S Kimmel. The Gendered Society Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Knobloch-Westerwick, Silvia, and Gregory J. Hoplamazian. “Gendering the Self: Selective Magazine Reading and Reinforcement of Gender Conformity.” Communication Research 39, no. 3 (June 2012): 358–384. doi:10.1177/0093650211425040. Lorber, Judith. Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Nikandam, Roya. “Gender Is Performative in Illusive Beliefs.” English Language & Literature Studies 2, no. 2 (June 2012): 84–88. doi:10.5539/ells.v2n2p84. West, Candace, and Sarah Fenstermaker. Doing Gender, Doing Difference: Social Inequality, Power and Resistance. New York; London: Routledge, 2002.

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