The Importance Of Gender In Society

We must take note that gender is a socio-cultural construction. This means that gender is what we make of it. Since there is not a definitive answer for what gender is outside of the physiology, we must turn to each other to define what it is. It becomes a construction as the individual adapts their gender to what society claims are standard for your sex. When referring to sex and gender we need to remember that they “are two different concepts” (Giraudo, 2016a).

The creation of meanings centers on the expectations of the roles each sex should fill; society creates cultural norms that perpetuate these creations. Gender blurs the lines between the differences created by nature and those created by society (Gottlieb, 168); gender is the cultural expectations of sexes, with meaning assigned to the diff... ... middle of paper ... ...le or female actually identifies with their prescribed role depends on the socialization process and the way they identify with society’s expectations of them. The social construction of gender and sexuality all rely on the measure that people believe there is a difference between the two sexes, once this emphasis is taken away, is when gender roles will no longer play an integral role in the structure of society. Works Cited Gottlieb, Alma. "Interpreting Gender and Sexuality: Approaches from Cultural Anthropology."

The term gender is used to describe the collection of characteristics that the society or a culture uses to differentiate between masculinity and femininity. The characteristics used to characterize gender hence depend on the context of the society and include sex. However, unlike some people mistake, there is a significant difference between gender and sex. This confusion is attributed to the fact that sex is the most common characteristic used to define gender roles in most communities. However, while sex refers to a biological characteristic of being male and female, gender differentiate people depending on the roles the society gives them.

Gender studies are an attempt to explore some of the practices and sites specified. Gender comes to be associated not merely with a set of bifurcated characteristics that have been deeply engrained but with an entire universe that has been divided into separate but unequal spheres. These spheres extend beyond character traits to material realms with which “masculinity and femininity “have been linked. Some people believe that th... ... middle of paper ... ...s and also describes about the equal rights and the way different people of different races and different strata of society are treated. Works Cited • Gender, Race and Class.

Gender has many definitions that have been developed through the numerous approaches to history and the many other social sciences. The basic debate in defining gender is at what point is the distinction made between the natural (sex) and the cultural (gender). Gayle Rubin’s definition in “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex” is that “sex” is the raw material on which culture uses to produce “gender” and that gender is the cultural expectations of the differences between men and women. The important aspect of the definition of gender is that it is culturally defined and does not remain static over time. As society adjusts, so do its definitions of gender.

This theory encompasses and concerns itself with the ways people think about and use groupings to arrange experiences and analyze the world (Boghossian, A., Paul, 2001). At large, it suggests that certain aspects of society would not exist if society had not of created the aspect or thing being analyzed. The avenue of this theory that merits exploration for the purpose of application is concerned with gender. An example of this rests in the 1953 book Th... ... middle of paper ... ...(Moss-Racusin A., Corinne, July 2, 2012). Half of the applications were labeled with a male name and the other half had a female name, keep in mind the application is the same across the board minus the name.

In this research, I will identify the factors that inter-link gender within different parts of society Social stereotypes of male and female roles in society are a predominant aspect of modern day culture. The male-female distinction is one of societies primary cultural categories (Ridgeway, 2009). Through these stereotypes, people categorize males and females instantly on first interaction. Any subsequent interaction is slightly swayed as it depends on prior understanding of the other person as male or female (Ridgeway, 2009). There is growing evidence in research that gender differences rely greatly on the cultural system of interaction (Ridgeway, 1997).

It will consider the history and development of gender discourse within forced migration and provide a critique of the effectiveness of gender responsive strategies. Finally, it will conclude with summary statements outlining areas of concern. The concept of ‘gender’ in the social sciences is often confused with ‘sex’, though ‘sex’ refers to a biological reality whereas the notion of ‘gender’ is a social construct. Early gender analysis viewed ‘gender’ as relating to women only: men had no gender. Post-structuralist and post-feminist frameworks of analysis began to problematise this notion , viewing gender as a set of social and cultural ideas, symbols, practices and beliefs through which we perform and ‘know’ the world in which we live.

I will show first why gender does exist. Then I will go on to explain the reasons why I believe that it is socially constructed using an example called the social learning theory to support my argument. Before the 1960s gender was not a recognised term apart from denoting masculine and feminine words (he or she). In the 1960s a phycologist named Richard Stoller (1968) deemed there was a demand for trying to define transsexual people, as their gender and sex did not seem to match. Transsexuals were biologically the same but chose to be a different gender.

Sex is defined by the physical body and is characterized by the initial biological structure from birth. The characteristics of each male or female body maybe different but the make ups are the same. Gender on the other hand according to Wood is unstable; it is a category or a means by which we understand the body. The cultures ideologies and discourses surrounding us make sense of the body and determine our gender in multiple ways. It gives us a social, political, symbolic, and economic understanding of our bodies and how they are similar and dissimilar from other bodies.