Gender as a Social Construct

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When thinking about the colors blue and pink, the very first connotation for many people that arises is the sex of a child. The tradition of wrapping a baby boy with a blue towel and wrapping a baby girl with a pink towel has been carried on from generations to generations to the point that society has failed to recognize its arbitrary societal norm. Today’s feminists believe that the term gender and the act of gendering are nurtured from birth until societal norms and expectations are indoctrinated into the brains of individuals. Parents and society categorizing humans based on their sex do not end with colors nor does it end at childhood. The idea of gender being the result of social construction can be portrayed immensely in various forms such as language, media and education as they all provide many evidences to illustrate the overt distinction of the roles of male and female. The concept of masculinity and femininity are taught to children by parents, which ultimately sculpts physical and emotional behaviors of individuals. Modern day feminists have shed light to how humans has been oblivious towards the sexist and stereotypical gendering that is constantly executed by today’s culture and have taken extensive measure to make amends. Whether it is explicit or heedlessly, gendered society cannot be avoided due to constant exposure from the cultural customs. It is naïve to ignore the consequences of social construction in gender roles, as it is society that dictates the ideal concept of what it means to be a certain gender. All individuals are born with a certain sex, however individuals are not born gendered. To identify one’s sex is to simply refer to one’s biological and physiological characteristics that result in categori... ... middle of paper ... ...ve Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519-531. Kamano, S. (1990). Cross-National Analysis of the Social Construction of Homosexuality and Gender. NWSA Journal, 2(4), 696-698. Lee, V. E., Marks, H. M., & Byrd, T. (1994). Sexism in Single-Sex and Coeducational Independent Secondary School Classrooms. Sociology of Education, 67(2), 92-120. Lorber, J. (1994). Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender. Paradoxes of Gender (pp. 54-67). New Haven: Yale University Press. Martin, P. Y. (2004). Gender As Social Institution. Social Forces, 82(4), 1249-1273. Risman, B. J. (2004). Gender as a Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism. Gender and Society, 18(4), 429-450. Yieke, F. (2001). Gender as a Sociocultural Construct: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2), 333-347.

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