Most of who we are is socially constructed. Our beliefs, values, personality, all of it has an environmental base, and this includes our gender. What dictates our place in society? Our culture does. So growing up we learn what our identity comes from, which centers on the taught perception of our environment. In essence, gender is a social construct in which we chose to identify ourselves with in accordance to our culture, despite the assumption that it’s biological. Across different societies around the world, gender roles, identity, stratification; varies. What one society sees as “male” traits can be seen as “female” in another. Gender and its interpretation around the world is fluid. In Western society, hyper masculinity prevails. The perceived roles and identity for females is child rearing, homemaking, decorating, beauty oriented, and lack of imagination. Advertisement towards the youth in the United States gears toward the cultural norms on what a male and female are supposed to like, wear, dress, play with, and be personality wise. It goes back to the same idea previously mentioned that culture …show more content…
They still have perceived roles and identities for males and females, but they accept people who don’t fit in the boundaries. In Western society, not fitting in makes an individual susceptible to ridicule, yet in Native American society, being different is normal. Someone born male with personality traits that of a female is considered to be two-gendered or two spirited. Being two-spirited means that you have a better understanding of the world since you’re looking at it through two perspectives and not just one. Two-spirited, Berdash, also means you’re connected to the non female-male spirit world and most likely your role was being a shaman. Having sex with a Berdash wasn’t considered homosexual or heterosexual, however sex between two Berdashes was considered tabooed.