Identity Is Socially Constructed Essay

To suggest that something is socially constructed, is to say that it is a product of individuals or groups in society. For example; If not for life then gender would not exist. Van Zoonen (1994) suggests that “reality is not merely something that exists out there, but it is also (re)constructed by the social and sense-making activities of human beings” (p. 38). Burger and Luckmann (1996) followed this up by outlining the reciprocal relationship seen between the identity and social structure: “The social processes involved in both the formation and the maintenance of identity are determined by the social structure. Conversely, the identities produced by the interplay of organism, individual consciousness and social structure react upon the given social structure, maintaining it, modifying it, or even reshaping it” (p. 173). Also according to Burger and Luckmann (1996), types of identity are social products generated through the dialect of the individual and society. Therefore any hypothesising of identity must “occur within the framework of the theoretical interpretations within which it and they are located” (p. 174).

Relationships of men and women are also considered by social theorists as socially fundamental (Lorber and Farrell, 1991, West and Zimmerman, 1987, Berger and Luckmann, 1996, Rothenberg, 1998). Rotherberg (1998) comments on how gender, in addition to race and class, as a social construct reflects the dominant distribution of power and privilege in many contemporary societies (p.8). Research has often created categories of gender, defined by dominant males groups as a source to generate social rankings (West and Zimmerman, 1987, Lorber and Farrell, 1991). Weber (2004), noted how linking the notion of gender with biology, creates the governing patriarchal