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Judith Lorber Social Construction

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Social construction is a social mechanism that is categorized and created by society. This can often be of an individual, group, or idea that is perceived than constructed through social practices within society. Some examples of social constructs could be gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality because they are shaped by cultural and historical contexts. Social construction is important in women studies because these constructs that we have learned to accept and believe are challenged greatly in women studies. For example, in The Social Construction of Gender by Judith Lorber, Lorber argues that gender is something that is created by society. From birth, we are assigned a gender, and then through social practices, we learn how to “do gender”.
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Introduction The concept of sex and gender has been socially constructed for a very long period of time, and it was a lot stricter in the past. As author Zimmerman indicated in his reading “Doing Gender” that “Those of us who taught courses in the area in the late 1960s and early 1970s were careful to distinguish one from the other.” (Zimmerman 1987) Nowadays, we know that the society is gradually changing and people are becoming more open-minded than before.

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a. Race appears because people’s identities are assigned through it. This is a means of distinguishing a group and a means of control over it. The essence of society is that a small number of people exploit most people in the name of the development of human civilization, and race is the most powerful political weapon for them. b. Social construction is something or an event that is a meaningful to the society, it reveals how the social is constructed and how people are participating in it. c. Money is a kind of social construction, people accept the value of money and consider them as an essential part of the society.

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671 Words | 3 Pages

Burak defines gender socialization as “the process of interaction through which we learn the gender norms of our culture and acquire a sense of ourselves as feminine, masculine, or even androgynous” (Burack, 1). According to Burack, people of different genders behave differently not due to biological factors, but due to socialization that teaches individuals to behave in a particular way in order to belong to a certain gender. For example, women may tend to be nurturing, not because they are biologically programed to be caretakers, but as a result of society teaching them through toys and media to act as mothers. In this way, gender becomes a performance based on expectations rather than natural behaviors or biology, a phenomenon called “doing

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260 Words | 2 Pages

The sociological concept, social norms, is applicable to the content in the article “What is social construction?” written by Paul A. Boghossian because norms are socially constructed. Social constructionism only exists because people give things reality through social agreement. Social constructionism also requires a society and is based on that specific society, varying depending on the needs or values of that group of people. Norms are socially constructed expectations that effect individual’s behaviors and influence why people act certain ways depending on the context of the situation. Social norms could not possibly exist without the presence of a society.

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722 Words | 3 Pages

A child's earliest exposure to what it means to be male or female comes from parents. From the time children are babies, parents treat their sons and daughters differently. Parents’ dress their children gender specific colors, give them gender differentiated toys, and expect different behaviors from boys and girls. Parents inspire their children to participate in sex-typed activities. Such activities include doll playing and engaging in housekeeping activities for girls, and playing with trucks and engaging in sports activities for boys.

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909 Words | 4 Pages

The moment a child is born, society presents it a complex gift steering the course of its future. Gender is the most important social construct in the human life as it shapes the way we interact and navigate the world we live in. From the colours that the baby is wrapped in to the hues of wallpaper in the bedroom – a girl, is most likely to be thrown into a world of pastel pink and lavender, if you are a boy, you are most likely to be surrounded by bold red and blue hues. We are already starting to be forced into identifying with a specific gender. Dolls, plastic vacuum cleaners and Fischer Price kitchenettes are given to girls, and are taught that Barbie and Bratz dolls are gender appropriate toys; shopping, fashion and makeup is that which defines femininity.

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According to Michael Kimmel "we acquire our gender identity through socialization." Michael Kimmel's explanation is “we can no longer cease being men or women then we can cease being human.” I agree with the author. There are some behaviors that are learned for instances men are taught to be strong and women are taught to be helpful. I believe that man has stronger hunting instincts and a woman seems to have a stronger nurturing instinct, which is characteristic of a gender.

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Gender is something that is brought to the attention of people well before people are even brought into the world. Take for instance, when a woman finds out that she is pregnant and is about to have a child. The first question that that women is asked is “What are you having?” In doing this we are automatically emphasizing the importance of being able to identify whether or not to buy “boy” things or “girl” things. As a society we deem it important for each sex to practice a set of “norms” of how to behave via that sex.

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813 Words | 4 Pages

From the moment of my birth, I was declared a girl and my parents immediately attempted to raise me to be every aspect of my gender, from behavior to beliefs. In sociology, this is known as gender role socialization, which is the process of socializing boys and girls to conform to their assigned genders’ attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, values, and norms. My parents taught me how think and behave like a girl through the way the way they dressed me, how they did my hair, and the toys they allowed me to play with. However, having been raised with a brother, I also picked up on some of his supposed gender roles. I am exactly who I am due to the way I was socialized by my parents and others around me.

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Before we explain the concept and idea of social construction we need to first define what social construction is. What a social construction is, is it's a construct of how society should be like. This could be from the race you are, to the gender you should be. Now that we got the definition let me explain to you the idea of social construction.

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Unlike ‘sex’, which typically refers to the biological and physiological differences, gender is a sociological concept that describes the social and cultural constructions that is associated with one’s sex (Giddens & Sutton, 2013, p. 623-667). The constructed (or invented) characteristics that defines gender is an ongoing process that varies between societies and culture and it can change over time. For example, features that are overly masculine in one culture can be seen as feminine in another; however, the relation between the two should not be seen as static. Gender socialization is thought to be a major explanation for gender differences, where children adhere to traditional gender roles from different agencies of socialization. Gender

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672 Words | 3 Pages

The development of gender in boys and girls is influenced by a number of things; one of these being through the act of learning. Learning is defined as a change in behavior or knowledge that is received from experience, study, or from being taught (Spielman, 2014). Boys and girls are certain to reach life experiences in which they must be taught the appropriate ways for their own gender. One way in which gender development can be taught is through operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a type of associative learning that involves voluntary or chosen behaviors (L. Ramirez, personal communication, October 5, 2016).

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1045 Words | 5 Pages

Gender is it a concept or is it made apparent by our DNA when you are born or does it change as you grow older? Often gender is something that society defines at birth. According to society certain gender roles are pre established when we are born. The majority of society believes that if you are born to a specific gender you should adhere to the gender roles while other people believe that instead we may be born to a gender but it does not always decide if you are that gender. Science has proven that just because you are born a male or female does not mean that you mentally see yourself as that gender.

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Your choice of being masculine or feminine or what you want to identify as is already chosen after you are

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Although some people believe that nature affects the gender identity, others argue that, based on the education an individual receives, it is actually nurture. For example, John Moore, a teacher at a female-only school, says, “My findings suggest that, in some senses, the single-sex school is strongly feminist” (Moore, 2005). On the other hand, many societies teach the children gender stereotypes to try and limit them from becoming against what the society feels is appropriate. Gender roles or stereotypes are “a set of qualities, behaviors, and attitudes that are considered appropriate for males and females based on their biological sex” (Whalen & Maurer-Starks, 2008). Most of the time, these stereotypes are taught and explained to the children in the early stages of learning, since as mentioned above, gender identity is most likely detected after the child is two years old.

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