Social Construction of Gender

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Social Construction of Gender
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Vignette

• 1) Sheena and Jaye are sister and brother.
  Sheena is invited by a neighbor to an all girl
  birthday party. Jaye wishes to go, but the
  neighbor said that he cant go because hes a
  boy. What would you tell Jaye if you were his
  parent?
• Now, reflect on what the different ways say about
  your assumptions of gender.

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Gender as a Social Construction

• 1) What is Gender/Sex?
• Gender/Sex as falsely dimorphic.
• 1 out of 20 children do not have XX or XY.
• Everyone expresses gender more complexly
• Some people have gender identities that do not
  match their genetalia.
• Many societies have three genders.
• 2) Gender is taken for granted and
  essentialized. We cannot even see how we
  participate in creating it.
• 3) We have different expectations, different
  rules and different values for people in our
  society that is based on gender.
• We pressure people to perceive boys and girls as
  opposites. When they arent, we either ignore
  the transgressions or punish them.

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Gender as a Social Construction

• 4) Gender is a process, stratification system and
  structure
• Process day to day interactions reinforce
  gender as opposites. For examples, conversations,
  rituals of daily life, sayings, etc
• Stratification Men as a group have more status
  and power than women as a group. Women are
  treated as other, and compared to men.
• Structure Gender divides work in the home and
  economic production. It legitimates those in
  authority and organizes sexuality and emotional
  life.

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Gender as a Social Construction

• 5) What is necessary for societys perpetuation?
• Rules for allocating goods
• Assigned responsibility for children and others
  who cant care for themselves
• Common values and the transmission of them.
• Legitimate leadership.
• Expression of the above through arts, music,
  stories, etc.
• What social categories influence the way the
  above exist?

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Gender as a Social Construction

• 6) Gender is an achieved status Children learn
  to walk, talk and gesture in concert with their
  status. Indeed, we can tell the difference by
  such social markers (show picture)
• 7) Given that for us, gender means opposite,
  think of the consequences of this for success in
  the workplace.

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Gender as a Social Construction

• 8) What is work?
• Any activity that creates goods and services for
  ones own use or for exchange or pay. There is
  paid work (market) coerced work (slavery) and
  domestic work.

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Gender as a Social Construction

• 9) Industrialization reduced work to pay. Why?
• 10) Most domestic work is devalued or invisible.
• For example babysitter versus lawnwork. Also,
  domestic work not included in the economy

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Gender as a Social Construction

• 11) How does our conception of gender affect
  work?
• Products created for different tasks
• Expectations for different jobs.
• Value for the tasks done for example, is it
  truly more valuable to work outside than inside?
• Gender displays both men and women create to
  control the workplace.