Social Construction of Gender Essay
Heteronormativity is the cultural bias or the view that puts clear boundary between male and female, which emphasizes normal sexual and romantic relationship between two genders. As freshmen in college, I have a friend name Joe whom I did not expect him to be gay. At first, I thought it was impossible him to be gay. But as he began to have boyfriend, I began to see people around them and the society viewed him as abnormal and weird. For example, his parents told him to be straight in order to emphasize about being normal. There are social boundaries to people who are not straight and the society encourages people to be Heteronormative. Therefore, Heteronormativity is a fixed view about living and having normal thoughts about sexuality and gender role.
Prompt 1: Gender Construction in our society
Gender Identity can be defined by the way people act as a male and female, which males have different sets of mind about something that females do not. Even though man and woman have difference in physical part, People learn more about their gender identity through experiences since their childhoods to until they get old. There are many biological differences in both men and women, but it does not have impact on how gender shapes in people’s lives. If gender did not exist in our society, I am pretty sure there would be gender confusion where many females would be considered as “male”, and many males would be considered as “females.” There are many sociocultural factors that have influenced on gender role. Since the social construction of gender is mainly formed by the gender rule and stereotype in our society, gender identity is constructed by the representation of gender norms in mass media productions, parental expectations about gender identity, and the beliefs of different religious traditions about gender. In today’s society, Mass Media Production like movie, video games, and magazines influenced so many young males and females and also some older people. For example in the movie clips ” Miss Representation(2010) ,” clearly portrays how women should act around people and in society. In the movie Miss Representation, the women are shown as sexually explicit figure toward the audiences and also emphasize how women should look like in order to satisfy gender role. Because many women are shown in negative way for most of time, people actually think that women are exactly like in the movie or magazines, which is not true. This movie was trying to say that people are heavily influenced by media. All of people watch TV every single day, and many of them enjoy watching movie. By watching them, they unconsciously think about the actors or models and form their gender roles. In the reading ” Breaking the Model,” the author said ” I wanted to be popular, like the typical girl on TV. I wanted to be thin- to fit in.” (Rodriguez, CP 54). Due to the fact that many of women want to look sexy, beautiful, and thin, they see the model as their dream and it motivates them to be like them, which could cause in eating disorder and depression. They desire to fit into certain group of the society in order to feel good and superior about themselves. On the other hand, the producers of media know what teens like and purposefully make media productions that appeal to them. Finally, the media gradually forms people’s thoughts about their genders by emphasizing that they should look like them. The social construction of gender is caused by the expectation of people and the way society view people. Since the childhood, everyone received certain expectations from their parents and relatives to be either grown up as normal masculine male and feminine female. In the reading from “Night to His Day,” it said that “In social interaction throughout their lives, individuals learn what is expected, see what is expected, act and react in expected way, and thus simultaneously construct and maintain the gender order.” (Lorber, CP 14). Unlike media effect on gender identity, children learn their behaviors and form their minds by listening to their parents and other people. For example, some boys learn to be male by playing tough sports like football. Additionally, girls learn to be female by imitating the way their mothers dress and act. It would be weird for people to act in unexpected way and might result in isolation from the family and the society. In the reading “Why Boys Don’t Play With Dolls,” it said that ” a girl with a doll and a boy with truck “explain” why men are from Mars and women are from Venus, why wives do housework and husbands just don’t understand” (Pollitt, CP 18). Since childhood, we modeled our parents and acted according to what they told us to do. There are gender rules which states that male has to act in certain way and female has to act in another way. Because gender stereotype and expectations existed and people kept acting in expected way for long period of time, people were able to form gender identity by modeling and following their ancestors. All of these would demonstrate how our social norms have big impact on gender expectations for people. Lastly, religious view toward gender would form the social construction of gender and could lead to discrimination about gender, especially toward female. As right now, there are few countries where sexism is still going on against women due to the cultural and religious view among people. In many countries, Women are treated differently than men in various ways. For example in the reading “Night to His Day,” the author wrote that ” In societies that create the greatest gender difference, such as Saudi Arabia, women are kept out of sight behind walls or veils, have no civil rights, and often create a cultural and emotional world of their own (Bernard 1981) ( Lorber CP, 15). Because Saudi Arabia had this belief for long time, the people just think this as religious belief that came from their parents or ancestors. In most of countries, women are seen as weak and emotional through religious belief that was viewed by the society, which lead to certain type of gender identity. Many of religious belief like Catholic and Muslim emphasized about transgender and homosexuality. According to religious belief of Catholic, it emphasizes people not to change their gender through surgical treatment and marrying a same gender. If they disobey the rule of religion, they would lose respect from other people and feel they are not worthy enough to believe in that religion by the fact they did not follow the gender rule in society. It is important to understand that people have high tendency to conform among groups, and it would result in following normal cultural and religious belief toward gender identity and role. Gender is mainly formed by our social construction and each individual is impacted by people and objects they encounter every day in their lives. It is not possible to just form our gender based on body difference between men and women because it does not do anything to our mind and habits. As people grow up from childhood, they begin to actually see how it feels to be fit into the right gender identity group through media production they encounter, expectations from other people that caused from gender stereotype, and religious value of each country. Therefore, I strongly agree that the sociocultural experiences have huge impact on individual’s gender identity through the gender rule and gender stereotype.
