socialization of gender
When speaking of social construction we refer to the way society defines and develops ideas and characteristics on issues that vary throughout certain time periods and certain cultures. For example, the mid-1900's Western version of the typical family roles was for the father to work and bring home the income, and for the mother to take care of the home and the children. The father would come home to a cooked meal, well deserved from a hard day's work. From another perspective, Evelyn Blackwood's article, "The Case of Cross-Gender females," tells of a study done on female cross-gender roles of Native American tribes in the late nineteenth century. In those societies females were to "assume the male role permanently and marry women." They would act, dress, and talk much like the other sex and were sometimes seen as being half male, half female."There are countless arguments and supportive evidence sustaining the view that gender is socially constructed. One example comes from the evidence of social construction of gender in the advertising. Jean Killbourne does a great analysis of this issue in her documentary, "Still Killing Us Softly." She says that, "advertising is the bloodstream of the media," a one hundred billion d
Gender inequality is produced in the media, and through day to day social interaction leading to a male empowerment of gender roles. Men are considered to be more aggressive and have greater strength which is why we define sporting rules as they are. For example, in the article, "Believing is Seeing," Judith Lorber mentions how figure skater are restricted in their routines. In the early Olympics males were required to do three triple jumps, while females were only limited to one. "These men penalized artistic men skaters and athletic women skaters," just because of set guidelines based upon assumed abilities. Only the masculine mature males and the young prepubescent females were socially accepted in the sport. Women of older age and men of young age would be seen as odd competitors in this sport because of their biological differences. Lorber also tells of the social myth that men tend to be technically smarter than women. Her argument began with the early schooling of girls and boys, where boys would be more apt to take math courses in comparison to girls. She then mentions how social standards compete with biology in deciding on whether a man or women should drive the car. "Men drive cars whether they are good drivers or not because men and machines are a 'natural combination,' but the ability to drive gives one mobility; it is a form of social power." The character Pat on Saturday Night Live is a perfect example of an androgenous character. Behind all the humor that the show dishes out, we don't notice how hard people try to determine what sex Pat is. Whether male or female will not alter how successful or healthy Pat is, but rather a social acceptance into either gender would be more emotionally problematic. Playing a neutral role of a socially defined gender can lead to deviance, being labeled as problematic, and abnormal, just because a path is not correctly chosen of the dichotomous routes to categorization. ollar industry which is paid by
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1334
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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