Gender Construction In Our Society

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Professor Ipsen

Gen 101

Smaller Question

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. 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 factors that have influenced on gender role. While Graciela Rodriguez and the movie "Miss Representation" and "Tough Guise" show how media presentation like movie, video game and magazines shapes people’s gender identity, Pollitt and Lorber argue that media presentation is not the only factor that affects gender identity; they show that parents’ expectations for their children and certain traditional belief of country toward gender also affect gender identity as well. 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) and Tough Guise(1999)," clearly portrays how men and women should act around people and in society. In the movie Miss Representation, the women were shown as sexually explicit figure toward the audiences and also emphasized how women should look like in order to satisfy gender role. On the other hand, the movie " Tough Guise", showed how men should be masculine and tough in order to fulfill gender role as male. But, these movies have clear point 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 in 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 had certain expectations from their parents and relatives to be either grow 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. How did people before TV invention able to form their gender role? Because gender stereotype and expectations existed from long time, people were able to form gender identity by modeling and following their ancestors. 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). There are gender rules which states that male has to act in certain way and female has to act in another way. Because people kept acting in expected way for long period of time, they eventually formed gender stereotype. Since childhood, we modeled our parents and acted according to what they told us to do. All of these would demonstrate how our social norms have big impact on gender expectations for people. Lastly, religious view 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 traditional belief that came from their parents or ancestors. In most of countries, women are seen as weak and emotional through religious belief, which lead to certain type of gender identity. It emphasized about transgender and homosexuality. According to many religions, 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. 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. Unlike America, there are many countries where religion play major role in forming gender role than media productions. 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 certain traditional value of each country. As people go through their development throughout their lives, both the society and the world unconsciously forms the gender identity by producing media productions, making gender stereotype among people, and establishing cultural and religious beliefs. Therefore, I strongly agree that the sociocultural experiences have more impact on individual’s gender identity than just physical development.