As social beings, we act in response to particular situations, within definite structures of social relations. Gender relations, the relations among people and groups organized through the reproductive arena. Masculinities and femininities are best understood as gender projects, dynamic arrangements of social practice through time, in which we make ourselves and are made as particular kinds of human
In "Sex and Temperament," Margaret Mead explores this concept. Men and women are predisposed to societal factors that influence their personality. This can be seen through their behavior and cognitive differences. Gender inequality, is a factor that helps shape personality with the guidance of society. Gender inequality deals with the treatment of individuals based on their gender, usually favoring male or females.
Gender roles became created and enforced by society. Beliefs, pressures, and behaviors seem to socially construct gender roles. Though views on gender roles vary, some become stereotypical. A stereotype remains a widely accepted judgment or bias about a person or group even though it becomes overly simplified and sometimes inaccurate. As we grow, we learn how to behave from those around us.
A gender system incorporates “processes that define males and females as different in socially significant ways and justify inequality on the basis of that difference.” This gender system lays down the guidelines about what behaviour a particular society expects of males and females. This way, the gender system of a society enforces the gender roles for both males and females, in a culture.
Conflict Theory- By keeping women in subordinate roles, men ensure that they control the means of production and protect their privileges. Men will not voluntarily give up their current beneficial positions of power. Feminist Theory- It says that patriarchy is the cause of women’s oppression. Class, race, and gender intersect it in a way that privileges some women over others, though most women are still subordinate to most men. Consequences of Gender Stratification:- Rigid stereotyping can have psychological and social consequences for individuals • For men- guilt, anxiety; early
Differences in men’s and women’s speech People will consciously and unconsciously perform each identity. Language is a form of performance. The conventions of linguistic behaviour of men and women are strained from the performance of the felt and desired gender identity of a person. The above-mentioned conventions are based on natural discourse of the genders as well as on the ideologies of gendered speech behaviour within a society. Feminist movements realized that language was one of the instruments of female oppression by males.
According to the research findings, these two factors interrelate with each other in a series of ways. For example, women are culturally and biologically considered as weak beings. As weak being, they need to be protected. Men and women are equal though different people, and each of them has unique role in the society. Another is about gender and sex.
To begin with, one of the fundamental aspects of social interaction depends on an individuals´ gender identity. By interacting with others, individuals within a society create their gender identity through their sense of dominating cultural ideology, and “it is through these interactions that one of the most fundamental divisions of society, male and female, is legitimated” (West & Zimmerman, 1987, p. 126). That is to say, society creates gender, not vice versa. This gender categorization and basic distinction between genders, children learn early on from their parents and other influencing adult figures. As a result, when children mature they take on these adopted characteristics of their societal attributes and emerge into intermediate adolescence
Social roles involving work, other activities and interactions, responsibilities in production and reproduction, expectation of behaviour, even dress and manner of speech, all become gender-types in the gender roles construction. As with other features of culture, the various aspects of gender are interrelated, woven into the building up of society, affected by all other aspects of human behaviour and interaction. Moreover, this set of interrelated features vary from one society to the next which means gender is culturally based, elaborate, and integrated with all other features of society. Another important point is that socialisation in these gender roles are so pervasive that the situation may indeed be nearly hopeless in terms of any real change from a critical perspective. Even when parents have reached a point of consciousness where they attempt to avoid gender-typed toys, it is often the children themselves who want such
The historic background Constructing gender "Sex vs. Gender At first we need to shed the light on that aspect of talking and dealing with language and gender. Sex: biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential Gender: social elaboration of biological sex – gender as social construction For all what mentioned, we found that language and gender is a very complicated topic which