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Sociological Theory Of Doing Gender

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Doing gender is the idea whereby gender isn’t a biological feature but rather a social construct that has been built into our natural mindsets; and is conveyed in everyday social interactions. Examples of facilitating the concept of “doing gender” include Public toilets, organized sport and the division of labour in the work place. Another way of defining the concept of ‘doing gender’ is to describe it as the “development of ‘gender identity’” (1). This is the process in which one feels as though they fit into a specified gender class. This review will discuss and investigate the depths of gender and bring to light how much more complex this concept of “doing gender” is compared to previous knowledge. This review will focus on the subject …show more content…

What people perceive as the “norm” for men and women means that there is still a high level of gender inequality, because manly men are influenced to dominate due to their masculinity, and women are expected to submit as they are seen as the weaker gender, and more “feminine” which seems to have negative connotations in society. Especially in working environments, there is still a huge issue of society assuming jobs are gender-specific. For example, mechanics and transport-related fields of work are male-dominated and it is expected that women shouldn’t do these types of jobs because they are “dirty” and include intense “manual labour”. This assumption that women shouldn’t participate in manual labour is so outdated and untrue, there is no reason a woman has any kind of disadvantage to a man when it comes to changing the brake pads of a car or jump starting a battery, so why is it still frowned upon for women to be in such a …show more content…

A reputable study into gender segregation in a Female dominated occupation was run by K Snyder and A Green in 2008. (7). They found that even in a female dominated occupation such as nursing, men still tended to find the most “masculine” sectors and specialize in these rather than in sectors that could be interpreted as “feminine”. These sectors included the more physical, less emotional areas of nursing. With this study we can see that even though boundaries of female and male dominates occupations have been broken, that it is natural for us as humans to lean towards more masculine/feminine sectors within the workplace depending on what we identify ourselves as. We are still “doing gender” even if we don’t consciously realise we are doing

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