LESSON-5

Unit 2. Sociology of Gender

Topic: Social Construction of Gender

Learning Outcome:

1. Explain the social construction of gender.

Concept Digest

Social Construction of Gender

Gender, like all social identities, is socially constructed. Social constructionism is one of the key theories
sociologists use to put gender into historical and cultural focus. Social constructionism is a social theory
about how meaning is created through social interaction – through the things we do and say with other
people. This theory shows that gender it is not a fixed or innate fact, but instead it varies across time
and place.

Gender norms (the socially acceptable ways of acting out gender) are learned from birth through
childhood socialization. We learn what is expected of our gender from what our parents teach us, as
well as what we pick up at school, through religious or cultural teachings, in the media, and various
other social institutions.

Gender experiences will evolve over a person‟s lifetime. Gender is therefore always in flux. We see this
through generational and intergenerational changes within families, as social, legal and technological
changes influence social values on gender. Australian sociologist, Professor Raewyn Connell, describes
gender as a social structure – a higher order category that society uses to organise itself:

Gender is the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena, and the set of
practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social
processes. To put it informally, gender concerns the way human society deals with human bodies, and
the many consequences of that “deal” in our personal lives and our collective fate.

Like all social identities, gender identities are dialectical: they involve at least two sets of actors
referenced against one another: “us” versus “them.” In Western culture, this means “masculine” versus
“feminine.” As such, gender is constructed around notions of Otherness: the “masculine” is treated as
the default human experience by social norms, the law and other social institutions. Masculinities are
rewarded over and above femininities.

Take for example the gender pay gap. Men in general are paid better than women; they enjoy more
sexual and social freedom; and they have other benefits that women do not by virtue of their gender.
There are variations across race, class, sexuality, and according to disability and other socio-economic
measures.