Social Construction of Gender

 Judith Lorber in his book Night to His Day: The Social Construction of gender
o Social construction begins
 Assignment of sex category
 Genitalia look likes
 Simone de Beauvoir
o One is not born, but becomes a woman
 Patriarchy, Allan G Johnson
o Masculine and Feminine traits are socially constructed and these are all
stereotypes.
 Stereotypes
 Men
o Brave
o Strong
o Power
o Tough
o Competence
o Cool
o Calm
o Dominant
 Women
o Caring
o Emotional
o Inefficiency
o Maturity
o Equality
o Sharing
o Emotionally expressive
 Jokes are mostly made on women
 Women are influenced by men to get power
 Historicizing Constructionism
o Identity
o Assigned roles
o Construction level start
 At the family level
 Baby boy or boy girl
 Color
 Nomenclature
 Idealize mother or father
o Assign tasks by them
 Peer groups
 Society/culture
 Self-perception (Self-labelling) realize oneself what is one’s role
 Gender Stability
o Grow up assumes the role of mother or father, it cannot be
change
 Gender Constancy
o Switch the context
o In various contexts, such as boy acting as a girl in play, still
characteristics or internal feelings not changed
 Private regard
 Gender Stereotypes
 Education
 Media
 Language
 Literature
 religion