Socio legal dimensions of

Gender
Lecture 2
By Ms Ankita Kumar Gupta
Topic to be covered
• Gender as a social construct
Gender as a social construct:
• Society and culture create gender roles, and these roles are
prescribed as ideal or appropriate behavior for a person of that
specific sex.
• Some supporters of this idea argue that the differences in behavior
between men and women are entirely social conventions, whereas
others believe that behavior is influenced by universal biological
factors to varying degrees, with social conventions having a major
effect on gendered behavior.
Social Constructionism
• Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge.
• According to Marecek, Crawford & Popp, knowledge is an "account of
reality produced collaboratively by a community of knowers"
• Thus, social constructionism focuses on how meaning is created.
• The roots of the social constructionist movement in psychology are
related to the criticism of the objectivism assumed by
positivist/empiricist concepts of knowledge.
• Among the most popular variations of the social constructionist
theories is the gender role theory, considered by Alsop, Fitzsimons
and Lennon (2002) as an early form of social constructionism.
• Social constructionism, briefly, is the concept that there are
many things that people "know" or take to be "reality" that are
at least partially, if not completely, socially situated. For
example, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker writes that "some
categories really are social constructions: they exist only
because people tacitly agree to act as if they exist. Examples
include money, tenure, citizenship, decorations for bravery, and
the presidency of the United States."
• The basic assumptions of social constructionism, as described
by Marecek, Crawford & Popp, are:-
1. Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge.
2. Knowledge is a social product.
3. Power and hierarchy underlie social construction.
4. Language is at the core of knowledge.
5. Social construction is a dynamic process.
6. The individual and society are indissoluble.
Lets Watch…

• Boys don’t cry

Gender Roles
Gender roles are often centered around the conceptions of femininity or
masculinity.
• A study by Bandura and Bussey shows that kids want to be like others of their sex. Social
conformity has been widely studied on adolescents. Results showed that 6-year-old children
tend to conform to choices that their peers find more popular. They begin labeling objects as
"for girls" or "for boys" and conform to what is expected of them.
• Society typically only recognizes two genders. Therefore, when transgender individuals want to
have a sex change operation, they must prove that they can "pass" as a man or woman– so
even the choice of changing one's gender is socially constructed.
• As a social construct, gender is learned. We say that gender is learned because we are not born
knowing how to act masculine or feminine, as a man or a woman, or even as a boy or a girl.
Just as we rely on others to teach us basic social conventions, we also rely on others to teach us
how to look and act like our gender. Whether that process of learning begins with our being
dressed in clothes traditionally associated with our sex (blue for males and pink for females), or
being discouraged from playing with a toy not associated with our sex (dolls for boys, guns for
girls), the learning of our genders begins at some point. Once it’s begun (usually within our
families), society reinforces the gender behaviors we learn. Despite some parents’ best efforts
to not impose gender expectations on their children, we all know what is expected of our
individual gender.
Gender Accountability
• People hold themselves and each other accountable for their presentations of
gender (how they 'measure up'). They are aware that others may evaluate and
characterize their behavior.
• People can always be judged by what they do as a man or as a woman.
• Accountability can apply to behaviors that do conform to cultural conceptions as well
as those behaviors that deviate – it is the possibility of being held accountable that is
important in social constructionism.
• For example, the rationale that people gave for why there were small numbers of
women in the auto industry or other male dominated industries. Men cited the idea
that such dirty work was unsuitable for women and women were unable to train
because of family duties. Women who do work in male-dominated professions have
to carefully maintain and simultaneously balance their femininity and professional
credibility.
Lets Watch…
• Havells Advertisement (https://youtu.be/r2YKFG7u7ZA )
• #ShareTheLoad asks “Are we teaching our sons what we have been
teaching our daughters?" – Ariel(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QDlv8kfwIM)
 Sex Vs. Gender
• Historically, the terms “sex” and “gender” have been used interchangeably, but their uses are becoming increasingly
distinct, and it is important to understand the differences between the two.
Sex
• As you may recall from a biology or health class, a fetus’s sex is determined at conception by the chromosomal
composition of the fertilized egg. The most common chromosome patterns are XX (female) and XY (male). After
about seven weeks of gestation, a fetus begins to receive the hormones that cause sex organs to develop. Fetuses
with a Y chromosome receive androgens that produce male sex organs (prostate) and external genitalia (penis and
testes). Fetuses without androgens develop female sex organs (ovaries and uterus) and external genitalia (clitoris
and vagina). In cases where hormones are not produced along the two most common patterns, a fetus may develop
biological characteristics of each sex. These people are considered intersexuals.
Gender
• Compared with sex, which biology establishes, gender doesn’t have such a clear source of influence. Gender is
socially constructed because it refers to what it means to be a woman (feminine) or a man (masculine). Traditionally,
masculine and feminine characteristics have been taught as complete opposites when in reality there are many
similarities. Gender has previously been thought of as a spectrum, as a line; this implies the drastic separation of
genders. A better way to think about gender is a circle, where all genders can exist in relation to each other.
• Gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with
may not match the sex they were assigned at birth
 Gender Performativity
• The term "gender performativity" was first coined in American philosopher and gender theorist
Judith Butler's 1990 book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. In Gender
Trouble, Butler sets out to criticize what she considers to be an outdated perception of gender.
• She argues that being born male or female does not determine behavior. Instead, people learn
to behave in particular ways to fit into society. The idea of gender is an act, or
performance. This act is the way a person walks, talks, dresses, and behaves. She calls this
acting "gender performativity." What society regards as a person's gender is just a performance
made to please social expectations and not a true expression of the person's 'gender identity'.
• “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” wrote Simone de Beauvoir in one of the
most famous articulations of the difference between sex and gender. By this, de Beauvoir does
not mean us to believe that no one is born with reproductive organs, but that the social role of
“woman” (or for that matter “man”) comes from a collection of behaviors into which we are
socialized. The distinction is crucial for understanding most feminist and queer theory and the
variety of human identity more generally, yet it’s one that too often gets lost in popular usage
of the words sex and gender. Biology does not determine gender differences, culture does.
Stages of Gender Identification
• Infancy and young childhood
• Teen years
• Adulthood
Infancy and young childhood
• The idea around gender performativity, when applied to infancy and
young childhood, deals with the idea that from the moment one is
conceived, arguably even before that, who they are and who they will
become is predetermined.
• Children learn at a very young age what it means to be a boy or girl in
our society. Individuals are either given masculine or feminine names
based on their sex, are assigned colors that are deemed appropriate
only when utilized by a particular sex and are even given toys that will
aid them in recognizing their proper places in society.
• “The first thing people want to know about a baby is its sex”
Teen Years
• One's teen years are the prime time in which socialization occurs as
well as the time in which how one presents themselves in society is of
high concern. Often, this is the time in which one's ability to master
their gender performance labels them as successful, and thus normal,
or unsuccessful, and thus strange and unfitting.
• One of the sources that demonstrate how successful performance is
acted out is magazines, specifically magazines targeting young girls.
• This not only emphasizes the fact that gender is something that is
taught to us and is continuously being shaped by society's
expectations.
Adulthood
• The actions of a youth in high school greatly impact the choices the
individual will have over a lifetime.
• Because some young women believe that they want to be mothers
and wives, the choice of professions and future goals can be
inherently flawed by the gender constraints.
 Factors Effecting Gender Identification
Gender-based harassment
• In high schools, gender-based harassment serves as a form of gender boundary policing. Girls are expected to
conform to stereotypical gendered appearances, as are boys. Both male and female students regularly take part in
policing gender boundaries through bullying. Male students frequently harass male and female students, while
female students generally only harass other female students. The practice of male students bullying other male
students is explicitly linked to machismo that boys are expected to subscribe to in order to be constructed and
related to as 'normal' boys.
Body image
• High school is a major transitional period for girls and boys as their bodies transition into men and women.
• There are many different factors that affect body image, "including sex, media, parental relationship, and puberty as
well as weight and popularity".
• Body image is closely linked to psychological well-being during adolescence and can cause harmful effects when a
child has body dissatisfaction.
Education
• Due to the amount of time that children spend in school, "teachers are influential role models for many aspects of
children's educational experiences, including gender socialization"
Social change
• Eg- Feminism
Can we “undo "Gender ?
• Because the theory says that one can "do" gender whether they conform to
gender norms or not (and is always held accountable for behaving in
accordance with gender norms), change seems impossible.
• However, because gender is "done" or constructed, it can also be "undone" or
deconstructed.
• A social construct is a concept which cannot exist independently in the
natural world and everything we know or perceive as reality, is entirely, or at
least partially, socially situated. For an instance, ‘money’ is a socially
constructed reality. The paper bills we use in India, i.e. Indian Rupee, are only
worth as much as value as the Reserve Bank of India assigns to it. Without our
practices of assigning values to those paper bills, can money exist
independently in nature?
Lets watch…
• A taboo-free way to talk about periods | Aditi Gupta |
TEDxGatewayWomen (https
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm0isl11BfY)
Thank you