Social Construction of Gender

1. Social Construction of Gender

2. Gender as…. • Social Institution • Social Process • Structure

3. Social Institution • Built in societal norms and expectations • Institution of marriage, family, employment, education, etc. • Limitations and Accepted notions

4. Social Process • Creates distinguishable social statuses for the assignment of rights and responsibilities. • “Human beings produce gender, behaving in the ways they learned were appropriate fro their gender status…” (116). • Results in societal-built in norms and expectations.

5. Structure • Divides work in the home and in economic production • Legitimates those in authoritarian positions. • Organizes sexuality and emotional life. • Stratification System • Man = A • Wo-man = Not A

6. Privilege, Power and Gender • “Conversely, because they are the superior group, white men do not have to do the ‘dirty work,’ such as housework; the most inferior group does it, usually poor women of color.” (117)

7. Gender and the Social Order • “The social order, as we know it in Western societies is organized around racial, ethnic, class, and gender inequality….therefore the continuing purpose of gender as a modern social institution is to construct women as a group to be the subordinates of men as a group.” (118)

8. Four propositions to the Technologies of Gender • 1) Gender is a representation • 2) Gender is constructed • 3) Changes over time. • 4) Affected by the deconstruction. • Technologies of Gender: Essay on Theory, Film, and Fiction ” by Teresa de Lauretis

9. Think-Pair-Share • 1) How do Beyonce and Lauryn Hill do gender? • 2) How is their work, style, existence a gendered performativity? • 3) What relationship does gender have to society? • 4) What is meant by the ‘male gaze’? • 5) What is meant by the “politics of containment”? How is gender contained? What role does male power have on defining how woman and woman of color existence and agency?

10. This lesson provided a brief understanding of how gender is a social construction; it operates and perpetuates by institutional (think. High school prom…. As a heteronormative project (one guy, one girl as social norm) the high school prom is a great example to understand the roles of feminism and masculinity as heterosexuals. • How is gender complicated with woman of color and people of color queer feminism?