Evaluate the idea that gender and sexuality are socially constructed Essay

In recent years sociologists have been studying the great extent to which gender roles are learned. Many behaviors that have traditionally been thought to be genetically determined male or female behaviors turn out to be learned behaviors and therefore subject to change in future generations. In a summary of gender role socialization studies, David Shaffer (1979) points out that by the age of two, children have generally learned to recognize â€Å"maleness† and â€Å"femaleness† on the basis of clothing and hair styles. By the age of three, children usually have learned to prefer sex-typed toys and recognize that girls become â€Å"mommies† and boys become â€Å"daddies†. By school-age, children realized that they are expected to engage in appropriate gender behavior and if they do not, they will meet with disapproval from other children and adults. Many sociologists have personally questioned the value of such early gender-role learning and raised questions about how this learning can inhibit later opportunities in terms of education and career selection (Howe, 1979). To understand how gender and sexuality are socially constructed we must look at the adaptive and functional nature of socialization. One can look at the content of socialization as adaptive for the individual and functional for the society. As adaptive for the individual, the content of socialization involves knowledge necessary for individual to adapt to the changing situation of their daily lives, while, as a function for society, the content of socialization involves the knowledge necessary for its members to maintain a society as an ongoing entity. Knowledge of social rules, appropriate emotional behavior, social situations, technical knowledge, one’s self-identity, and communicative abilities give individuals an ability to adjust their behaviors to one another in the different groups and situations in which they encounter each other. Such adjustments are necessary for the ongoing existence of a society. Only people know how to adjust their behaviors to each other can the group activities and relationships which make up a society be maintained. Only with a socialized adult population can anything such as a society be said to exist. The particular content of socialization becomes highly important in terms of the make-up of the society that one is observing. If the content of socialization were to change, people’s activities and motivations would change, and clearly the society would change. So, on a sociological quest the content of socialization is something to which the sociologist should and must pay attention (O’Brien, 2001). Charles H. Cooley (1964), a pioneer of American socialization studies, referred to an individual’s self-concept as a â€Å"looking-glass self†. Cooley implied that our self-conceptions reflect our interpretation of the relations to our behavior of those around us with whom we interact. According to Cooley, we not how others respond to our actions, which produces in us a feeling about ourselves, which influences how we perceive ourselves. For instance a person who drops something and overhears another’s remark about how clumsy he is, may come to think of himself as a clumsy individual. We come to think of ourselves in terms of our understanding of how others think about us. It is through interaction that we come to apply to ourselves such labels as â€Å"kind† or â€Å"mean†, â€Å"awkward† or â€Å"graceful†. To see oneself as beautiful is to interact with persons who see you as meeting the criteria of beauty. Whether one sees oneself as an ugly duckling or a beautiful swan depends upon the flock with which one swims. As a naturalistic and empirical quest for understanding the various aspects of social reality is that everyone both influences and is influenced by society, sociology is ultimately a quest for self understanding. Humans beings are not isolated entities; we are not hermits who live apart uninfluenced by one another. Rather, we are social beings who can only be fully understood when the social context of our actions are taken into account and carefully studied. In order to carry out the quest for sociological knowledge it is necessary to have an understanding of the types, uses and limitations of the various sociological tools or methods. The sociological quest can be the appropriate sociological map or theory (Shaffer, 1979). Now I want to look at social life as a process and structure in the social construction of gender and sexuality. Social life involves processes of socialization, culture, and deviance. Learning how to act in society via socialization, developing and sharing of orientations toward social life via culture, and the negative sanctioning of inappropriate behaviors via the labeling process of deviance are universal processes, which are necessary to social life, and found in all societies. Although their particular make-up will vary from society to society, these three processes exist in all human societies. But, in addition to these processes, there also exists in all societies some relatively permanent patterns of organized social life that sociologists refer to as social structures. It is within and through social structures that the processes of socialization, culture and deviance take place. Just as the processes of human life take place in the structure of the human body so, too, the processes of society take place within and are influenced by social structures (Macionis, 1997). The most basic social structure around and through which social life takes place are groups; groups range in size from relatively small informal groups such as families, to large bureaucracies and formal organizations such as businesses and governmental agencies. All groups are composed of members who have met certain criteria for membership, who play certain understood roles in the group, and who have a sense of group belonging, which is sometimes termed a â€Å"we-feeling† or a â€Å"consciousness-of –kind†. Groups, related to one another in terms of their performing similar social activities, together from the social structures called social institutions. For example all the groups primarily involved in educational activities together form a society’s educational institution. It is through and in groups, and the institutions that they compose that the basic social processes of a society take place. It is in social groups that the learning of socialization takes place that cultural roles are shared and acted upon, and that deviance is ascertained and punished. People know how to perform roles in groups because they have knowledge of how to act which they developed in the process of socialization, because they share cultural understandings with other group members with whom they interact, because they have an understanding of what is considered deviant and unacceptable behavior in the various groups to which they belong (O’Brien, 2001). When we consider how females and males differ, the first thing that usually comes to mind is sex, the biological characteristics that distinguish males and females. Primary sex characteristics consist of a vagina or a penis and other organs related to reproduction, secondary sex characteristics are the physical distinctions between males and females that are not directly connected with reproduction. Secondary sex characteristics become clearly evident at puberty, when males develop more muscles, a lower voice, and more hair and height while females form more fatty tissue, broader hips, and larger breasts. Gender is a social and not a biological characteristic. Gender consists of whatever traits a group considers proper for its males and females. This is what makes gender vary from one society to another. Sex refers to male or female, gender refers to masculinity or femininity, so sex you inherit and you learn your gender as you are socialized into specific behaviors and attitudes (Gilmore, 1990). The sociological significance of gender is that it is a device by which society controls its members. Gender sorts us on the basis of sex, into different life experiences. It open and closes doors to power, property, and even prestige. Like social class, gender is a structural feature of society. Biology plays a significant role in our lives. Each of us begins as a fertilized egg. The egg, or ovum, is contributed by our mother, the sperm that fertilizes the egg by our father. At the very moment the egg is fertilized, our sex is determined. Each of us receives twenty-three pairs of chromosomes from the ovum and twenty-three from the sperm. The egg has an X chromosome. If the sperm that fertilized the egg also has an X chromosome, we become female. If the sperm has a Y chromosome we become male. That’s the biology. Now the sociological question is, does this biological difference control our behavior? Does it make females more nurturing and submissive and males more aggressive and domineering? (Macionis, 1997) Almost all sociologists take the side of â€Å"nurture† in this â€Å"nature vs. nurture† controversy. The dominant sociological position is represented by the symbolic interactionists. They stress that the visible differences of sex do not come with meanings built into them. Rather each human group determines what these physical differences mean for them and on that basis assigns males and females to separate groups. It is here that people learn what is expected of them and are given different access to their society’s privileges. Most sociologists find compelling argument that if biology were the principal factor in human behavior all around the world we would find women to be one sort of person and men another. In fact, ideals of gender vary greatly from one culture to another and as a result, so do male-female behaviors. For example the Tahitians in the South Pacific show a remarkable contrast to our usual expectations of gender. They don’t give their children names that are identifiable as male or female, and they don’t divide their labor on the basis of gender. They expect both men and women to be passive, yielding and to ignore slights. Neither male nor females are competitive in trying to attain material possessions (Gilmore, 1990). Society also channels our behavior through gender socialization. By expecting different attitudes and behaviors from us because we are male or female, the human group nudges boys and girls in separate directions in life. This foundation of contrasting attitudes and behaviors is so thorough that, as adults most of us think, act and even feel according to our culture’s guidelines of what is appropriate for our sex. Our parents are the first significant others who teaches us our part in this symbolic division of the world. Their own gender orientations are so firmly established that they do much of this teaching without even being aware of what they are doing. This is illustrated by a classic study done by psychologists Susan Goldberg and Michael Lewis (1969). They asked mothers to bring their 6 month old infants into their laboratory to supposedly observe the infant’s development. Secretly these researchers also observed the mothers. They found that the mothers kept their daughters closer to them. They also touch and spoke more to their daughters. By the time the children were 13 months old, the girls stayed closer to their mothers during play, and they returned to them sooner and more often than did the boys. When they set up barriers to separate the children from their mothers, who were hiding toys, the girls were more likely to cry and motion for help, the boys ere likely to try to climb over the barrier. Goldberg and Lewis (1969) were able to conclude that in our society mothers unconsciously reward their daughters for being passive and dependent, their sons for being active and independent. These lessons continue throughout childhood. On the basis of their sex, children are given different kinds of toys. Preschool boys are allowed to roam farther from home than their preschool sisters, and they are subtly encouraged to participate in more rough and tumble play. Even get dirtier and to me more defiant. Such experiences in socialization lie at the heart of the sociological explanation of male/female differences (O’Brien, 2001). In today’s society mass media plays a vital role in gender and sexuality roles. Sociologist stress how this sorting process that begins in the family is reinforced as the child is exposed to other aspects of society. Especially important today are the mass media, forms of communication that are directed to large audiences. Powerful images of both sexes on television, music and the internet reinforce society’s expectation of gender. Television reinforces stereotypes of the sexes. On prime time television, male characters outnumber female characters by two to one. They also are more likely to be portrayed in higher status positions. Viewers get the message, for the more television that people watch; the more they tend to have restrictive ideas about women’s role in society. The expectations to the stereotypes are notable and a sign of changing times. Video games have some youths spending countless hours playing games. Even college students, especially males, relieve stress by escaping into video games. But more studies into the affect of these games on the ideas of gender are needed. Because the games are the cutting edge of society, they sometimes also reflect cutting edge changes in sex roles (Macionis, 1997). As women change their roles in society, the mass media reflects those changes. Although media images of women are passive, subordinate, or as mere background objects remain and still predominate, a new image has broken through. Exaggerating changes in society, this new image nonetheless reflects a changing role of women, from passive to active in life outside the home, from acquiescent to dominate in social relations. Books, magazines, DVD’s and video games are made available to a mass audience. And with new digital advances they have crossed the line form what we traditionally think of as games to something that more closely resembles interactive movies. Sociologically, what is significant is that the content of video games socializes their users. Gamers are exposed not only to action, but also to ideas as they play. Especially significant are gender images that communicate powerful messages, just as they do in other forms of mass media (O’Brien, 2001). Lara Croft, an adventure seeking archeologist and star of Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider 2, is the essence of the new gender image. Lara is smart, strong, and able to utterly vanquish foes. With both guns blazing, she is the cowboy of the twenty-first century, the term cowboy being purposely chosen, as Lara breaks gender roles and assumes what previously was the domain of men. The old remains powerfully encapsulated in the new. Lara is a fantasy girl for young men of the digital generation. No matter her foe, no matter her predicament, Lara always is outfitted in form fitting outfits, which reflect the mental images of the men who created this digital character. Their efforts have been so successful that boys and young men have bombarded corporate headquarters with questions about Lara’s personal life. Lara had caught young men’s fancy to such an extent that more than 100 web sites are devoted to her. The final reward of the game is to see Lara in a nightie one can question that regardless of tough girl images just how far stereotypes have been left behind (Macionis, 1997). Gender stratification gives males and females unequal access to power and prestige and property on the basis of sex. It is closely associated with class and caste stratification and is a related phenomenon of gender stratification. Some but not all societies have men and women as unequal with the latter being more seen. Sexual in equality is characteristic of societies that are stratified in other ways as well. Women have historically occupied a position of inferiority to men in the class structured societies of the Western world. Sexual inequality may sometimes be seen in societies that are not otherwise stratified, in such instances men and women are always physically as well as conceptually separated from one another. The rise of gender stratification often seems to be associated with the development of strongly centralized states. Because social stratification of any kind tends to make life oppressive for large segments of a population, the lower classes are usually placated by means of religion, which promises them a better existence in the hereafter. Gender inequality is not some accident; instead it is the institutions of each society that work together to maintain the group’s particular forms of inequality. Customs throughout history both justify and maintain these arrangements. Although men have resisted sharing their privileged positions with women, change has come (O’Brien, 2001). By playing a fuller role in the decision making processes of our social institutions, women are going against the stereotypes and role models that lock males into exclusively male activities and push females into roles that re considered feminine. As structural barriers fall and more activities are engendered, both males and females will be free to pursue activities that are more compatible with their abilities and desires as individuals. As they develop a new consciousness of themselves and their own potential, relationships between females and males will change. Certainly distinctions between the sexes will not disappear. There is no reason for biological differences to be translated into social inequalities. The reasonable goal is appreciation of sexual differences coupled with equality of opportunity which may lead to a transformed society.